Kyle Guerra doubled three times and drove in two runs as San Rafael earned a 13-6 road victory over the Bakersfield Train Robbers on Wednesday night in a matchup of the top two teams in the Pecos League Pacific Division.

Guerra was 4-for-6 and scored three runs for first-place San Rafael (25-10), which put two runs on the board in the first inning when Aki Buckson, Guerra and John Bicos led off the game with three straight doubles.

Aki Buckson was 2-for-4 with a pair of walks and four runs. Fred Buckson was 3-for-5 with four RBIs. Richard Kiel pitched a steady game, with two strikeouts and two walks, while allowing two earned runs on 10 hits as he went the distance for the win.

The Pacifics lost the first two games of the three-game road series in Bakersfield (20-14). San Rafael hosts Martinez (17-16) for a 1 p.m. first pitch on Friday at Albert Park.

Water polo

Stanford’s Ella Woodhead, an alumnus of Sleepy Hollow Aquatics, joins Team USA in Perth, Australia, on Friday for the Tri-Nations Women’s Water Polo Test Series as they continue preparations for the 2025 World Aquatic Championships.

Meanwhile, Archie Williams (Drake High) and Stanford University grad Dylan Woodhead was named to the Team USA Men’s Senior roster for the 2025 World Aquatic Championships.

Little League

Cyrus Bentaleb, Gabe Oliveros, and Kingston Jepma combined to throw a four-hitter lifting the Novato North majors Little League team to a 6-0 win against San Francisco American in the elimination bracket finals on Thursday.

Novato North moves into the championship game against longtime rival Twin Cities at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Joe Wagner Field in Larkspur. Novato North would need to win Saturday to force a winner-take-all game Sunday in the double elimination format. Twin Cities claims the title with a win Saturday.

Atreyu Jacobs scored on a passed ball in the bottom of the second to put Novato North ahead 1-0 against San Francisco American then Kingston Jepma hit a sacrifice fly to score Aidan Capurro.

Novato North extended to a 4-0 lead in the third inning on an RBI single by Ian Bowman and a bases-loaded walk by Jacobs.

Bentaleb had two hits, walked, drove in a run, and scored twice for Novato North.

Twin Cities defeated Novato North 4-2 last Sunday while both teams were still in the winners’ bracket.

• Dante Benedetti hit two doubles and drove in three runs to lead the Novato South 11s to a 6-2 victory over Twin Cities in the elimination bracket final on Thursday. Novato South’s win sets up a crosstown rivalry title game against Novato North at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Joe Wagner Field. Novato South needs a win Saturday to force a deciding game Sunday in the double-elimination final. Twin Cities jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning but Novato South scored four times in the top of the third inning.  Finnegan McCall, Xavier Eaton, and Blake Mathews had RBIs in the game for Novato South. Desmond Evans pitched five innings of scoreless relief to earn the victory, allowing four hits and striking out five.

• The Twin Cities 9-10s Little League team scored 12 times in the bottom of the first inning to defeat West Marin 18-1 on Thursday, earning a spot in the tournament’s championship game.

Twin Cities is set to face Ross Valley for the title at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Joe Wagner Field. Ross Valley takes the title with a win Saturday while Twin Cities needs a victory Saturday to force a winner-take-all game Sunday in the double-elimination format.

Hunter Coghlan had two hits, three RBIs, and scored twice to pace Twin Cities offensively. Leo Storan, Beau Sternberg, Vaughn Johnson, and Zeke Reiter all had two hits. Reiter, Ethan Bennett, and Beau Leibick drove in two runs each for Twin Cities.

Saturday’s game is a rematch of Wednesday’s winners’ bracket finale, which was won 5-3 by Ross Valley.

Kendall competed at five Olympic Games, winning gold, silver and bronze medals in windsurfing. She is now the White Caps’ performance coach and was introduced to water polo through her two daughters.

