Anderson Haigler

Senior moments denied by virus

This wasn’t how Christian Becerra imagined his high school baseball career coming to a close. The hard-throwing right-hander and his Madison teammates were supposed to be competing for a championship ring late into spring. “I thought our team was good enough this year to potentially have won it all,” Becerra said. Instead, what most likely will be the 6-foot-2 senior’s final game — a 4-1 win over Granite Hills on March 11 — has come and gone without fanfare. Warhawks coach Robert Lovato warn
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University of San Diego Athletics •

"Sky's The Limit" for San Diego Baseball in 2023

As a chilly spring rain fell last June outside of Oregon State's Omaha Room, where College World Series trophies greet visitors before they perform their postgame media obligations at historic Goss Stadium, San Diego baseball head coach Brock Ungricht wasted no time in summarizing the impact of the Toreros' most successful season in more than a decade. "It was huge to show people what we're about….we're not going away, we're gonna be here," Ungricht said that evening after a whirlwind week that saw his team take down perennial power Vanderbilt at the oldest ballpark in college baseball. "I think it definitely puts the brand back on the map."
University of San Diego Athletics •

A Volleyball Duo For The Ages

Thirty-one matches was enough for a lot of things to happen in 2018. It was enough for San Diego volleyball to notch 18 wins — three against ranked teams — and reach the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 in one of USD's most accomplished seasons to date. A timeframe substantial enough for then-freshmen Annie Benbow and Katie Lukes to combine for nearly 200 digs and 230 kills as they got their college careers underway in impressive fashion, setting parallel paths of success into motion. Nearly five years later, however, Benbow is quick to point out what didn't immediately crystallize during those 31 contests.
University of San Diego Athletics •

Upcoming Season For Volleyball "As Real As It Gets"

As her players arrange themselves for the photo, Jennifer Petrie can't help but laugh. In full uniform, with the Pacific Ocean at their backs on a picture-perfect San Diego afternoon ahead of their annual beach photoshoot, her Torero volleyball team is jockeying for position atop a park bench overlooking Sunset Cliffs, and time is running out. Sophomore defensive specialist Anna Jaworowski has two minutes and counting to get a picture for the popular app "BeReal," which prompts users at random each day to take a picture of what they're doing to…well, be more real, and the veteran head coach has been entrusted to get one that has the entire team in it. As the clock winds down, Petrie snaps the photo, delighting her 18 scholar-athletes when her smiling face fills the selfie camera's section of the digital keepsake. These days, there's a lot to smile about for San Diego volleyball.
University of San Diego Athletics •

Steve Lavin Ready to Lead Toreros Forward

SAN DIEGO — Moments before he spoke for nearly a hour straight, Steve Lavin paused. Before he detailed his upbringing with a pair of teachers for parents, before he discussed the eight NCAA Tournaments, the five Sweet 16 appearances, the Elite Eight, before he described a unique decade spent on the other side of the court as a broadcaster, the 57-year-old took a deep breath to compose himself. "I want to begin with gratitude," Lavin said on Friday afternoon before a packed crowd in USD's KIPJ Theatre. "Bec
University of San Diego Athletics •

A Dream Come True for Ungricht, A New Era for the Toreros

The conversation slows as the final topic is considered, then the group decides that a profile of the team's new head coach is in order. Ungricht pauses for perhaps the first time all morning as the topic is broached, then speaks quietly, a different, more serious tone than the one he took in the first hour and a half of the meeting. "The story shouldn't just be about me," he politely suggests as he motions toward the rest of the suite and the field below, where his players are getting loose
University of San Diego Athletics •

Steady As Ever, Jefferis Ready to Make a Splash in Junior Season

SAN DIEGO — Walk by Fowler Park at any given hour when there's not a game or a practice, and you'll likely hear it. It comes from the first-base side of the field, just past the visitor's dugout, and it doesn't matter whether it's day, night, or something in between — odds are, you'll hear it. "Fowler Park works," he texts the night before to confirm the meeting's location before adding a helpful hint. "I'll probably be hitting." "That guy will show up, he's not going to say a word, but
University of San Diego Athletics •

Toreros Together

As all ten players reached the suburban summit, Scholl snapped a picture before his team embraced him, the workout and a summer full of preparation concluded. Fall practices and an important 2021-2022 season awaited USD, but for the time being the third-year coach was satisfied. In a quiet moment minutes later, mere months removed from a season in which circumstances out of his and his players' control forced the team apart, he tweeted the photo along with a simple dispatch. "Finishing an Ou
University of San Diego Athletics •

Unfinished Business

Good news like this was too sweet to get through the grapevine. "It was kind of funny, actually," Bird recalled. "We had known, and all of our teammates had pretty much known that we were gonna come back. In our post-season meeting with Coach Fisher, she was like, 'So what are your plans for next year? Are you gonna come back?'" Several months later, there's an ease in Bird's voice as she describes the moment and relays how the group answered their coach's query with a question of their
University of San Diego Athletics •

