Who is the Future SEHS Baseball MVP?

One question baseball coaches seem to be asking themselves right now is “Who will be the next MVP?”

            With baseball season at an end it seems coaches are having some trouble picking a top player. One thing that two of the contenders [pitchers] for MVP have to be compared on is their ERA (earned run average). Pitchers are also judged by how many full games they played, if they have any shutouts, and their win and loss history. All players are also judged on their batting average, and how well they hit.

            Armando Rodriguez, a junior and pitcher for South East High Schools’ baseball team, is one person with an outstanding season. With an ERA of 2.21which is almost impossible to receive in the “pros” and 39 strikeouts, Rodriguez also has two shutouts, two complete games, and a win loss ratio of 5-2. Rodriguez says that his main goal this year is to “do better than last season.”  

Rodriguez said, “I had to practice more” to improve overall performance. Rodriguez’s hard work paid-off for him big time when he made 1^st team all league (best of the best players of a league) this year and the team made it to the play-offs. Rodriguez is proving to make MVP hard for anyone else to receive, but one other pitcher is fighting back to win the title.

            Caesar Carrillo, a senior and pitcher at SEHS, has a record just as good, and maybe even better than Rodriguez. Carrillo has an ERA of 2.52, which is slightly below Rodriguez, but is still above average. Carrillo also has 28 strikeouts, two shutouts, four complete games, and a win loss ratio of 6-2.

            Carrillo has a batting average of .412, which means he has hit 41.2% of all at bats this season. With a .412 BA Carrillo also has 15 RBI’s (Runs batted In). All the hard work that both Carrillo and Rodriguez put into practice has paid off and may earn them scholarships if they continue in baseball after high school.

Track In The View Of Two

                         By Julian Izabal

                                                            Times Sports Editor

With the season just getting underway the Track and Field team is off to a slow start, but a winning streak may be on the horizon.

The first track meet against Garfield High School was not a good start to the season. “The team did not seem to connect for the first game, no one was cheering for anybody, there was pretty much no support”, says Giovanna Garcia, a runner on the Track team, and a junior at South East High School.

Nathan Mejia, a junior at SEHS says, “The girls won but the guys lost because the junior varsity team did not have much experience, and the Varsity team just was not ready or pumped to run.” Garcia says that one thing that people would be surprised with is cheering, “You would be surprised how a few cheers would really make someone push themselves.” To add on to what Garcia says could have been done better, Mejia says, “You just gotta be ready to run, you also have to really want it.”

Although Garcia was injured for two games, she says that she helped out by “Congratulating all my team-mates whether they won or lost.”

When the time came to face Bell High School, Garcia was pumped and ready to run. Garcia says being back in the 4x4 relay was “Exciting.” She also says “It was crazy because we [the team] only won by two points.” Mejia says, “It was great cause we swept them, in shot-put.”

Mejia practices for shot put every day, with coach Cervantes. Coach Cervantes watches the team do their drills, he then tells the shot putters what to fix based on what he sees.

 The team celebrates a game by going to the weight room and waits quietly to hear their scores. When they win “You hear everyone cheering,” says Garcia.

Jaguars in Spring Training

 

            With football season on the horizon, the team is already working hard.

 

 

            Although football season is not until September, the football team has been practicing for three months now. They have been in weight training and in practice without pads for the basic stances for their position(s). From January through mid-February, the team has been preparing for their first “max-out”. Max-outs serve one main purpose, to make the athlete stronger and faster. Max-outs consist of bench-press, power-clean, squat, 40-meter dash, and shuttle-run.

With the first max-out week done the coaches now have to figure out which athlete goes in which group, so that he [athlete] is in a group of people with, or around the same strength. These groups start with the people who are the strongest all the way down to the weakest, but that chart changes with every “max-out”. Coaches have also created several percentage charts that show the maximum weight an athlete reached. The percentage chart will also help with the weight the athlete should use for the workout, depending on what’s written for the week or day of that workout.

The veteran players lifting heavy had a few small surprises from the new players. “Julio Arevalo, a Freshman, at South East High School did some of the weight that most new players do when its their first time maxing-out, but Kevin Romano, a Junior, at SEHS surprised me a lot because he lifted more weight than I expected him to lift,” says Carlos Cid, a Junior, at SEHS and also a captain of the team.

