Spring Starts for Centaurs Squads

The spring season officially starts this week in the Southern Section and Culver City High teams have high hopes for 2011.

First on the schedule for the varsity baseball squad—coached by Rick Prieto—is the Southern California Invitational. The Centaurs will play Lake Balboa Birmingham at 3:15 p.m. on Friday, Sun Valley Poly at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Grace Brethren of Simi Valley next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m.

Culver City won 19 games and finished tied with Santa Monica atop the Ocean League standings last season before losing in the second round of the Southern Section playoffs.

Two of last year's offensive leaders, Dylan Sylvester (32 hits, 32 runs, 20 RBI) and Lenard Mendez (33 hits, 22 runs, 16 RBI) have graduated. However, Garrett Gemgnani (30 runs, 30 hits, 32 RBI), Ryan Mulvihill returns (26 hits, 26 runs, 14 RBI) and Tyler Adkison (37 hits, 28 runs, 15 RBI) are all back.

The softball squad, coached by John Sargent, opens the season Tuesday at home in an intersectional game against Hamilton High School at 3 p.m. The Centaurs were 16-9 last season and tied for second in the Ocean League with Hawthorne led by Tara Rogers (20 hits, 34 runs, 16 RBI) and Sandy Aguila (20 hits, 28 runs, 16 RBI), who both graduated.

The boys and girls lacrosse teams also begin their seasons this week. The boys, coached by Casey Chabola, take on Manual Arts on Thursday. The Centaurs were sixth in the tough South Bay League last spring.

The girls, coached by Stephanie Cardenas, will play Capistrano Valley at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Rose Bowl. Culver City is looking to bounce back from a tough 2010 campaign in which it finished last in the Bay League.  

Joe Panzo's boys volleyball team opens the season on the road Tuesday with a nonleague match at Paramount, then travels to Foothill High in Santa Ana for a tournament Friday and Saturday.