Friday, Jun. 20, 2008

Leading Off

Four local poloists on KAIsports team

KAIsports.com has released its California-Hawaii All-American girls water polo teams, and it includes four athletes from the Stanislaus District. Johansen's Jodi Hanson (pictured), The Bee's 2007 girls water polo player of the year, made the second team. Pitman's Megan Bohlender received fifth-team honors and her Pride teammate Lyndsay Sutterly was on the sixth team. Johansen's Andie Plunkett received honorable mention. The All-American lists include the top 100 girls water polo players from California and Hawaii.

Burda's title run ends

Jeff Burda's run at the 97th California State Amateur came to an end Thursday in a 5 and 4 loss to Valencia's Nick Delio in the round of 16. Burda, 55, the Modesto bank president who tried to become the oldest-ever State Amateur champion, fell to an 18-year-old incoming freshman at Cal State Northridge. Delio pushed into the match-play bracket as an alternate. Two Northern Californians and six from Southern California comprise the quarterfinalists today at Lakeside in Burbank.

Bee's All-District teams next week

In the two weeks since the 2008 high school sports season ended, The Bee's staff has been selecting and preparing its All-District teams for publication. Now the time has come, and The Bee will begin its seven-day presentation Monday with the All-District boys tennis team. Following will be boys golf, boys and girls swimming, boys and girls track and field, girls soccer, softball and baseball.

Barkley enters celeb poker event in Vegas

Charles Barkley is headed back to the tables in Las Vegas to play in a poker tournament about a month after pledging not to gamble. He says it's all for charity. The former NBA star is scheduled to play in a celebrity poker tournament at the 2008 World Series of Poker on July 2. The "Ante Up for Africa" event is designed to raise money and awareness for the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. Barkley, now an NBA analyst for Turner Network Television, has pledged to donate all of his winnings to one of the two designated charities if he wins next month.

Just a bit too close: Uecker's yacht hit

Veering "just a bit outside," a 550-foot freighter on a Milwaukee river hit the docked yacht owned by Milwaukee Brewers radio announcer Bob Uecker. There were no reported injuries, but the collision Tuesday caused enough damage that Uecker wasn't able to use the boat in his charity fishing tournament Thursday.