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By Loren Kopff
The Artesia Punishers 10-Under and 12-Under travel ball softball teams didn’t take long to qualify for their respective Amateur Softball Association National Championship tournaments in late July. Both teams went a combined 10-4 in the ASA state tournament last weekend in Lancaster.
The Punishers 10-Under team lost to the So Cal Warriors 7-4 last Friday but bounced back in the double elimination bracket to defeat the Power Surge 9-1 and So Cal Swagger 9-3 last Friday. The team kept up the winning streak last Saturday with wins over the Corona Angels (4-2) and Team Mizuno (5-1) before falling to the Warriors again (10-9). The 10-Under Nationals are in Bowling Green, KY.
The Punishers 12-Under team won all three games last Friday beginning with a 15-0 win over the Stealth (Johnson), followed by a 9-0 win over the nemesis Elite and an 11-2 win over the So Cal Wicked (Acuna).
The next day, the Punishers were edged by the Corona Angels 3-2, but came back to defeat the USA Athletics 7-4, the So Cal Wicked again 4-1 and the Firecrackers (Araujo) 7-4 before losing to the Corona Angels again 1-0. The 12-Under Nationals are in Chattanooga.
In other softball action, the Cerritos Girls Softball Association 8-Under All-Stars won the San Dieguito Memorial Day Tournament by defeating Laguna Niguel in the Gold Division this past Monday.
The Cal A’s 18-Under Gold team, featuring sophomores Heather Cameron and Jennifer Iseri of Cerritos High, won five of six games last weekend in the American Pastime Tournament in Fontana. Playing after only two practices as a new team, the Cal A’s edged the California Cruisers 3-2 and the Firecrackers (Pasco) 2-1 last Saturday, doubled up Bownet 6-3 and blanked the Stealth 3-0 this past Sunday and split a pair of games this past Monday.
In high school action, Cerritos junior Ryan Shelton kept his track and field season going by advancing to the California Interscholastic Federation State Preliminaries in the high jump. Last Friday in the Masters Meet, Shelton finished in third place with a mark of 6’ 7”, the same distance he jumped in the Division II finals. His mark is second best in Cerritos High history. The prelims are today at Buchanan High in Fresno.
