Sports
This Dodger pitcher’s girlfriend is 'the Michael Jordan of field hockey.' He’s just Ben.
Fans crowded into Dodger Stadium for Friday’s World Series opener, among them the wives and girlfriends of the players on the home team. One of the girlfriends was missing, though: She had a big game, too.
Ben Casparius was nothing but supportive.
“She’s in the midst of their season,” he said. “They’re gearing up for the playoffs, too.”
Casparius, 25, the Dodgers’ rookie reliever, is dating Erin Matson, the field hockey coach at the University of North Carolina. The two met as students at North Carolina and, the way Matson tells the story, they finally became a couple just as he was transferring to the University of Connecticut.
“We’ve been doing long distance for almost six years now,” she said, laughing. “I don’t know what’s quite wrong with us.”
During the National League championship series, Joe Davis told the national television audience that Matson was “the Michael Jordan of field hockey.”
Said Matson: “Around Carolina, that’s pretty normal. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.”
If Jordan set the standard for excellence at North Carolina, Matson might have transcended it. In 2022, when Matson won her fourth national championship as a player, she recreated a picture Jordan had taken after his fourth NBA championship, holding up four fingers, with a victory cigar in the mouth. The school titled the picture: “Just GOAT things.”
Said Casparius: “Whenever we go to a basketball game in Chapel Hill, she’s on the big screen at least a couple times.”
In 2022, she graduated from North Carolina’s school of journalism and media. In 2024, she was its commencement speaker.
In between, when North Carolina’s longtime field hockey coach retired, Matson invited herself to apply and got the job, something akin to one of John Wooden’s seniors immediately replacing him at UCLA.
Matson, 24, was a three-time player of the year. The Tar Heels had won 10 national championships, including four in the previous five years. In Matson’s first year as coach, the Tar Heels won another championship. This year, they’re 14-0.
“She was able to prove she could bring together a group of girls who, I want to say, at the time, at least 75% of them had been her teammates,” Casparius said. “It’s definitely an interesting situation when you’re able to gain that respect. She did it. She crushed it.”
Her career as an athlete may not be done. She could receive consideration for a spot on the U.S. field hockey team that would compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
If Matson has shined in the field hockey spotlight, Casparius has toiled in the baseball shadows.
The Dodgers selected him in the fifth round of the 2021 draft, and he has slowly worked his way up their minor league ladder, up one level each year. He never has appeared in a spring training game for the Dodgers.
What did Dodgers manager Dave Roberts know about Casparius when he joined the team?
“I knew his (girlfriend) was a great field hockey player, and she coaches at UNC,” Roberts said. “That’s what I knew. And he had a good fastball.”
Pitcher Ben Casparius reacts after the final out of Game 1 of the NLCS against the Mets, which the Dodgers won, 9-0.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Not to say he might have been overlooked, but he said MLB Pipeline never included him among its ranking of the Dodgers’ top 30 prospects until “three or four days before I got called up.”
That was in August. He pitched three regular season games for them, and now he has pitched three postseason games for them.
In one of them, Matson was watching on television and thought she noticed a spot of blood on Casparius’ jersey. She asked him about in a telephone call that night.
“Yeah,” Casparius confessed in the conversation, “I had a bloody nose my whole outing.”
Matson shot back, with laughter: “You’re a psycho.”
It comes as absolutely no surprise to her that she fell in love with a baseball player. Her father was a baseball player. Her brother currently pitches in the Cleveland Guardians organization.
Her boyfriend is a baseball player. So was her ex-boyfriend.
“I have a type,” she said, jokingly.
She has a boyfriend in the World Series, too.
“He lets me be me, and he will always support what I do,” Matson said. “He would never want me to stop doing what I love. It makes it easy for me.
“We’ll figure out the long distance. We’ll figure out the airline miles. We’ll figure it out so he can chase his dream, too.”
Matson said she plans to attend Game 3 of the World Series on Monday, fly back to North Carolina to run practice Tuesday, return to New York for Game 4 on Tuesday night, fly back to North Carolina to run practice Wednesday, then return to New York for Game 5 on Wednesday night.
“We’re going to be hunkering down,” she said, “and taking lots of Vitamin C.”
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Top Milwaukee Brewers prospect Frank Cairone was hospitalized after being involved in a serious car accident near his New Jersey home on Friday, the team announced.
“Frank is currently being cared for at a hospital in New Jersey with the support of his family,” read a statement from the team, via MLB.com. “The Brewers’ thoughts and prayers are with Frank and his family during his difficult time.”
Pitcher Frank Cairone (left) with Green Valley High School (NV) infielder Caden Kirby during the MLB Draft Combine high school baseball game at Chase Field. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
The left-handed pitcher turned 18 this past September. He was drafted out of Delsea Regional High School in Franklinville, N.J. at No. 68 overall in the 2025 Draft.
News of the Brewers’ young prospect’s accident came shortly after the team announced it was not in contact with several players in Venezuela after U.S. military strikes in the country and the capture of its President Nicolás Maduro.
MLB TEAM UNAWARE OF STATUS OF PLAYERS IN VENEZUELA AFTER US MILITARY STRIKES
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio (11) is seen before the fifth inning of an MLB game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Toronto Blue Jays on August 31, 2025, at Rogers Centre in Toronto, ON. (Mathew Tsang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold revealed the team is unaware of the status of the players in a statement Saturday.
“We don’t have much info at the moment but are trying to follow up,” Arnold said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We know the airports have been shut down but not much beyond that.”
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Pitcher Frank Cairone during the MLB Draft Combine high school baseball game at Chase Field. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
The team’s players in Venezuela include star outfielder Jackson Chourio, infielder Andruw Monasterio and catcher Jeferson Quero, according to the outlet.
