Wave brings home national title

By Laura Place

DEL MAR — Members of the Del Mar-based Wave Volleyball Club Girls 18s team have ended their high school club careers on a high note after winning a national championship late last month in Ohio.

The all-star team of young women, all seniors at local high schools, was seeded 17th out of nearly 50 teams in the nation that made it to the open division of the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship for their age group in Columbus.

From April 28 to April 30, Wave successfully battled through three matches each day until fighting for a championship title against Premier Nebraska. The game came down to the final few points in the third set, with Wave initially down but fighting back to secure a nailbiting 17-15 win.

Wave outside hitter Julia Blyashov of Cathedral Catholic High School recalled the intensity of the moment and the joy the team felt after coming out on top.

“We came into the huddle, and basically, we all looked at each other and were like, this is gonna be our time, and we gotta turn our gears on and play for each other. We just gave it our all,” said Blyashov, named the tournament MVP. “It was such an awesome moment. We just started bawling our eyes out.”

Wave head coach Juliana Conn said she had coached many of these young women on various Wave teams since they were around 12. Their win in April marks the second time one of the club’s teams has triumphed in the national championship, with the last being 20 years ago.

“They don’t come very easily for any age group. Everything has to really come together at the right place, at the right time. It’s so exciting, especially because I knew the girls from so young. Seeing them go out on this big high, it was so great and so special for them,” Conn said.

For many players, the championship felt like things were clicking in a way they hadn’t all season. Several girls had to step back in the previous months be- cause of injuries and illnesses, leaving the team playing with less horsepower than usual.

Despite losses at regional tournaments, the team persevered through the difficult season to qualify for nationals. These roadblocks only made the outcome of the championship all the more thrilling.

“Since a lot of people were recovering from injuries and getting healthy, it was hard to build connections to people on the team, and that was difficult. Going to nationals when everyone was finally healthy, that was when we really connected and got into the zone, and play just clicked,” said libero Kat Lutz, who attends Torrey Pines High School.

“We finally came together as a team,” said Eva Rohrbach, a middle blocker from La Costa Canyon High School. “It felt unlike anything I’ve played.”

The win was also bittersweet for the players, who have completed their time on Wave and are now looking ahead to their college careers.

Blyashov, named the 2023 California Gatorade Player of the Year, will attend Stanford University in the fall. On May 5, she was also named as one of 12 athletes that will play in the 2023 Girls U19 NORCECA Pan American Cup this month in Puerto Rico.

Other Wave members will be attending schools with prestigious academic and volleyball programs, including UCLA, the University of Maryland and University of Colorado Boulder.

Conn said she hopes the memory of the team’s national win will remind the young women of their potential in the future.

“I told the girls, if you’re in college and things seem to be going difficult, or you’re not doing well, just put yourself back to that weekend. They’ll always remember that,” she said.

For Blyashov, what sticks out most is the fantastic effort made by everyone on the team.

“We honestly couldn’t have won without the help of every single one of our teammates. We all had a common goal and we all gave it every ounce of energy — all of it was left on the court that day,” she said.

jay paris

“We’re still above .500,” Bogaerts said. “That’s not the baseball we want to play, but we started off pretty bad.” Bogaerts is a joy, beginning the season in a manner that one expects from a superstar. But his bat has cooled and just when does this barrage of offense show its teeth?

Instead, with baseball being, well, baseball, the Padres are nowhere near where most everyone, me included, anticipated. They have muddled through a season that is no longer fresh, although it still has miles to go.

What are the mitigating circumstances for the Padres’ break from the gate that has been anything but fulfilling?

There are countless ones, but are those reasons justified or just convenient off-ramps on the expressway of excuses?

The local nine did start with a demanding schedule, facing many of baseball’s top teams from the get-go.

Outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. missed the first 20 contests as he paid his debt for cheating.

Starters Yu Darvish (World Baseball Classic) and Joe Musgrove (injuries) were compromised when the curtain lifted for the season.

All-everything outfielder Juan Soto, billed as a generational player by his agent seeking a contract north of the $450 million, has been Juan So-so. His ailments aren’t physical, instead his shortcomings are tied to — take a deep breath — getting comfortable in San Diego, the new pitch clock, place in the batting order and the bed he was sleeping in.

Third baseman Manny Machado? The finalist for last year’s NL MVP award hasn’t found his groove, with many pointing to his balky back.

Second baseman Ha-Seong Kim, catcher Austin Nola, center fielder Trent Grisham, first baseman Jake Cronenworth all sport averages that have little bark or bite. The steep decline in the lineup after the big four — Xander Bogaerts, Machado, Tatis, Soto — is dramatic.

It wasn’t last weekend, when the Padres attempted to win their first home series against the Dodgers since 2021. They triumphed in the scoreboard competition when trolling L.A. ace Clayton Kershaw after beating him in the opener, but the final two games were a downer.

Then again, does any of this matter?

The Padres finished 22 games behind the first-place Dodgers in 2022 and then eliminated them from the playoffs. Shouldn’t those rockin’ brown-and-yellow exude some San Diego chill as the regular season and the postseason are horses of a different color?

Good advice, but Seidler didn’t spend roughly $250 million to hopefully get in as a wild-card team and play another series on its way to its first World Series title. This roster was built to bash the Dodgers, winners of the NL West every year but one — when they won 106 games — in the last decade.

Those following baseball know that money can’t buy you love or punch your ticket to greatness. If so, the big-spending New York Yankees would have more than 27 titles after more than a century of digging into their pockets.

That the Padres’ obligations to those in uniform exceeds the Yankees’ outlay is a sentence few thought would ever be written.

