Mike Guardabascio, JJ Fiddler, Tyler Hendrickson PHOTO BY JOHN NAPALAN The562’s season previews for the 2022-23 school year are sponsored by Vertical Raise, the official team fundraising partner of The562. There’s never been a year for Long Beach football like 2021. Four teams–Long Beach Poly, Jordan, Compton, and St. Anthony–made a CIF-SS championship game, with the […]
Our All-City Athletes of the Year award has only been around for nine years, a drop in the bucket compared to the 120+ year history of outstanding youth athletes in Long Beach. But over the last near-decade we’ve gotten a good look at the top flight of the city’s talent pool: previous recipients of this […]
A certain level of toughness and grit is required to play any sports, but every year an athlete or two catch our eyes and distinguish themselves as having found another gear. That’s true of both of this year’s honorees, who played through injury and led their teams both emotionally and in terms of production. Sone […]
There are no lockouts to worry about in high school baseball, and local fans have what should be a memorable and thrilling season to look forward to. As usual the Moore League is wide open for a four-team championship race and every team this year features big-name talent that will play at the next level. […]
After navigating a lifetime’s worth of troubled waters, the Long Beach high school football season is ready to set sail in 2021. It’s been two years since the Fall approached with any sense of a normal schedule, and local players, coaches, and fans couldn’t be more excited for the prospect of Friday night lights in […]
This is the eighth year of the revived All-City Awards, which resurrect a decades-long tradition of honoring the city’s best high school athletes. Last week, we looked at the top athletes in each sport, and this week we present other awards including Game of the Year and Coach of the Year. The centerpiece of the […]
This week we continue an eight-year long tradition of presenting the Grunion Sports and The562.org’s All-City Awards, a revival of a beloved city tradition. This week we’ll present our individual All-City Athletes of the Year awards to the top performers in each sport, then next week we’ll name our top boy and girl athlete of […]
Everybody loves a good Hail Mary touchdown. With just seconds left on the game clock, the California high school football community completed a metaphorical 80-yard touchdown pass to somehow persuade the California Department of Public Health to reverse its position on contact sports. In a three week span, teams went from not being allowed to […]
We’ve got some ideas on how Long Beach high school and youth sports can get going again as safely as possible. Obviously these aren’t practices we want to see implemented permanently. These are just possible steps to hopefully someday getting back to sports as usual. Take It Outside The smartest minds in the world don’t […]
This is the eighth year of the revived All-City Awards, which resurrect a decades-long tradition of honoring the city’s best high school athletes. Last week we looked at the top athletes in each sport, and in this week’s issue we present other awards including Game of the Year and Coach of the Year. The centerpiece […]