“They started playing at school and just loved it,” she said. “There was no one at the school really managing it, so I just stepped in and ended up managing water polo for Whangaparāoa College, right up until both of them finished.

“I didn’t really know much about it, but I knew how to put a team together.”

Eldest daughter Samantha later joined the Atlantis City club in Auckland, where Kendall met White Caps head coach Angie Winstanley-Smith.

“What she was trying to achieve was a big dream with very little resource to try to get a team to the Olympic Games in Paris,” Kendall said. “There was no money, so it was pretty much a voluntary role, just building a plan and it’s taken a long time.

“She was, like, ‘Barbara, we’d love to have you on the team just supporting’ and I went, ‘Yep’.”

NZ Water Polo chief executive Jan Shearer competed at three Olympics in sailing, winning a silver medal with Leslie Egnot at Barcelona 1992.

Olympian Polly Powrie joined the White Caps a couple of years ago as team manager. Powrie is a two-time Olympic medallist, winning gold at London 2012 and silver at Rio 2016, alongside teammate Jo Aleh in the women’s 470 sailing class.

England-born Angie Winstanley-Smith represented Great Britain for 11 years, including the 2012 London Olympics, before retiring in 2014 and moving to New Zealand.

“Angie is an outstanding individual,” Kendall said. “Most people wouldn’t dedicate their life to it, it’s a real life calling.

“Then, when Jan became CEO, it was, like, ‘right, I’m in’, because Jan’s an amazing operator, and then Polly joining as well. When you have really good operators in behind a good coach, who knows what can happen, so that was why I joined.”

Kendall knows what it’s like to prepare for Olympic qualification, but that’s new territory for the White Caps squad members. Some have spent time playing in the American college system on scholarships, while some are coming from club level.

“Taking them from that level to actually what’s required when you step up into high-performance systems is quite a big jump, and some people don’t make it, because it’s relentless, it’s 24/7.

“It’s meticulous, and so many boxes need to be ticked to ensure that you are operating under a high-performance energy stream. It’s tiring and it’s really hard.”

Kendall enjoys working within a team sport.

“What a privilege to work with a group of female athletes striving to be their very best,” she said. “The dynamics are quite different, because you can have one person off and it can affect the whole team.

“They learn to understand their teammates, and what stresses them or what motivates them. They have to be able to adapt and have empathy.

“All those things you learn from a team sport, which you probably don’t learn from an individual sport, because it’s all about you, but in a team sport, you’ve got to look outside yourself a lot more.”

Kendall said she had a “million stories” she could share about the realities of high-performance sport, “based on everything I learnt in 25 years of travelling overseas, sleeping in cars, little support”.

“When you get to the end of it, you may not qualify for the Olympic Games,” she said. “You may not win a medal, but what you have learnt that has made you you, that’s priceless … and that’s where I come in.”

Kendall’s philosophy is to grow the person, then the athlete will flourish.

“In high-performance sport, you go into pressure-cooker situations and all your fears surface, so it’s how you embrace them and learn through them. It can be a really tough journey, so understanding that is actually when the most growth occurs, and you are much stronger and resilient from those times.”

The White Caps are currently on the road, gaining valuable experience in Europe against the world’s top teams, before heading to the world aquatics championships in Singapore.

Kendall will rejoin the team there after a quick detour to watch daughter Aimee Bright compete at the 2025 iQFOiL world championships in Denmark. Bright is one of New Zealand’s top young windfoilers, a newer evolution of windsurfing.

Stacked with Olympic experience

Winstanley-Smith, who started coaching the team in 2017, appreciates that she now has a management team stacked with Olympic experience.

One of her assistant coaches is Eelco Uri, a former Dutch player, who competed at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics with the Netherlands men’s team.

Winstanley-Smith said of Kendall: “Anyone who meets Barbara, it’s impossible not to feel energised.

