By Steve Finley
The Culver City high school varsity teams started their playoffs and CIF finals this week. The baseball team played Palos Verdes last Wednesday; the softball team will play on the road at Palos Verdes today (Thursday) at 3:15 p.m. and the track and field teams will compete in the CIF finals at El Camino College in Torrance on Saturday.
The track and field meet starts at 10:30 a.m. when the field events begin with the boys’ pole vault. The rest of the field events will start at 11 a.m. and the first running event will start at 1 p.m.
Culver City qualified one individual in the girls’ 100-meter hurdles and two relay teams. Freshman Ayahna Bahati will compete in the hurdles and the boys’ and girls’ 4×400 relay teams will represent Culver City.
Running for the boys’ relay team will be Dexter Hollier, Dominick Tatum, Tyler Luckett and Richard Reliford. The girl’s relay team will consist of Emily Sugiyama, Ari Belcher, Taylor Reliford, the twin sister of Richard Reliford, and Alero Solaris.
The CIF Southern Section finals are one of the most competitive high school track and field meets in the nation so the Culver City athletes will need to be at their best if they expect to advance to the CIF Masters meet the following weekend.
The 17-7 baseball team, which played a play-in game last Wednesday, will advance to the first round if they beat Palos Verdes. The first round game will be against 22-4 Pasadena Maranatha and that game will be played on Friday at Stengel Field on the campus of Glendale College at 3:15 p.m. Please call the school to find out if the baseball advanced.
The girls’ softball team placed second behind El Segundo in the Ocean League with a record of 8-2. If they beat Palos Verdes today they will advance to the second round of the playoffs on Tuesday.
