Odds and ends

If you didn’t watch Sunday’s race, just know that nearly 498 miles, the race was decided by a green/white flag, one lap, sprint finish, with Sweden’s Felix Rosenqvist edging youngster David Malukas at the brick start/finish line, clipping him by less than 25 thousandths of a second.

I also missed the opportunity to address the ongoing Central Coast Section playoffs. But I was out the field Tuesday and Wednesday nights. That, coupled with a few things that have popped up in my email over the last week to 10 days gives me plenty of fodder for this space.

I figured this is as good a time as any to clean up some loose odds and ends.

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The old saying, “The coldest winter I spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco” is usually attributed to Mark Twain. But a quick internet search shows that he probably didn’t say it and no one is quite sure where from which the phrase came.

But that’s neither here nor there. The whole point of me bringing it up is the fact that the author/speaker — whoever it was — never spent a late-May afternoon and evening in San Bruno.

Good thing I haven’t cleared my winter-weather gear out of my car because Tuesday’s Central Coast Section day-night doubleheader at Capuchino High School was one for hardy fans, only.

The Cap administration could easily have handed out the old “Croix de Candlestick” pins for braving the cold and icy wind that howled throughout the 4 p.m. game between Burlingame and Monterey, during which the sun was playing peekaboo with the thick bank of fog that hung on the periphery of the field.

The 7 p.m. nightcap between Capuchino and Live Oak necessitated the move to the heavy jacket, but never quite got to having to put on my gloves.

Living deep in the East Bay, I’m more than familiar with microclimates. So I know the Peninsula will be at least 10 degrees cooler than my house, at least, on most days. So when it was cold and blustery at home, I knew it was going to be a chilly afternoon/evening at the ball field.

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I’ve been seeing a slew of social media content recently bemoaning the current state of youth sports. Out of control pay-to-play models, out of control parents, the thought that college scholarships are handed out at U10 baseball and soccer tournaments.

But every now and then, there is good news coming out of youth sports.

Take Burlingame 800-meter runner Elizabeth Carroll. Her dad, Ryan, sent me an email stating that Elizabeth will be running the 800 at the CIF State Meet trials this weekend in Clovis.

Originally, it looked as if Elizabeth Carroll’s season was done after the CCS meet last Saturday at Gilroy High School. The top-three finishers in the running events qualified for the State Meet — Elizabeth Carroll finished an agonizing fourth. Good enough to make the podium, but one spot off an automatic transfer to the State Meet.

But when Crystal’s Anna Salter, the reigning Daily Journal Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year, decided to skip the 800, for which she finished third, to instead focus on the 1,600, it opened up a spot for a CCS athlete and Carroll was the first alternate. Her time of 2:12.87 is ranked 29th out of 35 qualifiers from around the state.

Credit to Salter for not taking up a spot, knowing it was her secondary event.

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In other Burlingame athletics news, cross country and track runner Ryan Liu was named the CIF boys’ 2026 CIF Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He is joined by West-Torrance’s Mona Sugawara as the girls’ winner.

There are nearly 1 million student-athletes competing at the high school level in California — the CIF says, “more than 800,000” and Liu was regarded as the best boys’ scholar-athlete in the state.

“Since 1982, the scholarship award has honored student-athletes who excel in the classroom and athletics and are strong contributors to their schools and communities,” the CIF said in a press release.

Liu, a senior who is slated to attend University of Pennsylvania, was the team captain for both the Panthers cross country and track teams. He is the founder and president of the school’s current events club and has spent the last three years as an intern with the Burlingame’s mayor’s office and has volunteered with Congressman Kevin Mullin’s office, as well.

Last fall, Liu became the first Burlingame boys’ cross country runner to qualify for the CIF State Meet since 2018.

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The Burlingame and Half Moon Bay AYSO U12 select teams faced each other in the finals of the Davis World Cup, with Burlingame emerging with the win.

The Davis World Cup, held over the Memorial Day weekend, is one of the biggest AYSO tournaments around and uses a unique format: each team is given a country to represent — Burlingame represented Denmark and Half Moon Bay played as Uzbekistan. This was Half Moon Bay’s first tournament as a team.

Like the World Cup that will begin in a couple weeks, those “countries” are then put into groups of four, conduct pool play and then the knockout stage.

On the girls’ side, Millbrae, representing Japan, won the girls’ U14 title.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.