Expectations, Excitement High for Golf

"It was exhilarating, our team exploded and got all excited," said Riley, who has plenty of golf moments to compare it to after competing in 330 PGA Tour events and playing in the 2004 Ryder Cup for Team USA. "Overall it was a tremendous season…really a great accomplishment for the program." Xu's clutch putt punctuated what shaped up to be a resurgent, impressive campaign for San Diego, one that saw them persist through COVID-19 challenges to put together one of the most successful seasons i
University of San Diego Athletics •

We Are San Diego: Volleyball Ready to Run It Back

Like most things in life, conceptualizing the last year and a half for San Diego women's volleyball takes a healthy dose of perspective. View the span from one angle, one that considers the team's dominant run through West Coast Conference play and postseason success, and it might seem as if it's been business as usual in Alcala Park for the Toreros."I think at the time, looking back on it now we were just so grateful to be competing and playing at all that it didn't matter what the length (of t
University of San Diego Athletics •

The Road to Redemption

offers the statement without hesitation, without any pretense of sugarcoating what the last year has held for San Diego football."I don't think we played very well," Kamaka says following a midweek practice when asked to describe the Toreros' tumultuous, shortened Spring 2021 campaign. "There were a lot of things going on…but it's not an excuse for how we played."A few days later, head coachis even more direct in his assessment."I think it was awful," Lindsey quipped in a recent phone interview.
University of San Diego Athletics •

The Streak

SAN DIEGO—Five years, five months, and 24 days. Players' entire careers, students' entire college experiences. Renovations to Torero Stadium. A pause due to a global pandemic, then a resilient return to the gridiron in an unconventional spring season. As the winds of change swept across Alcala Park over the last half decade, perhaps only one thing held constant on the sun-soaked plateau that University of San Diego Athletics calls home: USD football's Pioneer Football League win streak. The team rattled off 39 PFL victories in a row, to be exact, holding strong week in and week out as the rest of the conference tried to topple the Toreros and their historic run. Not bad for a school that at one point lost its football program due to a lack of interest.
University of San Diego Athletics •

Michel Begins New Chapter in Iceland

Roughly seventeen miles separate Amber Michel's hometown and the University of San Diego. Electing to stay close to home for college, the goalkeeper frequented East County's freeways as she commuted from El Cajon, Calif. to Alcala Park for her first two years as a Torero."That's kinda why I chose USD," the 23-year-old said as she reflected back on her five years with the team. "Because it was close to home, and because I loved the weather and the city."Staying local for school proved to be the right decision. A
University of San Diego Athletics •

Start to Redemption Suddenly Ends for Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence's first trip to Japan spanned roughly eight months. It saw him learn a new language, successfully acclimate to an unfamiliar culture, and perhaps most notably, come within two points of an X-League Championship as the Panasonic Impulse's starting quarterback. On his return trip last week, he barely had time to unpack his suitcase. Lawrence — the most prolific passing quarterback in both San Diego and Pioneer Football League history — had a feeling that the X-League's spring season was in danger of being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "I definitely wasn't super comfortable with it," Lawrence said of traveling in the midst of the coronavirus. "I was waiting, expecting it (to be canceled). When I said bye to my parents, I was expecting to see
The San Diego Union-Tribune •

Senior moments denied by virus

This wasn’t how Christian Becerra imagined his high school baseball career coming to a close. The hard-throwing right-hander and his Madison teammates were supposed to be competing for a championship ring late into spring. “I thought our team was good enough this year to potentially have won it all,” Becerra said. Instead, what most likely will be the 6-foot-2 senior’s final game — a 4-1 win over Granite Hills on March 11 — has come and gone without fanfare. Warhawks coach Robert Lovato warn
USD Student Media •

Analysis: Are ASG’s struggles unique?

As USD cuts newspapers and conceals budget, LMU and Chapman do the opposite Upon first glance, it is easy to see the similarities between Loyola Marymount University and the University of San Diego. Both are located in Southern California with pristine, palm tree-filled campuses near the Pacific Ocean. Both are private Catholic institutions with undergraduate student bodies of 6,700 and 5,900, respectively. The two schools compete against each other in athletics in the West Coast Conference. So
USD Student Media •

USD QB succeeding abroad

Anthony Lawrence stayed close to home for college. Despite receiving interest from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale, the La Mesa, California native elected to attend and play quarterback at the nearby University of San Diego — just a 12 mile or so drive from where he grew up. Playing in front of friends and family during almost every home game, he went on to have an illustrious and lengthy career as a Torero that is nearly beyond compare within the program, a career that saw him become bo
USD Student Media •

Murphy reflects, eyes future

A look at USD baseball staff ace Chris Murphy’s big season and his road ahead Nearly every time Chris Murphy takes the mound, something interesting happens. Not necessarily in the sense of what’s taking place on the field, but in what’s happening around it. Almost each time the University of San Diego baseball team’s left-handed ace kicked his right leg skyward to begin his pitching motion this past season, 10-15 men wearing baseball caps and polo shirts sitting behind home plate raised radar g
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