From sea to shining sea, they are cranking their sleds in the name of sisterhood. Denise Clark, Jill Gass, Sonia Ross, and Lisa Tonello started riding their bicycles-one at a time, in relay fashion-on Tuesday afternoon, June 12, at the Oceanside Pier, and they will not stop until they reach the Atlantic City Boardwalk. They will cover 3,043 miles of road through 13 states.
In March 1941, all Lowell Steward wanted was to be able to shake hands with other players at a basketball tournament in Kansas City. But he was not deemed worthy to participate with his team from Santa Barbara State College.
They’re called the ‘Sters, which is more than an abbreviated nickname for the Santa Barbara Foresters. It is a homonym for the way they play: They stir up things on the baseball diamond.
Haapanen, a strapping UCSB senior from Manteca, has been making things happen for the Gaucho track and field team. The Big West named her the Female Field Athlete of the Year after she put on a throwing clinic at the conference championships.
Jerry Harwin has assumed the same role at the Maravilla Senior Living center in Goleta he performed in the community at large during the prime of his life: He is a mover and a shaker. His domain now is the dance floor. He moved in rhythmic circles around younger staff members last week to the upbeat tune of the ’60s Motown hit, “Do You Love Me.”
Easier on the body but harder on the mind-that’s what Lindsey Connolly found when she switched from running to race walking on the Westmont College track and field team. “Sometimes in running you can zone out or drift off,” Connolly said. “You have to be totally focused when you’re walking. If you’re not, you might lose form or get disqualified.”
The maxim that “little things make a difference” is affirmed in millions of ways every day, but perhaps never so explicitly as in the game of baseball. Case in point: The key hit in Santa Barbara High’s 4-0 victory over Dos Pueblos last Friday, April 27, was a bunt.
She’s big, she’s powerful, she plays center on the world’s best team, but don’t come to a water polo game expecting Kami Craig to score a ton of goals. Her role on offense is to occupy as many defenders as possible and create openings for other shooters. In six games with the gold-medal winning U.S. women’s team at last month’s FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, Craig was credited with three goals.
The scorched nets at S.B. City College’s Sports Pavilion gave testimony to the talent of the Santa Barbara Breakers last Friday night, but the subsequent cooling off showed that the International Basketball League team is a work in progress. The Breakers made 72 percent of their shots while whipping the Seattle Mountaineers, 135-105, in their home debut, but they lost to the same team 24 hours later, 118-113, when they failed to execute down the stretch.
The mothers were magnificent in the mother of all relay races.
Q-Angle, a team loaded with maternity-four of its five members are mothers with a combined nine children-outpaced all others Saturday in Santa Barbara County’s longest organized run. It goes by the challenging title, “Are You Tough Enough?”
