I can’t keep up
So, these past few days have been interesting to say the least.
The frenzy pretty much began late Thursday, when IVC softball coach Jill Lerno let me know five of her girls have been named to the all-conference teams.
Additionally, Lerno let me know she’d been selected as Pacific Coast Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
For starters — congrats to Lerno, all the Arabs and assistant coach Nicole Cordova on their season so far. I’ll be visiting the team later today to get reaction from the honorees and Lerno as well on their selections, although I know Lerno will try to avoid an interview.
Then at about 3 p.m. on Friday I received a text from a local athletic director notifying me that the IVL boys’ golf individual championship ended in sudden death fashion. I haven’t received the official results on that match, so I’m actually not too sure what the sudden-death victory in golf entailed, but I’m sure it was a stunning finish.
I’ll be writing up that story later, so stay tuned! A few hours later, while I was covering a softball game between Southwest and Brawley Union highs, my phone began to “blow up,” as they say.
I didn’t check it right away as I was trying to get in some photos of both teams before the sun fully set.
Once I was satisfied with my pictures, I went to my backpack to pick up my phone so that I could start emailing them to our copy desk. That’s when I saw the various texts and instant messages from an excited coworker: Royce Freeman had been picked up in the third round by the Denver Broncos.
I contemplated leaving the game to work on a story, yet at this point, it was still tied 0-0 and considering the teams’ previous meeting went 10 innings, I felt compelled to see the game through.
I ended up staying to watch Southwest win 3-0 in a fairly quick game that allowed me just enough time to make some calls regarding Freeman’s selection and write up a story on both the Imperial High graduate and the softball game.
This was made easier with the help from Adelle Tamayo — one of our talented designers and copyeditors, who sent me screenshots of tweets and other facts that I was able to work into a story just in time for Saturday’s edition of the Imperial Valley Press.
As Freeman was understandably busy celebrating with his family and friends and preparing for his quick trip to Denver, I was unable to talk to him on Friday night, yet was pretty much assured I’d have a small window to speak to him on Saturday night between the time he returned to the Imperial Valley and our deadline hit.
So for the second night in a row, I worked right up until our pages needed to be sent out to get a story in on Freeman, no doubt to the stress of our copy desk and editor in chief. Thank you all for your patience, by the way.
While I was waiting for the window to reach Freeman, I took in the 27th annual Four Valleys of the Sun Open Karate Championships that was hosted by K.W. Karate/Tae Kwon Do Center at Southwest High on Saturday.
While I wasn’t able to get full results of the tournament I was certainly there long enough to see the dedication of precision of hundreds of martial artists as they competed in forms and sparring.
A few hours after I ducked out of the tournament, more news came my way. Luckily in the world of sports, it’s usually good news, and this indeed was good, exciting news.
Brawley Union High graduate and current UC Riverside softball player Hannah Rodriguez had helped the Highlanders to a pair of wins over Hawaii on Saturday.
In a doubleheader, the junior shortstop went a combined 5-6, with two runs scored, an RBI, two doubles and some impeccable defensive plays.
In the team’s 1-0 victory over Hawaii, Rodriguez went 3-3 with a double and the game-winning RBI. She followed that up with a 2-3 performance in her team’s 10-2 win over Hawaii later in the day.
Somewhere in there I also managed to help one of my younger cousins prepare for her prom and check the scores of some of the other local games that were played Friday.
So while it’s safe to say these past few days have been exhausting, they’ve been exhausting in the best way possible.
Reminds me of the time I had to cover three CIF-San Diego Section championship games in one day.