“She’s been to five Olympics, she works with the IOC. Ultimately, what she brings is, ‘Yes, this is high performance, but it’s fun, we choose to be here,’” she said.

“She challenges the environment, and gets us to look at each other as people and how we can connect, and how everyone is different and how we navigate that within a team, so she’s been gold in that respect for me.”

Shearer spent three years as chief executive of Snow Sports NZ, before taking charge of NZ Water Polo in 2021, when Covid was having a big impact. She is also board chairwoman of Canoe Racing NZ.

Winstanley-Smith’s first three months of communication with Shearer was over Zoom, when Auckland was in lockdown.

“She came in, and just provided a support for me and a guidance in the New Zealand high-performance environment, and her connections and ability to get stuff done is just incredible.

“Immediately, her knowledge and expertise, she came from Snow Sports and we’ve all seen the success they have had, and also Canoe Racing New Zealand, so two organisations she’s been involved with who’ve had a lot of Olympic success, I don’t think that’s by chance.”

Winstanley-Smith said Powrie was the most unassuming, laid-back person she had ever worked with.

“So level-headed, which is fantastic for me, because she balances my ADHD out, so it’s great,” she laughed.

“She just loves being involved in sport, but not for the limelight. The girls can sit down at breakfast in tournament and chat through, ‘What was the morning like before you went out to sail your last race and won gold’ – those key moments that Polly has lived that she can bring real-life experience.”

White Caps captain Jessica Milicich, 29, has been in the squad for nine years and said missing out on Paris was difficult, but it made them confident they could make it.

She said having so much Olympic experience around the team was invaluable.

“Having Angie lead our programme has been really important for us,” Milicich said. “We wouldn’t be in the position that we are today without her.

“She’s really driven the women’s programme forward in the time that she’s been head coach. I’ve never met anyone as technically capable as her.

“She understands what you’re going through in high-pressure moments, she is very calm in times of stress, she is just so valuable and we are lucky to have someone like her involved.”

Milicich said also having Powrie and Kendall in their camp filled them with confidence.

“They both came to the Doha world champs with us last year, and the impact that they had was so positive, so all of our feedback was that we wanted them to be involved moving forward.

“Barbara creates an atmosphere where she brings out the best in everyone. She is really focused on how we can perform as a group and individually at our best, so I think that is really important, because when you get to those international moments, she has so much experience and value to offer.

“Then Polly is just awesome. Having the two of them, I think we are very fortunate, and I don’t think you’d look across any other staff or team management, and have the same kind of experience or value.”

Traditionally, Europe produces strong water polo teams like Hungary, Greece and Italy. The US is strong in women’s water polo, and Australia won silver in Paris last year.

“For us to break into that upper tier, we are a little bit further away, so the more we get exposed to those kind of teams, the better,” Milicich said.

Water polo is now one of 10 recognised team sports under the High Performance Sport New Zealand programme, which has bumped up their funding.

“Singapore is one of our first world championships where we haven’t had to do much fundraising,” Milicich said. “It’s covered, but normally, it has been self-funded.

“To get to this point where we can now move forward and hopefully continue to grow the sport is really exciting.”

– RNZ

The Winter Park Volleyball Club 18 Armour Black team, arguably the best in Florida club boys volleyball history, fell short of its ultimate goal with a gut-wrenching quarterfinal loss on the final day of the AAU 18U national tournament on Thursday.

WPVC, playing close to home, won the first set against Southern California powerhouse Balboa Bay but could not finish the match and lost 25-27, 25-19, 19-17 in an epic match Thursday morning at the Orange County Convention Center. Third sets in best-of-three matches are first to 15 points, but must win by 2.

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The Armour Black team had won nine of its previous 11 tournaments and was seeking a championship that outgoing coach Jordan Little said would have been “unprecedented” for a Florida squad facing California teams.

Winter Park Volleyball Club seeks ‘unprecedented’ title in AAU Nationals | Varsity Weekly

“I’m gutted. It just didn’t go our way,” Little said after the loss. “It’s what we all wanted and worked so hard for.”

