Sports Leads

A surfperch-fishing tournament in Grover Beach drew crowds to a bait shop on Betteravia Road at the beginning of February. Surfperch fishing, said Been There, Caught That owner Tina Anderson, is “off the hook. It’s been really good. There’s lots of buzz. [The] big tournament here about two weeks ago generated a lot of interest.” […]

The Ernest Righetti High School varsity girls’ soccer team crossed the street on Feb. 6 to whoop St. Joseph High School 2-0. It was a bruising blow for the Knights, who are jockeying with Atascadero and SLO high schools for a spot in the league playoffs. Some of the people in the bleachers were talking […]

Over winter break, 14-year-old Layne Porter spent a week playing water polo for eight hours a day with the best youth water polo players in the nation. He trained from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. more than 6,000 feet above sea level, and he isn’t even in high school yet. As part of USA Water […]

Before Cameron Artis-Payne finished 2014 as the lead rusher in the Southeastern Conference and bounced into the national spotlight as a second- or third-round pick for the NFL, he was breaking school records at Allan Hancock College for rushing yards and touchdowns scored. He switched out his Bulldogs’ jersey to become an Auburn University Tiger […]

It’s mid-January and by now you may be thinking of giving up on that fitness resolution you made back on Jan. 1. Let’s face it, we all have days—weeks, months, years—when our reasons for not working out or eating right sometimes outweigh the reasons to stick with a fitness or exercise routine. You’re too busy […]

If you’ll permit me to do so, I’d like to share an athletic secret with you. OK? Even though I love sports, I was never very good at playing them. Whether it was the back and forth of the soccer field, the stop and go of the baseball diamond, or the pant and wheeze of […]

Discipline, dedication, perseverance, and plenty of prayers—that’s proven to be a winning combination for national boxing champion Carlos Balderas, a 17-year-old Santa Maria High School senior who has earned the chance to represent the United States at the 2016 Olympics. “It’s a good feeling to know that all of my hard work is paying off,’’ […]

Maybe with two or three handfuls of high schools to cover, the Sun was bound to get some champions in the mix, but his year had more than usual, including Allan Hancock College’s softball team taking the Western Division title after a 16-year hiatus, and Nipomo High School winning its first CIF title ever. There’s […]

Being part of the team that claims its school’s first CIF championship is definitely one of those moments a high school student will never forget. For the Nipomo High School varsity football players–the CIF Southern Section Northwest Division champs–it’s a memory that will go down in the history books. “In some ways, it feels like […]

As you pace around the shopping mall, looking for that perfect something you haven’t thought of yet—because, in actuality, it doesn’t exist—think about this: a rustling canopy stretched out overhead, a grassy hillside below, and legs stretched out in mid-air, gliding above the earth like a bird. Epic. Sounds pretty sweet. Peaceful even. It’s that […]