Monterey Local Sports

Dried lips, flushed faces, parched throats. No doubt, nervous energy oozed out of Salinas High's softball players.

A pair of wins and three personal records moved Chris Hauswirth into second place after the first day of the Northern California Decathlon championships at Santa Rosa College.

A culture change is happening the manager's office this season, and it might have cost the Giants a victory Tuesday night.

The ordinarily fair city of Portland, Ore., has been nothing but bad news for the Warriors this season. Troy Murphy's nose imploded during a preseason visit, courtesy of an elbow from Trail Blazers forward Zach Randolph. And Baron Davis' stiff knee helped torpedo a very winnable game in March.

Bobby Crosby's bat had been silent and his defense shaky.

Call it collateral damage. The Sharks' power play has converted only once in this opening-round playoff series, but it could push Nashville's gas gauge toward empty if the chances keep piling up. Despite an 0-for-6 performance Monday, the Sharks wore out the Predators with a 41-20 shot advantage built largely on those six power plays.

Air Force turned to a familiar face to fill its coaching vacancy and Saint Louis fired its coach after five seasons without an NCAA tournament bid.

Joey Crawford is done ejecting players and coaches this season. On Tuesday, he was the one getting tossed.

Now that Barry Zito has his first victory as a Giant, his next goal is to win his first in a home uniform.

Sure, now they play hard. An uninspired performance in their previous game might cost the Clippers a playoff berth, but they gave it their all Tuesday night in a 103-99 victory over the Phoenix Suns in front of a sellout crowd of 18,422 at US Airways Center.

Given what he knows about pitching injuries, not to mention Rich Harden's history, A's pitching coach Curt Young wasn't jumping up and down when he heard the encouraging news about his star pitcher. But there's no denying the A's dodged a rather large bullet when an MRI on Harden's shoulder came back negative.

Monterey High's baseball tradition is a rich one that includes two Central Coast Section Division II championships in the past four years, but the trinket the Toreadores brought home from Las Vegas on Saturday night represents one of the all-time crown jewels of a jam-packed trophy case.

Instead of battling dehydration, hypothermia was a factor.

Few games create such anticipation that players circle the date on their calenders.

Instead of battling dehydration, hypothermia was a factor.

Monterey High's baseball team was riding pretty high after winning a tournament in Las Vegas last week.

In the thin air of Coors Field, Barry Zito can finally breathe easy.

After two nights of fists and fireworks in Nashville, the San Jose Sharks didn't throw a punch or score a power-play goal in Game 3.

When Sebastien Bourdais qualified on the pole Saturday for the 33rd Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, it chased away the effects of a horrid weekend in the Champ Car World Series season-opener on the streets of Las Vegas the previous weekend.

Geoff Kabush gave himself one-day late birthday gift and Georgia Gould continued her dominating winning ways Sunday on the sunny and wind-whipped final day of the Sea Otter Classic.