The defeat left WPVC with an 8-2 record in four days of play at the Orange County Convention Center and brought an end to a banner season. The Armour Black team came in as the second seed behind Manhattan Beach Surf of California, which met Balboa Bay in Thursday afternoon’s championship match.

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“It was an amazing season,” Little said. “The guys are going to be in my heart forever.”

Jacob-Little Phillips, a Stanford signee who led Winter Park High to back-to-back state titles, was the centerpiece of a WPVC roster that included two of his WPHS teammates, Mason Barbaree and Tristan Guitton. They were joined by members of Lake Howell’s 2A state title team, Tyler Windt and Lukas Christman.

WPVC ran through its first six AAU matches before suffering a 25-23, 25-21 loss against Adversity South 18 Adidas of Illinois on Wednesday morning. Armour Black bounced back with a straight set victory over High Performance of St. Louis, then outlasted Pulse 18 of Anaheim, California, 26-24, 20-25, 15-11 to stay alive and advance to Thursday’s elite eight bracket.

Thursday’s match ended a memorable eight-year coaching stint with the Winter Park Volleyball Club for Little, a former Winter Park High player. Friday is his first day in a new position as an assistant coach for Northern Kentucky University’s fledgling men’s volleyball program. NKU plays its first Division I season in 2025-26.

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The WPVC’s final day appearance came a week after the club’s 17 Armour Black girls team was crowned as the AAU national champion in the 17 Open division.

The mammoth AAU tournament continues with its final wave of play Friday through Thursday of next week. That includes 14, 15 and 17 age group play. WPVC is a top 12 seeded team in the 17 Open division.

DP basketball

Dr. Phillips, with 2021 state champ coach Ben Witherspoon back in the drivers seat and some transfer talent on board, shined in NCAA scholastic events the past two weeks.

The Panthers traveled to Philadelphia for the PhillyHSLive scholastic showcase and scored an overtime win against Don Bosco Prep, a top 10 New Jersey squad, on a 3-point buzzer-beater by rising senior sharpshooter London Hatch.

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DP also scored a 46-42 win against a reigning state champ, Stranahan of Fort Lauderdale, in the FABC live showcase event in Gainesville.

Brothers Isaiah and Josiah Gillard, who have bounced around and played for separate schools last season, are reunited as impact transfers to DP.

Isaiah played for Windermere Prep as a junior last season while Josiah played for Lake Minneola. Both played previously for West Oaks and Foundation Academy.

The AAU boys basketball “World Championships” age group tournaments tipped off Thursday and run through July 10 at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.

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A number of other travel team events are also being played in Orlando and elsewhere in Florida this holiday weekend.

Double play

Max Simmons, a standout for The First Academy’s state championship baseball team, switched back to basketball for the summer circuit and caught the eye of more college coaches. The honors student made 9-of-10 3 point shot attempts while totaling 31 points for the Royals in a win against Clarke Central of Georgia.

Back on track

Lake County speedster Vanessa Waite, who was slowed by injury during her freshman season for Lake Minneola, is back on track.

She ran a personal best 55.13-second time for first place in an AAU District qualifier meet on June 7 and backed that up later that month with a record-setting performance at the New Balance Nationals meet in Philadelphia in June. She set a ninth grade meet record of 23.28 to win.

Among freshman girls, Waite ranks No. 2 nationally in the 200 and No. 8 in the 400.

Varsity content editor Buddy Collings can be contacted by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.

Who made the team will remain a secret until Sunday morning. But The Sun’s spring all-star teams will kick off that day with the unveiling of the boys volleyball squad. One hint: The team will feature athletes from Chelmsford, Billerica, Dracut, Greater Lowell Tech, Lowell and Lowell Catholic. Set to follow all next week will […]

Originally Published: July 3, 2025 at 8:49 PM EDT