Baseball team seeks good start after break

We have all heard of spring cleaning. Well the Culver City varsity baseball team hopes to start a clean winning slate when they travel to Palos Verdes Peninsula next Tuesday, April 7 for a 3 p.m. game. The Centaurs are currently 5-9 and looking forward to Ocean League play.

If their bats wake up Culver City should be able to battle for a play-off spot.

“We have enough quality batters to be able to get more hits,” said head coach Rick Prieto last week. “We hit too many balls in the air. Baseball is a game where you need to hit the ball on the ground so the other team can make mis-takes. We have good pitching so the key for us is to get timely hits and play solid defense.

We are not going to win many games if we give up five or six runs.” Prieto is also hoping that having a coaching staff of former Culver City players will help the offense and the overall direction of the program. One of the former players who is an assistant varsity coach is former baseball and football star, Devaughn Wallace.

“It feels good to be home,” said Wallace last week. ”I wanted to come home and give back to the program and the Culver City community. I wanted to share that love with the current players. We have a lot of potential and the guys are working hard.”

Although West Torrance beat the Centaurs last week the War-rior coach, Juan Cueva has a lot of respect for the Centaur program.

“Coach Prieto does a great job. Culver City comes out and plays hard. This year they have a lot of good left handed pitchers and we have a lot of left handed hitters so we knew they would be tough to beat. They are always in the playoffs.”

The 9-7 boys’ volleyball team will travel to Lawndale for a 3:15 p.m. match on Tuesday, April 7, and they return home for two matches against El Segundo on Thursday April 9, and on Friday April 10 they will battle Serra. Both of those matches will start at 3:15 p.m.

The girls’ lacrosse team will face Chadwick at 4 p.m. on April 7 and Downey at 3 p.m. on April 8. The boy’s lacrosse team will play Palos Verdes Peninsula on April 8 and Viewpoint from Calabasas at 4 p.m. April 10. The time for the Palos Verdes game was not available at press time.