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Prep sports roundup: Harvard-Westlake defeats St. John Bosco to reach Open Division championship

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Prep sports roundup: Harvard-Westlake defeats St. John Bosco to reach Open Division championship

It was way back in early November when The Times’ preseason basketball rankings came out with St. John Bosco ranked No. 1 and Harvard-Westlake No. 2. Three months later, after ups and downs, twists and turns, the two teams met Friday night in Studio City to decide a spot in the Southern Section Open Division championship game.

It was elite player vs. elite player, top coach vs. top coach, All-American vs. future All-American. Except Harvard-Westlake (29-3) has been playing at a different level and showed it in a devastating performance. St. John Bosco missed its first eight shots, fell behind 15-2 after one quarter, 29-9 at halftime and never caught up. The Wolverines prevailed 64-40 to set up a championship game against Eastvale Roosevelt on Feb. 23 at California Baptist.

Several weeks ago Harvard-Westlake coach David Rebibo said, “Not all of our players are firing at the same time yet and that’s OK. It will happen and when it does, we think we’re going to be pretty dangerous.”

It’s pretty clear the Wolverines are beginning to peak. They held Sierra Canyon to a season-low 38 points Tuesday and were even better on defense Friday. They’ve become more dangerous because young players off the bench have started to contribute. Junior Isaiah Carroll made two three-pointers in the first half. Sophomore Amir Jones made a three. Trent Perry, who received his McDonald’s All-American jersey before the game, continued to rise up when needed. He was smiling guarding St. John Bosco’s outstanding sophomore Brandon McCoy, who had 14 points.

Perry and Nikolas Khamenia each finished with 14 points. Khamenia, a 6-foot-8 junior, will be particularly important in the final weeks of the season. With his size, Harvard-Westlake needs him to contribute with points inside and rebounding, and he knows it.

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As for Harvard-Westlake’s defense holding Sierra Canyon to 38 points and St. John Bosco to 40 points this week, Khamenia said, “The coaches emphasized defense. We’ve been super locked in.”

Added Rebibo: “It’s who we are. The stakes are incredibly high, the focus even higher, and guys have bought in.”

Neither Harvard-Westlake nor Roosevelt has won an Open Division section title.

“They’re really good and we’re going to have our hands full,” Rebibo said.

In other Open Division games, Sierra Canyon defeated Corona Centennial 61-55. St. Pius X-St. Matthias defeated JSerra 70-58. Roosevelt defeated Mater Dei 80-76 in overtime.

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Windward 67, Damien 60: The Wildcats (28-3) went on the road and knocked off Damien to advance to the Division 1 championship against top-seeded Sherman Oaks Notre Dame on Feb. 24 at the Toyota Center in Ontario. Windward trailed by five points at halftime and went on a 12-0 run in the third quarter. Nasir Luna made six threes and finished with 20 points. Jeremiah Hampton had 14 points and Gavin Hightower 10.

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 67, Redondo Union 60: Mercy Miller scored 23 points and Zach White had 18 to send Notre Dame (27-3) into the Division 1 final.

Long Beach Poly 57, Corona del Mar 54: The Jackrabbits held on in a 2A semifinal despite 33 points from Sea Kings freshman Maxwell Scott. Jovani Ruff made a game-winning three for Poly and finished with 24 points.

St. Anthony 75, Heritage Christian 57: St. Anthony gained a spot in the 2AA championship game against Rolling Hills Prep.

Rolling Hills Prep 57, Thousand Oaks 50: Mateo Trujillo scored 24 points for Rolling Hills Prep in a 2AA semifinal.

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Bosco Tech 59, Santa Barbara 57: Ryan Osborne had 21 points and 22 rebounds for Bosco Tech in a 3A semifinal. Bosco Tech will play Bishop Alemany, a 60-45 winner over Woodbridge. Jared Mims scored 18 points for Alemany.

San Pedro 70, Crenshaw 63: The Pirates advanced to the City Section Division I championship game next Saturday at Pasadena City College. Nate Cigar and Chim Emegwa each scored 16 points.

Washington Prep 58, Fairfax 46: The Generals will play San Pedro for City Division I championship. Dewayman Martin scored 27 points for Washington Prep.

Bernstein 86, Wilson 46: Troy Agtang finished with 37 points to help Bernstein advance to the City Division IV final.

Baseball

Taft 3, Viewpoint 2: Brandon Warner struck out nine for Viewpoint. Elijah Gaviola struck out four in four innings for Taft.

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Villa Park 2, San Clemente 1: Jake Nobles had a walk-off single for Villa Park in the eighth inning.

Soccer

Birmingham 3, South East 0: The No. 2-seeded Patriots advanced to the City Section Division I semifinals.

Granada Hills 1, Garfield 0: The No. 1-seeded Highlanders got their second shutout of the City Section Division I playoffs. Diego Monreal scored for the Highlanders.

