CIF playoffs are around the corner for at least three Culver City high school varsity teams. Boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball and girls’ soccer will advance to the big dance and the boys’ soccer team, depending on what they do this week might also get an invitation.
The first place girls’ basketball team is currently 20-4 and 8-0 in the Ocean League. Their final league game is Thursday (today) at 7-1 Beverly Hills at 6 p.m. Depending on what happened last Tuesday the Thursday game
will determine sole possession of first place for the Centaurs or a first place tie for the league championship with Beverly Hills.
The lady Centaurs are led by their three seniors, Lauren Jones, Angel Morris and Haley Yamamoto. “All three seniors are captains this year and we really want to lead by example,” said Yamamoto after a recent victory at Culver City. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make sure we show the younger players how to play Culver City basketball.”
Yamamoto is a natural leader who plays the point guard position. “This team has a lot of potential,” said Yamamoto. “All of us have a lot of talent but we just need to make sure we bring all that talent together and continue to play as a team. We are getting better but there is always room for improvement.”
“I feel happy to be on a team that all of us have goals to win league and do well in the CIF playoffs,” Yamamoto said. This year we know what we have to do. But the main thing is we are a happy team.”
The first place boys basketball team is currently 15-8 and 8-0 in the Ocean league and they are also playing at a high level right now. Their last regular season game is Thursday (today) at Beverly Hills at 7:30 p.m. “We still have some things to work on but we have to be happy when you win games,” said first-year coach Reggie Morris Jr. “We just need to keep competing and look for the open man and make that extra pass. If we do that we will be fine.”
The girls soccer team finished their regular season this week and at press time they were in first place with a record of 7-0-1 in the Ocean league and they are looking forward to playing in the CIF playoffs. Their overall record was 12-3-2.
The boys’ soccer is on the playoff bubble. If they won their last two regular season games this week they may get into the playoffs. They started the week 7-8-4 overall and 2-4-1 in the Ocean League.
