Whittier Christian (17-12) vs. Valley Christian (16-14-1)

By Ben Bolch

May 31, 2001 12 AM PT

7:30 TONIGHT BLAIR FIELD

This is a most unexpected matchup of Olympic League rivals. Cerritos Valley Christian closed the regular season with a sub-.500 record, but the Crusaders did manage to beat Whittier Christian twice during the final week of league play. Whittier Christian, a wild-card entrant, beat top-seeded Riverside Woodcrest Christian in the first round, and Valley Christian defeated third-seeded Lake Isabella Kern Valley in a quarterfinal. Valley Christian is 9-1 in its last 10 games and Coach Ryan Vanderhoek says he doesn’t plan to change a thing: “We’re going to play solid defense and put the ball in play.”

KEY PLAYERS

Whittier Christian

P Anthony Villa

6-8, 2.90 ERA

1B Joey Conrad

.380, 2 HRs

C Anthony Esquer

.355, 34 RBIs

Valley Christian

P Brad Boekestein

8-3, 2.40 ERA, 67 Ks

LF Nick Mahin

.404, 4 HRs, 34 RBIs

CF Greg Verhoeven

.398, 6 HRs, 30 RBIs

High School Sports

Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

Whittier Christian (17-12) vs. Valley Christian (16-14-1)

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