Shingle Springs athlete ‘Elite’

Eric Jaramishian

Staff writer Ponderosa High School alum

Liam Egar has done everything he wanted to do with the sport of water polo, but not before being awarded one of the NCAA’s most prestigious awards — the Elite 90.

Egar, currently an assistant coach for the American River Water Polo Club, was celebrated for his athleticism and academic prowess, earning a 3.95 GPA while attending University of the Pacific.

One award is given in each NCAA sport every year to the athlete participating in the organization’s final tournament who has the highest cumulative GPA out of all participating athletes, a rewarding experience for the Shingle Springs man. “A lot of times in athletics, academics can get overlooked especially at that high of a level,” Egar told the Mountain Democrat. “Practice schedules are insanely stressful and the time commitment is gigantic, so finding time and balancing your responsibilities I think is huge. Getting recognition for that has been really rewarding for me personally.”

In this case, the finance and pre-law graduate had the highest GPA over Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and Los Angeles and University of Southern California athletes, whose teams went to the 2022 National Collegiate Men’s Water Polo Final Four.

The UOP Tigers attacker began his journey at Ponderosa High School before graduating in 2019. He played for the Bruins for three years and two years with the American River Water Polo Club in Sacramento before diving into the waters of collegiate-level competition at UOP. Egar decided to not play for the Bruins during his senior year, focusing on club water polo.

“I wasn’t ready to be done. Not playing my final year at high school made me realize that I wanted to do more with the sport,” Egar said. “I didn’t want to leave the sport feeling like I left things on the table, so I took the best college o er I could get, which wasn’t too far from home.”

Having to travel to Sacramento to practice with the water polo club due to a small demographic of water polo players in the foothills, his e ort paid o .

The transition from high school to college competition came easier for Egar, who knew athletes at UOP.

The Bruins alum chose UOP due to its prestigious water polo program.

“Out of all their sports, they don’t really have a program that wins as much as water polo program, which is mostly due to the coaches,” Egar commented. “My freshman year, we got second in the NCAA losing to Stanford at the championship game. Then my senior year, we finished top four, losing to Cal Berkeley in the semi-finals round. We’re pretty consistently in top five in a good year and top eight in a bad year.”

Egar played all four seasons for UOP then graduated in December 2022. He is currently in the application process to go to law

Liam Egan’s academic and athletic achievements were recognized with the NCAA’s Elite 90 award.

Speedway Continued from A6 over move to nip Golobic at the line by 0.026 seconds. school in the fall, hopefully USC or UCLA for their well-known law programs. After competing in swimming sports most of his life, Egar will hang up his swimming gear as he prepares for a career in financial law or securities regulation.

Copeland, Carrick and Modesto’s Tony Gomes rounded out the top five. Finishing sixth through 10th were Sean Becker, Kaleb Montgomery, Dylan Bloomfield, Shane Hopkins and Andy Forsberg. Heat race wins during the night were pocketed by Becker, Golobic, Gomes and Carrick, while Forsberg won the B-main. Copeland began the night by earning the Fast Time Award with a lap of 10.684, pacing the 25-car field. The always exciting wingless sprint cars made their first of six appearances this season on opening night. In the end it was Roseville’s Josh Young who parked it on the front stretch for his first career Placerville Speedway victory. Oakley’s Jacob Tuttle and Placerville’s Shane Hopkins made up the front row for the 20-lap contest. Several movers and shakers were seen in the main event as multiple cars had a shot at victory.

Young, DJ Johnson, Trey Walters and more fought it out to bring home the win during the opening show of 2023. Once Young carved his way to the point he cut smooth and consistent laps ahead of Johnson, Walters, Mark Hanson and Brent Steck.

Oakley’s Nick Baldwin has been the dominant force in recent years when it comes to the pure stocks. Opening night saw him start from the outside of the front row and drive to his 21st career Placerville Speedway win, which places him in a tie for eighth all-time with Bob Briggs.

Diamond Springs racer Kevin Jinkerson did keep Baldwin honest during the 20-lap feature though, as he stalked his rear bumper every step of the way. Jinkerson came home second followed by Micky D’Angelo, Kenny Bernstein and Shaun Bennion in the top five.

“My wife and I couldn’t be more proud of Liam and his accomplishments at Pondo and Pacific,” said Patrick Egar, Liam’s father. “Water polo provided Liam with the opportunity to develop stamina, endurance, resilience and a finer sense of individual contribution toward team goals and objectives. We’d love to see the sport grow in El Dorado County and the foothills in general.”

Placerville Speedway fans don’t have the opportunity to see Matt Micheli as often as they used to but the Live Oak driver returned in triumphant fashion Saturday night, racing to his 25th career limited late model win at the track. The victory puts him nine wins away from Ryan McDaniel, who holds the most all-time in the division.

Auburn’s Ray Trimble stayed within striking distance, before settling for a runner-up result. Matt Davis, Dan Jinkerson and Tyler Lightfoot completed the top five.

Placerville Speedway is right back at it this coming Saturday, March 25, with the season opener for the Sprint Car Challenge Tour. The Spring Fever Frenzy also showcases the Bay Cities Racing Association Lightning Sprints.

Fire training

the Forest Service.

Continued from A1

“We try to set it up around the time the Forest Service is doing their hiring for the season so that way it is easy to hire these folks,” said Ben Gotts, 17-year Forest Service patrol officer. “This particular training that we put on is easily one of the best in California with a mixed bag of in-classroom and outof-classroom scenarios to really get the training sunk in as far as what they will be doing this season.”