Then again, a minority expected the Padres to be around .500, sending their fans into a May gray that has nothing to do with our persistent marine layer. We realize the season is a long-distance run rather than a fast-twitch sprint. But the Padres need to prove they’re not paper tigers.

L.A. is known as “Shaky Town,” and just maybe, that’s where the mediocre Padres finally find their footing.

Contact Jay Paris at jparis8@aol.com and follow him @jparis_sports

Fiesta del Sol returns to Solana Beach May 20

By Laura Place

SOLANA BEACH —

The North County coast’s annual celebration of music, brews and good times will return to Solana Beach next weekend for the 42nd Fiesta del Sol.

The free music festival takes place over the May 20-21 weekend at Fletcher Cove with over a dozen entertainers set to perform at the main stage.

Performers include cover bands like Fabba Show and Jimmy’s Buffet, reggae acts à la Ginger Roots and the Protectors, and British ska-revival band The English Beat.

San Diego band Assisted Living will join the group of performers on the main stage after winning the Belly Up Tavern’s Battle of the Bands in January.

Local youth talent Rockadamy and Jalisciense Folkloric Academy will also perform.

Along with music, visitors can enjoy a variety of beverages at the beer and wine garden, delicious food at the international food court, and a vendors market along the west end of Lomas Santa Fe Drive.

Hullabaloo will also offer kids’ folk music at 10:30 a.m. both days. There will also be rides, games, face painting and other hands-on activities for kids at the festival.

Fiesta del Sol runs from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

The event is sponsored by the Solana Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Belly Up Tavern.

A free shuttle service to Fletcher Cove will be available from the corner of Via de la Valle and Coast Highway 101, where visitors can park for free with less hassle.

Other suggested parking locations and more information about Fiesta del Sol are available at fiestadelsol.net/ visitors-guide.

Vista strengthens emergency fleet with new vehicles, staff

By Steve Puterski

VISTA — The City Council approved $2.7 million to strengthen the city’s ambulance fleet with new vehicles and employees during its April 25 meeting.

The council approved $363,455 to replace an older ambulance and $2.4 million to purchase two new Basic Life Support ambulances and hire 12 workers at the Vista Fire Department to staff the emergency response units.

The city expects to recoup at least $1.2 million of the cost over the next year, or several years, from transport revenues.

Interim Fire Chief Roy Palmer said the department’s calls for service have increased by 5% over three of the past four years, and the trend is expected to continue.

However, the department’s ambulances are well above the national standard for Unit Hour Utilization, the percentage of time each ful- ly-equipped and staffed EMS unit spends responding to calls or providing care.

In the first three months of 2023, only one ambulance operated below 25% during February.

“If we add two more units, we will immediately drop below 25% and projecting out to 2025, we will below 25%,” Palmer said.

Palmer also presented a heat map of Vista’s emergency response coverage, with several areas in the city well above the 25% standard.

But the interim chief said the new ambulances and staff would impact service calls.

The BLS ambulances will be staffed with emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and other first responders to continue providing patients with Advanced Life Support care.

Currently, the city has four ALS ambulances at four of the city’s fire stations.

CONTINUED FROM FRONT

$30 million in federal funding for the long-awaited coastal resiliency project known as the USACE Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Project, which has been in the works since 2000.

The congressman was joined by the mayors of the two cities and Col. Julie Balten, Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles district commander, at Fletcher Cove Community Center on Thursday to officially sign the agreement.

“It is really wonderful to be here today celebrating this significant milestone,” said Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner. “This project is so important to our recreation, to our beautiful beaches, to public safety, to preserving the infrastructure that is important to all of our daily lives, and really improving the quality of life for everyone who comes to visit our beaches.”

The project will include the construction of protective berms along two shoreline segments in Encinitas and Solana Beach.

In addition, sand will be brought in from offshore via a dredge and pumped onto the beach in a slurry.

The first 50-foot-wide berm will go on a 7,800foot stretch from north of Swami’s Beach to south of Beacon’s Beach in Encinitas using 340,000 cubic yards of sediment.

In Solana Beach, crews will construct a 150-footwide berm along a 7,200foot segment using around 700,000 cubic yards of sand.

Leaders emphasized that this project is one of a kind in both Southern California and the country due to the scheduled renourishment of a combined 510,000 cubic yards of sand every 10 years. The Army Corps of Engineers will monitor this element of the project continuously.

“We’re just gonna continuously monitor and adjust as we need to, but alway try to maximize the amount of sand we [add] every nourishment,” Balten said.

Once the pumping be- gins, residents may be asked to avoid certain sections of the beach to maintain public safety.

The result will be a more expansive beach with more space for visitors to enjoy during high and low tides.

“We are very excited to be at this phase. Over the past few years, we all have noticed more coastal erosion along our shoreline,” said Encinitas Mayor Tony Kranz. “It is, in fact, imperative that we acknowledge that the beach sand nourishment projects are the way of the future.”

The same day, Levin signed a sand replenishment agreement with leaders in San Clemente that will widen a segment of the beach by around 50 feet. The project location was chosen to protect the tracks of the LOSSAN (Los Angeles- San Luis Obispo-San Diego) corridor running through the city.

Commuter rail service between San Clemente and San Diego was stalled last week after a landslide at the western edge of the historic Casa Romantica Cultural Center sent dirt and debris down the hillside above the tracks.

While sand replenishment can stabilize the beaches and prevent further erosion, the congressman said the safest thing is to move some portions of the rail corridor inland off the deteriorating bluffs.

“Mother Nature always wins,” said Levin. “We’ve gotta replenish the sand, but ultimately we’ve gotta move the rail corridor at the sections that are most at risk, which of course, includes Del Mar, and I believe, also includes San Clemente.”