sport world

Long Beach native and longtime sports executive Jack Teele passed away Wednesday night at the age of 87. Teele was a sportswriter at the Independent Press-Telegram for 10 years and then spent 33 years in the front offices around the National Football League, including 21 years with the Los Angeles Rams, where he rose to the rank of vice president of administration. Teele was a long-familiar face i...

LONG BEACH >> The Long Beach State women’s soccer team started life without senior captain Ashley Gonzales with an inspired performance and 2-0 win over No. 16 Northweste on Thursday at George Allen Field. “We owed ourselves that performance,” LBSU coach Mauricio Ingrassia said. “We only had two days of training but the players did a good job leaing and evolving.” Gonzales, who was the B...

For the first time since 1984, the Long Beach State women’s volleyball team opens its season with a new head coach. Recently retired head coach Brian Gimmillaro didn’t miss a match in the last 32 years, and only missed one practice in that time (not due to illness but to recruit a high school player). Gimmillaro didn’t even miss practice after he had knee surgery, hobbling into the gym that afte...

LONG BEACH >> The future is now for Long Beach Poly. With numbers dwindling, increased competition for talent from St. John Bosco and other private schools, there’s no telling what will happen next year or after that. Head coach Antonio Pierce’s recent aouncement that the school will drop its junior varsity team was a reminder that there will be consequences for having the two smallest fre...

Long Beach State Athletics Director Andy Fee aounced Monday that Dirtbags head coach Troy Buckley signed a contract extension through the 2022 season. The extension includes four additional years, increased base salary and supplemental compensation based on success on and off the field. “I am very grateful and appreciative of this opportunity to continue to lead this historic program going forwa...

The hype and trash talk between boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and mixed martial arts champ Conor McGregor is about to come to and end and now it’s time to put up or...well it’s time to rumble. And it’s also time to start making plans for where to see the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight in Long Beach, the South Bay and nearby areas for those who want to see it with other fight fans. Here’s a verified li...

LONG BEACH >> A 73rd-minute penalty kick and a shot cleared off of the line in the last seconds of overtime helped the Long Beach State women’s soccer team avoid a season-opening upset to Cal State Northridge on Friday night at George Allen Field. LBSU dominated possession and outshot the visiting Matadors, but the Big West Conference foes finished tied 1-1 in the nonconference match. The game will not count toward the conference standings, but will help both teams’ RPI in the long run. The 49ers (0-0-1) will visit CSUN (0-0-1) on Oct. 26 for the conference regular-season finale. LBSU be...

MANHATTAN BEACH >> While players down on the sand Thursday were trying to qualify to get into the main draw of this week’s Manhattan Beach Open, four rather terrific beach volleyball players were up on the pier for the Walk of Fame ceremony honoring their 2016 championships at the granddaddy of them all. Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson, and Emily Day and Brittany Hochevar were the happy recipients of plaques they could take home. And they were overjoyed knowing that identical plaques would be forever embedded in the concrete deck of the pier. For Gibb, it was his third such honor, so his ...

PACIFIC PALISADES >> In a made-for-cable sports TV showdown perhaps worthy of a DVR replay someday, Collin Morikawa co-starred in a Round of 16 match play performance against Chun-An Yu that seemed to show almost every quirky angle and accident aspect of Riviera Country Club in one organic swatch. If not for an exchange of equal-opportunity mistakes at every tu, they could still be playing in prime time. Eventually, Yu, an 18-year-old incoming sophomore at Arizona State out of Taiwan, outlasted Morikawa, the La Cañada Flintridge standout headed into his junior year at Cal and trying to...

PACIFIC PALISADES >> If a dad can’t make a difference at the 117th U.S. Amateur Championship by helping on the bag as a fill-in caddy, then there are other subtle ways without the usual baggage involved. Murli Theegala walked around the back side of Riviera Country Club on Thursday moing with a couple of branches from a bottle brush tree sticking out his backpack. On the 10th hole, his son, 19-year-old Sahith, knocked them loose with his tee shot. Debris aside, he recovered with a birdie 3 and took his match from all-square to 1-up against Chicago’s Doug Ghim. “Someone told me to pick...

LOS ANGELES >> Talk about one eclectic country club meet-and-greet tee party. The weeklong 117th U.S. Amateur Championship began Monday with introductions necessary in some cases, and explanations with others. So, how did you get here? What compels you to put this kind pressure on yourself wit...

It took Derek Castillo only a few seconds to pull out his cell phone after he tued in his scorecard at Mission Viejo Country Club. For the next two hours, he was glued to the live scoring, watching names move up and down the leaderboard. Castillo, 19, wasn’t conceed about what was happening at ...

Long Beach leaders on Tuesday agreed to begin negotiations for a five-year agreement with the Grand Prix Association to continue operating the aual IndyCar event that zooms through downtown each April. The city evaluated two race event proposals, one from IndyCar, the other from the World Automobi...

Pat Gudauskas competes in quarterfinals match against Tomas Hermes during the US Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach Pier in Huntington Beach on Sunday, August 6, 2017.(Photo by Kyusung Gong, Orange County Register/SCNG) Kanoa Igarashi competes in the quarterfinals match against Richardo Chri...

It is well known that Long Beach has placed more players on the U.S. Olympic water polo team than any other city. Few know, however, how far back the city’s contributions go. As the president of the Aquatic Capital of America Foundation, I was researching candidates for induction into the Long Beach...

It was an ill wind that blew San Pedro’s big chance at hosting an Olympics event right out of reach — all the way into cross-harbor tourism rival Long Beach. Two years ago, news that San Pedro’s waterfront was picked as the potential L.A. Olympics sailing venue was hailed by locals who have long tri...

On the surface, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is a very successful aual event — considered by many to be the second-most important open-wheel race in the country — that benefits the city in many ways, financially and in world-wide prestige. But behind the scenes, one of the founders of the r...

The Long Beach PONY 14U All-Stars have reached the PONY World Series twice since 2008, and four times since 1959. This summer, the LB PONY 13U All-Stars took a tu at making history for the storied youth baseball organization by wiing the Super Regional for the first time. Long Beach 13U won its ...

The concrete in the skate bowl has dried, the city on the sand is nearly complete, and a hurricane might bring better-than-decent waves to the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing. The action sports event, which kicks off on July 29, aually draws some of the world’s best surfers, skaters and BMX competitors,...

The Long Beach Mizuno 17s had a weekend to remember, claiming a title in Mieapolis at the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championships. Competing in the National Division, the second-highest of five brackets at the touament, Mizuno swept through to the championship. The team, made up mostl...