El Camino Real 2, Palisades 1: Anthony Villa tied the score with a goal late in regulation and won it with an overtime goal for El Camino Real, setting up a semifinal showdown on the road with West Valley League rival Granada Hills.

Contreras 1, Orthopedic 0: Erick Vargas scored to send top-seeded Contreras into the City Section Division IV semifinals against Dymally.

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Servite 5, Crossroads 0: Parker Buetow scored three goals for the Friars, who advance to the Southern Section Division 1 finals. Servite will play Trinity League rival Orange Lutheran, which needed two overtimes to prevail over Harvard-Westlake 2-1.

Newport Harbor 3, Loyola 2: Newport Harbor advances to the Division 2 final.

San Clemente 2, Mater Dei 1: The Monarchs lost the game but won the two-game series to advance to the championship match of the Open Division.

Arlington 3, Mira Costa 1: Jesus Palma scored two goals for Arlington (25-0), which plays Mater Dei for the Open Division title Feb. 23 at Long Beach Veterans Stadium.

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Ex-NFL star implores Russell Wilson to hang it up: ‘Do your TV thing’

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Ex-NFL star implores Russell Wilson to hang it up: ‘Do your TV thing’

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Russell Wilson has had his share of ups and downs in his NFL career.

He helped the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship in 2013 and was named to the Pro Bowl four times. But the last few years of his career arguably did some damage to his legacy as he’s spent the last three seasons with three different teams.

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New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson watches from the sidelines during the second quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Oct. 9, 2025. (Brad Penner/Imagn Images)

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Wilson is still on the free-agent market as he looks to latch on to a new team for 2026. However, former NFL star Aqib Talib implored Wilson to hang up the cleats.

“Do your TV thing, Russ. It’s over with, man. Once you’ve got to decide, do I even want to play?” Talib said on “The Arena: Gridiron.” “I think you don’t really want to play. I hate when guys get to the later part of their career and then they start doing the bounce-around thing and they’re not going to win. There was no chip in New York. That’s just going to be another stop on your resume.”

Wilson reportedly garnered some interest from NFL teams.

New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson stands on the field before a game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA on Oct. 26, 2025. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)

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He told the New York Post that the New York Jets were one of them.

Wilson also was reportedly a candidate to take Matt Ryan’s spot on CBS’ “The NFL Today” after Ryan left to take a front office job with the Atlanta Falcons.

Wilson has 46,966 passing yards and 353 passing touchdowns in 205 career games, but the 2025 season with the New York Giants was one to forget.

Wilson started three games and made some bizarre decisions in a loss against the Chiefs. Jaxson Dart was named the starting quarterback. As he came in to take a few snaps while Dart was being checked for a concussion, Wilson was booed.

New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson watches from the sidelines during the second half against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colo., on Oct. 19, 2025. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images)

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Should he end up signing with another team, Wilson will be entering his age-38 season.

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Artists, community come together to welcome World Cup to Inglewood with murals and more

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Artists, community come together to welcome World Cup to Inglewood with murals and more

A lot has changed since Jacori Perry attended Morningside High School.

Perry is now a renowned artist who goes by the names Mr. Ace and AiseBorn.

The school is now known as Inglewood High School United.

And the lecture hall on that campus now features a large, ornate mural of a soccer ball being grasped by the hands of two people — freshly painted by the 2004 Morningside graduate as the city of Inglewood prepares to host eight World Cup games at SoFi Stadium starting next month.

Local artist Mr. Ace works on his mural at Inglewood High School United on May 11. The artists, whose real name is Jacori Perry, attended the school when it was known as Morningside High more than two decades ago.

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(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“If you told me that I would be back here painting one of the walls on this campus when I was in high school, I don’t think that I necessarily would have foreseen it,” Mr. Ace said as he was putting the finishing touches on his mural last week. “So I’m a little in amazement about just the way life works in that sense.”

He was one of several Los Angeles-based artists to participate in a Road to World Cup Community Day last month at Inglewood High United. Many of the artists — including Juan Pablo Reyes (“JP murals”), Michelle Ruby Guerrero (“Mr. B Baby”) and Angel Acordagoitia — sketched designs on portable panels (12-feet by 8-feet) and picnic tables for community members to paint.

The picnic tables will remain at the high school in front of Mr. Ace’s mural. The mobile murals will be placed throughout LAX to welcome visitors arriving for the World Cup.

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Kathryn Schloessman, CEO of the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 Host Committee, said in a news release that the event was “just one example of how the energy of the World Cup can be felt in neighborhoods across our region.”

“Students, artists, and volunteers came together to create a work of art that will live on well beyond the end of the tournament,” Schloessman said. “It’s a reflection of the creativity, diversity, and community pride that makes our region so special as we prepare to host the world for FIFA World Cup 2026.”

Community members were encouraged to take part in the painting process, no matter their skill level.

