All Ball Sports: Mira Costa Classic discovery, South Bay Super Bowl hopes

Juju O’Brien has breakout game during Mustang Costa Winter Classic

By Paul Teetor

The Mira Costa girls basketball team came in second at their own tournament this week. That was the bad news. The Mustangs suffered their first loss of the season, and their record fell to 8-1 after losing to St. Mary’s Academy of Inglewood in the Mira Costa Winter Classic.

The good news for the already stacked team is that there’s yet another star-in-the-making on the roster — and she’s only a sophomore. 

The problem is that JuJu O’Brien is even better at softball than she is at basketball – so far. But in her first year of organized hoops, O’Brien is improving so quickly that she could soon move into the Mustang’s starting lineup.

“She’s our best defender,” says coach John Lapham. “When she goes in the game we always assign her to the other team’s best player.”

O’Brien got better and better as the Mira Costa Winter Classic progressed, to the point that she played more than half the game and scored 10 points in their game against Mark Keppel — and shut down their best scorer. 

“JuJu is new to basketball, but she is working her way up the rotation,” Lapham said. “She is going to be a Division 1 softball player, and that’s been her main sport, as well as soccer. She’s a great athlete who could play any sport. She always loved basketball but didn’t play much because of her other commitments.”

She missed the pandemic shortened basketball season that was finally held last spring because she was committed to playing softball.

“This season is her first real experience playing a full basketball season,” Lapham said. “But already, against Mark Keppel, no one could score on her. She will be playing major minutes from now on.”

Amazingly, the Mustangs already have four elite guards in seniors Cara Susilo and Bella Blum, junior Maile Nakaji and sophomore Hayden Lin. 

“It’s a good problem to have,” Lapham said. “We have to manage the five players in a way that is best for the team and still make sure that they all get the time on the court that they deserve.”

O’Brien, at 5-foot-8, is the tallest of the bunch, which gives Lapham some flexibility in managing his lineups.

“JuJu can play the two, three or four positions, which makes her very versatile,” he said. “I can move her around and fit her in with other combinations of players.”

The Mustangs are not quite as loaded in the front court, although seniors Winslow Smith and Hannah Gedion are both capable scorers and rugged rebounders.

“Even there, JuJu is our third best rebounder,” Lapham said. “That’s a potential weakness of ours, so we have to get her on the court even more.”

In the 50-47 loss to St. Mary’s, the Mustangs lost the battle of the boards and didn’t play their usual ferocious defense on the perimeter.

“We gave up eight 3-pointers,” he said. “It was the only game all year that we didn’t play good defense.”

Just as O’Brien emerging from the bench to become a prime-time player was a pleasant surprise, so Lapham is learning other things about his team as the start of Bay League play approaches.

“Winslow Smith hit some three-pointers during the tournament,” he said. “To have someone that big hitting outside shots allows us to play five outside shooters at the same time.”

The Mustangs will spend the next two weeks playing a couple of tournaments before opening league play January 4 against Culver City.

“The Bay League is going to be incredibly tough this year,” Lapham said. “But we’re going to be tough too.”    

 

Rams Rolling

This is what you do with a must-win game: you win it.

You fight, scrap, punch, call every play in your playbook and finally win it just because you want it a little more than the other guy or, in this case, the other team

That’s what the Rams did Monday night in their most impressive and inspiring victory of the long-and-getting-longer football season, a gut-wrenching, jaw-dropping, white-knuckle thriller of a 30-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals.

A victory in the Cardinals house, not in the comfy confines of SoFI Stadium.

And a victory achieved without two of their best players who were out due to positive Covid-19 tests just a few hours before kickoff. Jalen Ramsey, the best defensive back in the league, and Tyler Higbee, one of the best tight ends in the league, were both put into quarantine and were unable even to stand with their teammates on the sideline.

There’s going to be a lot of noise over the next few days about how this was a victory for Coach Sean McVay’s offense. How this was a vindication of the trade of Jared Goff for quarterback Matthew Stafford, who threw three touchdown passes. And about how wide receiver Cooper Kupp – who now leads the league in catches, yards and touchdowns – proved he is the best receiver in the entire NFL.

Those claims are all true – at least as they pertain to this particular game.

But if there’s a game ball to be given to any one player in what was clearly a team-wide victory, it has to go to Aaron Donald, the future Hall of Fame defensive lineman who has already won three NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards in his 7-year pro career.

Consider this amazing, bookend reality: Donald sacked Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray – the most mobile QB in the entire league — on the first play of the game.

And Donald sacked Murray on the last play of the game, when Murray was scrambling around with one last chance to throw a Hail Mary TD pass that would send the game into overtime.

But it was that first sack that will be shown over and over on video replay over the next few days because it depicts a play rarer than a unicorn: a domino sack.

On the play Donald lined up on the left side of the line of scrimmage and bull-rushed Cardinals lineman Max Garcia, a 6-foot-5 mountain of a man who weighs 310 pounds. Donald, who stands barely 6 feet tall, and weighs 50 pounds less than Garcia, reached out with his right arm and literally threw Garcia backwards into Murray so hard that the quarterback hit the ground.  

That single play set the tone for the entire game and made Murray so jittery that he threw two interceptions – both of them absolutely critical to this victory because they twice stopped the Cardinals from scoring when they appeared to be marching in for a touchdown.

Donald was a big part of the first interception because he tipped the ball, which sent it off course and right into the hands of a Rams defensive back.