 Now that the first max-out week has come and gone [Febuary22-Febuary26] the team can start working on their techniques. The light weight is the first week because the coaches will not be as lenient with border line max-outs [not doing complete squats, etc.] on the upcoming max-outs.

Not only do they have to practice those techniques, but also work on their stances and techniques for the position(s) the athlete intends to play. With the team already practicing many different techniques for their next max-out and upcoming season, they will be extremely busy trying to balance out their schedule, so that they are not grade-cut.

Jaguars Anticipate powder Puff Game

By Christopher Casillas, Diego Munoz, Oscar Basurto, Emmanuel Delgado, Daisy Ceballos, Jazmin Tapia, and Julian Izabal

Juniors and seniors get ready for the Powder Puff game coming to South East High School on April 23 from 6 through 8.

The Powder Puff is a tradition at many high schools and universities. Ms. Che said, “This tradition has been out for the last three years”. Girls play football and boys are cheerleaders. Girls play flag football for the Powder Puff game. Football players teach girls how to play football and cheerleaders teach the boys how to cheer.

The informational meetings started the first week of February. Sign-ups were in the Quad from January 19-22. The meeting for the juniors was on February 3 in P103. The meeting for seniors took place on Thursday February 4 in P103. The tryouts are on February 22-26 on the football field.

It is going to be the 3^rd Powder Puff game at SEHS. Only juniors and seniors will be participating in this activity.

If a student makes it into the Powder Puff there is a requirement to buy jerseys and t-shirts only sold at the student store. For the uniform the estimated price is $80. Jerseys must be purchased through the 3 weeks prior to the game. Cleats are required for practice. Each player is required to sell at least 3 tickets.

Another requirement to participate in the Powder Puff is to clear all detention hours before March 8. Ms Che, a teacher at SEHS, said, “A student that wants to participate must have good grades and good behavior”. If a student doesn’t have an exceptional grade average they would not be allowed to participate in the game. Ms. Che, said, “The required GPA to participate in the game is at least 2.0.Ms Che said,  “ all need to sign a waiver for insurance”.

The purpose of the Powder Puff game is for players and viewers to enjoy the game. After the game the senior and junior classes will split the money raised from ticket sales. Freshman and sophomores work at the entrance and aren’t left out. They get the profits they make selling snacks.

People normally sign-up for the Powder Puff because they’ve been waiting join a sport and most sports are already full. The Powder Puff season is back and more and more people are signing up, but only so many will make it. Ms. Che said, “Only about 35 girls and boys make it in each team.”   The Powder Puff game brings seniors and juniors together.

South East High School on the East Coast

A student and teacher from SEHS were recently featured in the New York Times. The article features a student and a smart phone application he created in a computer science class. According to Steve Lohr of the New York Times, John Landa, a TMUM Computer Science Teacher, said, “In the new class, students create projects that address subjects of their interest, like gang violence and recycling.” According to Lohr, Landa further states, “When the course first started there were only 35 students taking this course, but this year there are 130 students taking the course.” If the student is proficient in the course he/she may be introduced to an internship that could take place over the summer.

 

In the summer program, Mario Calleros and a partner built a smart phone application, linking pictures, text descriptions and GPS location data to explain the history, architecture and amenities of individual buildings on the UCLA campus as users walk by. This application was tested on the G1 (Google phone) and the HTC Android. The “app” is not available for purchase, but it is up to the employers [Center for Embedded Network Sensing] to decide what they will do with the “app.” In the future the application may become available to the public.

           

            Mario Calleros, the senior who built the application says “It’s exciting to be somewhat known” by making his own action game with a knights-in-armor motif, which was a side project that he worked on.

 

The Robles Winter Break

The Robles Winter Break
By Julian Izabal

Elizabeth Robles a senior at South East High School had this to say “winter break this year was different and unusual.”

This winter break was different for most people and many had new experiences. This year Elizabeth Robles spent Christmas at her sister’s house. Robles spent Christmas with her sister, brother in law, and a friend. Robles describes her Christmas as “depressing” because a distant family member had passed away two days earlier. She was still glad that she spent it with some of her family and friend. Robles describes her winter break “different and unusual” due to some experiences, that were new to her.