Five Los Al Griffins were named to all-county teams announced by the Orange County Register this week.
Three were from softball, led by Taylor Johnson, who was named to the first team. Johnson, a senior who is headed for the University of San Diego in the Fall, batted a team-high .433 with five home runs and 26 RBIs this season.
Named to the second team were senior pitcher Sydney Saldana, and junior infielder Giselle Alvarez. Saldana will play at Utah State next season.
The three players led Los Al to the CIF Division I finals this year where they unfortunately fell to Eastgate High of the Inland Empire.
Josh Donegan, a junior pitcher for Los Al, was named to the OC Register’s second team All Orange County Baseball squad. Donegan, a lean 6-3 right hander who also played third base for Griffins, has already committed to play college ball at Long Beach State.
And the Register also had a Griffin on its first team all-county Boys Lacrosse squad — and that would be senior attacker Drew Anderson. Anderson, a The Midfielder is a 3-star recruit per @Inside_Lacrosse,will play his lacrosse at Marist next season.
CIF Executive Director Rob Wigod, a former baseball coach at Los Al, released his annual end-of-the-school-year message — with two big takeaways. Unlike the previous Covid-impacted years, 2021-22 finished the year with regular seasons and championships in every sport. And then thanks to the State’s budget surplus, the State CIF arranged for a grant from the state so all fees for next year are being waived.
ALUMNI: Landry Fields named General Manager of Atlanta hawks
Some Los Al Griffin sports alumni are in the news. Landry Fields, who led the Griffins to the CIF Basketball title in 2006 (and a Rossmoor homeowner until just a couple years ago), has been announced as the new General Manager of the Atlanta Hawks.
Fields was a three year starter for the Griffins, and then played his college ball at Stanford and had a five year NBA career with the New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors before an injured elbow sidelined his career.
Since then he began working as a scout for San Antonio, and then moved into the front office there and was hired by Atlanta two years ago.
And Justine Wong-Orantes is again the starting libero for the US Women’s Volleyball National team. J-WO, the outstanding libero at last year’s Olympic Games, was one of five American gold medalists called up to play in the second round of the Volleyball Nations League currently happening in the Phillipines and Turkey. Wong-Orantes had 11 digs as the US swept China, its third win this week, then followed that up with a 16-dig performance in a comeback four-set win over Thailand. The Americans are now off until June 29 when they play Belgium in the third round in Calgary, Canada. The top eight teams will qualify for the single-elimination quarterfinals July 13 in Ankara, Turkey.