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It might be time to write a folk song about the demise of City Section basketball using the music of Peter, Paul and Mary and the new title, “Where Have All the Players Gone?”
The talent level clearly has hit rock bottom only a year after Alijah Arenas was a McDonald’s All-American at Chatsworth High and Tajh Ariza led Westchester to the City Section Open Division title. Because their parents went to City Section schools, Arenas and Ariza stuck it out. Then Arenas graduated early to join USC and Ariza left for St. John Bosco, then prep school.
Westchester is where Ed Azzam won 15 City titles in 42 seasons until his retirement in 2021. Crenshaw is where Willie West won 16 City titles and eight state titles. Taft is where Derrick Taylor won four City titles and coached future NBA players Jordan Farmar, Larry Drew II and AJ Johnson. Fairfax is where Harvey Kitani coached for 35 years, won four City titles and two state titles and earned most of his nearly 1,000 victories. He was followed by Steve Baik and Reggie Morris Jr., each of whom won City championships before leaving.
None of the City schools once considered among the best in Southern California are even close to resembling their glory days, and they aren’t alone. The City Section has lost most of its talent, and it was truly Hall of Fame talent: Marques Johnson and John Williams at Crenshaw; Gail Goodrich at Sun Valley Poly; Willie Naulls at San Pedro; Dwayne Polee at Manual Arts; Gilbert Arenas at Grant; Trevor Ariza at Westchester; Chris Mills at Fairfax. There were decades of success.
There’s no one person to blame. You can’t even place the downfall solely on the Los Angeles Unified School District, whose high schools compete in the City Section.
But LAUSD has done nothing to reverse the trend and didn’t help matters by opening so many new schools in such rapid fashion that longtime legacy schools lost their luster amid declining student enrollment. Things became even more disruptive by the rise of charter schools and private schools taking away top athletes. Adding to that, the loss of veteran coaches frustrated by bureaucracy issues and rules that force programs to secure permits and pay to use their own gyms in the offseason helped further the exodus.
Westchester is 2-8 this season and an example of where City Section basketball stands. Two top players from last season — Gary Ferguson and Jordan Ballard — are now at St. Bernard. Westchester doesn’t even have a roster posted on MaxPreps. King/Drew won its first City Open Division title in 2024 under coach Lloyd Webster. This season Webster sent his senior son, Josahn, to Rolling Hills Prep to play for Kitani. King/Drew is 4-10.
Charter schools Birmingham, Palisades and Granada Hills have separated themselves in virtually all City Section sports including basketball. They have no enrollment boundaries as long as there’s a seat for a student. Palisades lost so many students after the wildfire last year that transfers have been big additions for its teams this school year. Online courses are being offered to help students enroll and compete in sports at charter schools.
The old powers from the inner city — Crenshaw, Dorsey, Jefferson, Locke and Fremont — experienced big changes in demographics. Many coaches are walk-ons and not teachers. The legacy schools have to compete with charter schools View Park Prep, Triumph, Animo Watts, Animo Robinson, WISH Academy and USC-MAE. When young players are discovered and developed, rarely will they stay when one of the private schools or AAU coaches searching for talent spots them in the offseason.
So what’s left? Not much.
Palisades, Washington Prep and Cleveland look like the three top teams this season. All three added transfers to help buck the downward trend. And yet their records are 3-10, 8-8 and 7-6, respectively, against mostly Southern Section teams.
Maybe this can be a fluke one-year plunge to the bottom and the climb back up can begin, aided by coaches who recognize their job is to teach lessons in basketball, life and college preparation. Parents need a reason to send their kids to a City Section school. It’s up to LAUSD and principals to help change the trajectory by finding coaches with integrity, passion and willingness to embrace the underdog role.
There are plenty in the system doing their best. It’s time to start hearing and answering their pleas for help.
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The Seattle Seahawks locked down the top seed in the NFC playoffs and a strong path to the Super Bowl on Saturday night with a season finale win over the San Francisco 49ers.
Seattle also finished with their best regular season record in franchise history, clinching 14 wins for the first time ever.
The Seahawks held on to a 10-point victory despite outgaining the 49ers 363 yards to 173, and running 64 plays to San Francisco’s 42.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba #11 of the Seattle Seahawks fails to catch the ball against Ji’Ayir Brown #27 of the San Francisco 49ers during an NFL game on Jan. 3, 2026 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. (Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire)
Seattle missed a field goal in the fourth quarter and turned the ball over on downs in the first quarter to waste two red zone drives, but dominated on defense to prevent those missed opportunities from coming back to haunt them.
The 49ers wasted their best drive of the night as well when quarterback Brock Purdy was intercepted at Seattle’s three-yard line in the fourth quarter facing a 10-point deficit, which seemingly secured the game for the Seahawks.
NFL WEEK 17 SCORES: AFC NORTH, NFC SOUTH UP FOR GRABS AS PLAYOFF PICTURE ALMOST COMPLETE
Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, in his first season on the team, completed 20 passes on 26 attempts for 198 yards and helped set up the only touchdown of the entire game in the first quarter.
Darnold redeemed a disappointing Week-18 game for the Minnesota Vikings last season when he completed just 18 of 41 passes for 166 yards in a battle for the top seed against the Detroit Lions.
Darnold said “Learning from mistakes, and staying calm from the pocket,” made the difference in his performance Saturday compared to a year ago, in a postgame interview with ESPN.
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Jaxon Smith-Njigba #11 of the Seattle Seahawks carries the ball against the San Francisco 49ers during the second quarter of a game at Levi’s Stadium on January 03, 2026 in Santa Clara, California. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy had just 127 yards with the late interception, and took a big hit on his final pass of the night, then took a while to get back up. He was eventually able to walk off the field, and Seattle ran the clock out.
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