Pink ribbon acting as a mock fire could be seen scattered throughout the area as trainees hiked up a steep slope. Radio communication and commands from trainers helped emulate the intensity of the type of situations firefighters go through.

Students additionally learned to respond to fire spotting and how to use a fire shelter. In a fire shelter drill trainees deploy a protective tarp in case they find themselves trapped by flames.

The inclusion of these field training scenarios became a reality in 2017, which Recruitment Coordinator Kaleena Lynde said has helped with recruitment.

“Before it was mainly a classroom setting and we had a lot of people that would come do the training, then we would get them out in the field only for

Trip to Green

them to struggle,” said Lynde, who has been with the Forest Service 19 years. “We started developing this field-based training to show them what the job is really like, how labor intensive it is, how steep we go up, the different tactics we use, how to use the tools and more. Our success in maintaining employees since doing it this way has gone up drastically versus just doing the classroom setting, especially since they would show up for work, then quit when we need the employees.”

Justin Freidais, a 19-year-old trainee from Roseville, said learning how to use the fire shelter was the hardest part at first.

“It’s definitely good to have information of knowing in an emergency situation how to deploy, what to look out for and what to keep on you when you’re in an event like that,” Freidais said. “It’s something you need to be constantly ready for.”

Evan Bell, a 20-year-old trainee from Red Bluff, said the training has been a good indication of how tough the job can be and how resilient the employees need to be.

“The running with the weight on the back was probably the toughest part but the training is important for this kind of work,” Bell said.

Continued from A1 from locals and merchants helping determine the course of action that will be pursued. A potential plan presented to the community previously would have seen the construction of a two-lane elevated expressway passing above the rest of the highway through town; seeing little to no positive feedback from residents, that option has been tossed aside.

City and DOT staff, following feedback from residents, have determined the “small infrastructure” plan to be the best option. This option would incorporate gate arms and possibly hydraulic bollards to close off certain turning lanes along Highway 50 and include dynamic signage that would change to provide accurate navigation information for motorists when Trip to Green is in effect.

Consultant Brian Gant explained the plan would allow for a more reactive Trip to Green, where it could be easily implemented or ended at varying times depending on traffic instead of the more rigid 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. structure seen in the trial runs.

The implementation schedule for Trip to Green would open as well — multiple holiday and busy weekends have been identified as potential days. With the limited survey responses from Main Street merchants, as well as other stores in Placerville not polled, potential economic impacts will need to be considered in the program’s larger rollout.

“We’re talking up to now, what, 12 holidays of implementing this?” Council member David Yarborough asked following the presentation.

“That is a revenue loss when it comes to our Main Street businesses. We’ve got a can of worms no matter which way we go.”

The team assembling the Trip to Green plan has reported a majority of positive responses from the community, with 70% of residents supporting the project and 60% reporting positive or no impact from the test runs.

One point of contention that remains is the mixed reception from residents and members of the Placerville City Council to proposed tolling. City Engineer Rebecca Neves spoke to the rationale behind the tolls, explaining that some of the money raised is intended to go toward upkeep of the Trip to Green infrastructure. With raising/lowering gate arms and possible hydraulic bollards on the road, Neves stated it was inevitable some motorist would drive into them, necessitating repairs.

Neves noted revenue projections from tolling would pay for the cost of the tolling gantries in as short as two years.

The discussion as to who would or would not be considered a local for the purpose of toll exemption is still on the table; with 88% of traffic on Trip to Green days coming from outside of El Dorado County, the easiest answer may be exception for all county residents.

The Trip to Green project has received some acclaim outside of Placerville as well, with Neves’ leadership helping to secure the 2022 Innovative Project of the Year Award from Women in Transportation Sacramento.

The final draft of the action plan will be open for public comment until Friday, according to Gant. The plan can be found at cityofplacerville.org/ TriptoGreen.

The final version of the plan is to be adopted in early April, at which time city and county staff will await direction from City Council and work to coordinate next steps with Caltrans and other agencies.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously voted to approve Net Energy Metering 3.0 (NEM), slashing payments for excess solar production sent to the grid by 75%.

CPUC voted to cut the average export rate in California from $0.30 per kWh to $0.08 per kWh, making the cuts effective on April 15, 2023. Customers who have new systems installed and approved for grid interconnection before the effective date in April will be grandfathered in to NEM 2.0 rates. During the vote, the Commission said the balancing of costs and bene ts continue to be “quite generous” under the decision. Currently, average net metering rates range from $0.23 per kWh to $0.35 per kWh, and the new proposed decision cuts those rates to an average of $0.05 per kWh to $0.08 per kWh. This is set to be the largest cut of export rates in U.S. history, in a market that represents roughly 50% of the nation’s residential solar market.

Key takeaways

• The California Public Utility Commission made their fi nal decision on the new NEM 3.0 policy in December 2022.

• The changes to California’s net metering policy will cut the value of solar energy credits by about 75 percent for PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E customers.

• This is a big one: existing solar customers – and people who go solar before NEM 3.0 goes into effect (through April 14) –will be grandfathered into their original net metering policy.

• Solar shoppers who submit interconnection applications after April 14, 2023 will be under NEM 3.0 and could miss out on 60 percent of solar savings, unless you add battery storage to your solar installation.

• Californians considering solar should go solar as soon as possible (and defi nitely by April 14) to lock in more favorable net metering credits.