The scintillating victory lifted the Rams season record to 9-4, putting them one game behind the 10-3 Cardinals in the NFC Western Division. Equally important, it avenged a 17-point beatdown the Cardinals put on the Rams two months ago. That shocking loss plunged the Rams into a mid-season slump that culminated with three straight losses that caused the Rams faithful to lose hope in their collective vision of the Rams making it all the way to the Super Bowl – which, as almost everyone knows by now, will be played at their home field in SoFi Stadium

Whose House? Rams House?

If this game turns out to be a turning point in the Rams season, McVay will have to get a lot of the credit. Like a kid with a shiny new toy in Stafford, he opened the season with a pass-first offense centered around Stafford’s great arm and Kupp’s Spider-man suction-cup hands that can catch anything that comes near him.

But after a while the league figured out that McVay had pretty much abandoned the running game, and was going to sink or swim on the basis of Stafford’s strong right arm.

It worked at first. The Rams compiled a 7-1 record right out of the gate. But then they lost three straight games, and Stafford threw a pick-six early in each of those losses to dig a hole they could never get out of.

To McVay’s credit he has adjusted his approach with a run-first attack that featured Darrell Henderson. And when he got hurt, it featured Sony Michel, who had a great night in the Cardinals game.

Neither is as good or as explosive as former Rams star running back Todd Gurley was a few years ago when the Rams offense was unstoppable and McVay was being hailed as a boy genius.

But they were good enough the last two games to take the constant pressure off Stafford, and the constant pressure to pass-protect off the offensive line. As any offensive lineman will tell you, it’s a lot more fun to run-block and attack defenders, rather than pass-block and have to retreat and get pounded while you try to protect the quarterback and give him the 2 or 3 seconds he needs to find an open receiver.  

The Rams have found their offensive groove just in time for the final run into the playoffs. From now on look for them to establish the run early and then, when the defense is geared up to stop the run, turn Stafford loose.

Monday night was the test that proved the Rams are once again legit Super Bowl contenders. If they can win their last four games they will go into the playoffs as a conference champion. That will give them a first-round bye and guarantee them home field all the way through the playoffs, assuming they can keep winning.

Whose House? Rams House!

 

Chargers back in playoff hunt

 

Step aside, Dan Marino. Justin Herbert is coming for you and all your passing records – records that were once regarded as unbreakable.

The Chargers second-year quarterback did it again Sunday afternoon, passing for three more touchdowns while leading his resurgent team to a 37-21 win over the New York Giants at a rockin’-n-rollin SoFi Stadium. 

That brings Herbert’s total number of games with three or more TD passes in his first two seasons to 12. Marino, a Hall-of-Famer with a rocket arm and quicksilver release, holds the record with 13 such games in his first two seasons. With four regular season games to go – and perhaps some playoff games – Herbert almost surely will tie or break that 37-year-old record.

And while Herbert was coming closer Sunday afternoon to setting yet another record for young quarterbacks, his team was doing something it hadn’t done for more than a month: win two games in a row.

The win pushed the Chargers record to 8-5 and set up an epic showdown with the 9-4 Western Division leading Kansas City Chiefs in a Thursday night game that figures to dictate the trajectory of the Chargers season.

If they win, they will move to 9-5, and take over first place from the Chiefs by virtue of their two wins over KC this season. One big advantage for the Chargers: it will be played in SoFi Stadium, where the Chargers have developed a fanatical loyal following of fans who show up in blue and gold uniforms from head to foot. One fan at Sunday’s game held up a huge sign proclaiming that “Justin Herbert is better than (Rams quarterback) Matthew Stafford.” Based on recent results it would be hard to argue with him.  

But if they lose the Thursday night game – and with only three days to prepare for Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and his high-flying offense that is a distinct possibility – then their record will be 8-6, and they will fall back into the crowded pack of contenders scrambling for a wild-card playoff spot.

While the Chargers overall record is very important in terms of playoff seeding – only the first-place conference teams will get a first-round bye and have home-field advantage all the way through the playoffs – the dominant topic after Sunday’s blowout win was Herbert’s howitzer arm and one TD pass in particular.           

It happened with just 17 seconds to go before halftime and the Chargers leading 17-7 and on the march once again. With time running out, Herbie abandoned the short passing game that had been working so well and rolled out to his left. He pulled up, set himself up for launch mode, and let fly a rainbow spiral that stayed in the air 3.5 seconds and traveled 64 yards before a sprinting Jalen Guyton caught it in stride with the nearest defender several feet behind him. The result: a 59-yard touchdown that broke the Giants’ back – and their spirit — and sent the Chargers into the locker room on an emotional high that carried them all the way through the second half.

And who could blame the Giants defensive back for being out of position? Only Mahomes – and perhaps Arizona’s Kyler Murray – are capable of throwing such a long ball with such uncanny accuracy.

Even Giants quarterback Mike Glennon – who watched the play from the other sideline – gushed when he was asked about it.

“There are only a few people in the entire world capable of making that throw,” Glennon said. “He’s a really special quarterback. He’s fun to watch.”

Herbert finished the game connecting on 23 of 31 passes for 275 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Guyton had three catches for 87 yards and one touchdown.

With the game safely in hand after three quarters, Coach Brandon Staley pulled Herbert – why risk an injury late in a blowout? – and inserted backup Chase Daniel, who had only played a few snaps all season long.

Now that both the Rams and Chargers have won their last two games and are both practically assured of making the playoffs – barring a complete collapse – it’s OK to start dreaming about a Rams vs. Chargers matchup in the Super Bowl once again.

See you at SoFi.

Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow: @paulteetor. ER                 

 

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