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Sports

Centaurs Still Contending for Titles

Despite tough losses to Santa Monica, Culver City High teams remain playoff bound.

Three of ’s winter sports teams had opportunities to grab at least a share of first place in the Ocean League on Wednesday and all three fell short. All three had been playing inspired ball going into their games. So, what happened?

Girls soccer head coach could hardly contain himself when discussing his team’s 3-2 loss to Santa Monica. It wasn't because he didn’t feel his team played well, but because he felt they were victimized by indefensibly poor refereeing.

“It was a ridiculously physical game,” he said. “Soccer’s a physical game, you can play physical, but that was reckless.”

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The referees didn’t hand out a single red card in the game and Mair felt there were plenty of opportunities. The coach thought his girls were fouled continuously and plans to submit a tape of the game to the referees association.

“If it’s what we think it is, then we’ll send it in to the referee coordinator,” Mair said. “We don’t want to lose the referees, we need them, but they need to be educated better.”

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The girls certainly showed the signs of a beating. The team lost four players in the game to injury, one of whom will miss the rest of the season.

While the team may be a little worse for wear, it still has an opportunity to clinch a spot in the CIF playoffs with a win over Inglewood on Friday. The Centaurs are now in third place with a 4-2-1 record in league. A win over fourth-place Inglewood, which is currently 3-4, would put enough room between the teams to make it impossible for Inglewood to catch the Centaurs.

While he wishes there had been a few more whistles, Mair did appreciate the game because he believes it will prepare his team for the postseason.

“What we told the girls going into that match was, ‘This is what the playoffs are gonna be like,’” Mair said. “So they’ve got a taste of it. We’re gonna take that into all these other matches and we’re gonna try to keep winning, winning, winning.”

Things were a bit more simple for the girls’ basketball team. It got walloped at home by Santa Monica 53-30 on Wednesday night.

“I didn’t say anything after the game,” head coach said. “I just told them to meet me at practice.”

The game’s score was surprising given how well the 5-2 Centaurs have played this season, but even more surprising given that they beat the same Vikings team 62-56 in Santa Monica just two weeks ago.

“It’s not that they were unbeatable, we just allowed some things to happen that we didn’t do on our own,” Anderson said. “It’s a matter of getting back to proper technique. So what else can you do about that besides move on?”

Anderson said that yesterday’s practice was all about getting the team’s focus back and trying to regain some team unity.

The boys basketball team is also looking to get everyone back on the same page after a one-point loss to Santa Monica Wednesday night. The boys mounted a valiant comeback in the game, as they have so many times this year, but were unable to overcome a second quarter run, where the Vikings outscored them 18-1.

Head coach has been unimpressed with the team’s practice habits this season and was not surprised that they lapsed in the second quarter and were unable to recover.

“We didn’t have a good week of practice and what we put around came around,” Chapman said. “We let teams get ahead of us and we try to catch up and it doesn’t always work and that’s the hardest way to play.”

Fortunately, if the Centaurs win Friday, they can still share the Ocean League title with Inglewood, provided both teams win out. When asked if he thought his team was up for it, Chapman had an unlikely response.

“They’re not sharp. That can be true of any team at this point in the year, but I would say, I don’t think we’re ready,” Chapman said. “But we’ll see.”

Games start Friday at Inglewood High at 3 p.m.

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