“We made it easy enough for people that have zero experience to a proficient level of experience, for them to all be involved,” said Reyes, who designed and helped paint two mural panels and three tables. “We did the sketch, and then I tried to dab a little bit of color — whatever color is supposed to be there, I dabbed a little bit of color right there, so they would have a guide. …

People stand on a scaffold and on the ground while painting a mural on a large panel.

Students and community members help paint a mural panel during a Road to World Cup Community Day event May 2 at Inglewood High School.

(Dawn M. Burkes / Los Angeles Times)

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“I was right there, kind of supervising, making sure that everything went as planned. And if anybody has questions, they’re more than welcome to let me know about them. But, yeah, it’s pretty easy for them to kind of be involved and feel that sense of ownership and have a sense of pride that, ‘Yeah, I was part of that mural-creation process.’ It’s a rich experience for them.”

Acordagoitia sketched several table-top designs for the public to paint at the event.

“They did great,” he said of the community members. “They helped a lot. They were asking questions. They got all the other colors correct. So, yeah, they were excited. A lot of kids were excited to see the live painting, because now kids are used to being on their phones. So that was a great experience for them.”

Acordagoitia also opted to paint a mural panel on his own because “it was a little more technical,” involving portraits of his 8-year-old son, a nephew and a friend.

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“I wanted to focus more on the youth because that’s really our future,” he said. “So that’s, that’s the main thing about the mural, just about the kids, soccer, culture, community. It’s exciting for me, because I grew up playing soccer and to include soccer with art, it’s just a dream come true.”

Guerrero said “the community was a big help in filling in all the background colors that I need in order to build the detail and layers” on the two mural panels she designed.

“My whole style is based on culture. And I think that there’s a connection there with the World Cup and how I feel like it brings together all the culture and just, like, celebration,” Guerrero said. “It kind of goes hand in hand with the type of work I do, because my stuff is really festive, celebrating culture. And just as an L.A.-based artist, I think the collaboration made sense.”

The four artists also took part in another Road to World Cup Community Day in downtown L.A. at Gloria Molina Grand Park on March 14. At that event, the artists sketched designs on large sculptures shaped like soccer balls and an oversized picnic table, also for community members to paint.

While Mr. Ace opted to paint his permanent mural at Inglewood High School United on his own, he was sure to include the community theme into his work.

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“The idea was really centered around just creating something that was community-based — something that represented the World Cup but also represented some sense of community,” he said. “And so what I did was try to create something that was symbolic, very direct in terms of its relationship to soccer and figuring out through that how to create something simple that [brings] into that a sense of community. And that’s how I landed on the two hands holding the soccer ball.”

A man stands in a lift and paints on a wall with blue paint as part of a mural with an ornate design.

Local artist Mr. Ace works on his World Cup-themed mural at Inglewood High School United on May 11.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Back when he was a student on that campus, Mr. Ace said he was always involved in art and knew he wanted a career as an artist. He struggled to come up with the right words to describe how it felt being back there creating a work of art to be shared with the students, all of the community and everyone who happens to see it on the way to a World Cup match.

“I guess there’s no words to really describe it,” he said. “I think if any artist gets the opportunity to paint at their own high school — especially if they’ve been doing large-scale works around the city, the country or the world — I think that is a little touching. When it’s attached to something like the World Cup … you know, a large part of my childhood was spent in Inglewood, so coming from my circumstances and life, I think it’s even more intriguing.”

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Indy 500: Counting Down The 10 Best Finishes In Race History

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Indy 500: Counting Down The 10 Best Finishes In Race History

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The best Indianapolis 500 finish could be subjective, depending on which driver a fan was rooting for to win.

It certainly is in the eye of the beholder.

So take this list for what it’s worth. One view of the 10 best finishes in Indianapolis 500 history. Of course, it skews to more recent decades when the runs have come a little faster and the finishes have had a tendency to be a little closer.

We’ll add one each day to this list of fantastic finishes ahead of the 110th running of the Indy 500 on May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX).

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10. Ericsson outduels O’Ward (2022)

After a red flag, Marcus Ericsson held off Pato O’Ward in a two-lap shootout. The shootout didn’t last two laps, though, as there was a crash on the final lap behind them. Ericsson had a comfortable lead when the red flag came out for a crash with four laps to go, a situation where in past Indianapolis 500 races, they likely would have ended the race under caution with Ericsson as the winner.

9. Foyt survives chaos (1967)

How does a driver who wins by two laps end up on this list? It’s because the win nearly didn’t happen on the last lap. A big crash with cars and debris littering the frontstretch just ahead of Foyt as he came to the checkered flag forced him to navigate through the wreckage for the win.

8. Sato can’t catch Franchitti (2012)

This was one of those finishes where the leader holds on for the win, but boy did the leader have to hold on. Takuma Sato tried to pass Dario Franchitti early on the final lap but to no avail and Franchitti sped off for the victory. This was one of those Indy 500s that made you hold your breath all the way to the checkered flag.

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