spring 2015 issue six

ISSUE 6Summer 2015

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Grab a SliceThe � ve best places to get

pizza on a budgetFeatures, Page 7

Clinton Critique Gender stereotypes have no

place in presidential raceOpinion, Page 9

Super RegionalsBaseball and softball advance in playo� s

Sports, 2

Hiring Committee Faculty weighs in on

postponement controversyNews, Page 2

See Page 6

Ceejay Willis | The Connection

Spring play looks at past and present causes of drought

May 7, 2015

>>News

Postponement of new psychology hire shines light on diversity issues and fear of retaliation

The hiring of a new psychology professor at Cosumnes River College has been postponed to fall semester following disagreement over the com-mittee’s composition and a key mem-ber’s withdrawal from the committee, said radio, television and film produc-tion Professor Robert “BJ” Snowden.

The disagreement began when psychology professor and department chair James Frazee was not invited to sit on the board. Snowden, who also serves as Academic Senate President and is in charge of deciding the final hiring committee, made changes to the recommendations given to him by the psychology department, which Frazee said violated district policy.

“The regulation says the president is to appoint three to five faculty mem-bers,” Frazee said. “The leader of our college, from the faculty standpoint, refused to put the required number of discipline faculty on the committee despite urgings from many different places.”

“His unilateral action to refuse to put me on the committee made the administration in a place where they couldn’t go through with the hiring, and that hurts the college. That hurts the students, that hurts our depart-ment, and that hurts our other faculty members who lack that person now to interact with, to bounce things off of, to be with,” Fra-zee said.

The original list of names giv-en to Snowden included all three psychology pro-fessors from CRC: Jeanne Edman, Ev-erett “Bud” Han-nan and Frazee, as well as sociology Professor Paul Zisk and geography Professor Debra Sharkey, according to the Academic Senate’s meeting minutes from Feb. 27. Snowden chose to remove Frazee and Sharkey and re-placed them with sociology Professor Donnisha Lugo and himself.

Shortly after Snowden released his final appointments to the hiring com-mittee-to-be, Edman withdrew from the committee, Frazee said.

“While we were in the process, one

of the department members who was already on the committee, a woman, stepped off the committee for personal reasons,” Snowden said.

“The college itself, once that hap-pened, decided to just postpone the hiring committee into the fall,” he said.

Hannan, who has taught at CRC for 44 years, said he was “shocked” when he saw the final list of names and that he has “never been here before.”

“We got a kind of ‘thank you for your process and consultation, I’ve appointed myself,’” Hannan said. “He didn’t say ‘I didn’t appoint James Fra-zee,’ the only thing we had sent back to us was the list.”

Snowden cited diversity goals as the reason for the changes that he made to the list of names.

“It was a solid list. All content ex-perts, all people who traditionally are great colleagues and would be fantas-tic on hiring committees,” Snowden said of the original list.

“But it just wasn’t a diverse com-mittee. It wasn’t diverse in perspective, it wasn’t diverse ethnically. It was a strong committee, but it didn’t meet one of my interests, and that is the di-versification of faculty hiring commit-tees,” he said.

Specifically, Snowden said he wanted the diversity of the committee to reflect the diversity of the campus.

“So my goal was to take the core membership of that committee, which included two members of the depart-

ment, and I want-ed to add three other members,” Snowden said.

“So I added a biology professor and I added a so-ciology professor, both women, one a woman of color, and I added myself as a male of color as an outside per-son on the commit-tee, but someone who has a broader understanding of the campus,” he said.

H o w e v e r , Snowden’s rea-soning prompted

Frazee to question how diversity was being measured.

“If anybody justifies my not being on the committee for a diversity issue, you have to ask the question, ‘well, what’s the metric by which they’re measuring diversity?’” Frazee said. “Who asked me about my diversity? Do you assume things when you look

at people? Because if you do, that’s ac-tually illegal, it’s called color discrimi-nation.”

Frazee also said he should be on the committee because he teaches the specific classes the college would have been hiring for.

“What would your rationale be for excluding someone from a committee? Well, I’m the chair of the department, I’m the only who’s taught the class-es we’re hiring for in the last sev-en years here on campus who is full-time faculty,” Frazee said. “I’m the only one who’s qualified really to do the assessment of whether or not they can teach in the long run from the faculty per-spective ... I’m the only one who’s taught them, and we’re hiring somebody to teach these classes, yet you’d keep me off the committee? That’s like hiring a Spanish teacher but only keeping teachers that teach Ger-man on the committee. It’s a terrible choice.”

And while some professors voiced their opinions about the issue, sever-al refused or could not be reached for comment, which Frazee said was out of fear of retaliation.

“People aren’t willing to talk to you about it because, frankly, they’re scared of retaliation, and that may even be a bigger issue,” Frazee said. “That if they think that they want something and they speak out and say, ‘I don’t think what you’re doing is the correct thing,’ that somehow they’re going to be retaliated against or not given the correct thing. Or maybe they’ll take away a position from you. That scares people into not being authentic and not participating as professionals in this environment. I don’t stand for that, so I am going to speak my mind. I am going to tell you when I think you’re wrong.”

Frazee said he felt it was more im-portant to speak about the problem than worry about the possibility of re-taliation.

“I’m not afraid of what happened. I’m also not afraid of the implications of [what] it means because I’m gonna allow for us to grow as a community of faculty,” Frazee said. “We should con-stantly be challenging our own ideals

and our own concepts because that’s how we move forward in intellectual inquiry, the academy grows. And so I’m not afraid to answer those ques-tions, I’m not afraid of what it might be.”

So why should students really care about postponing the psychology hire?

“I think, from the students’ per-spective, what they should be concerned with is there need to be more full-time fac-ulty on campus, that we have the lowest ratio of full-time faculty to our students,” Frazee said.

“And when we hurt that even more by not hiring somebody, then we’re shooting our-selves in the foot,” he said.

Hannan said he has mixed feelings about the postponement.

“I did make a statement in the senate meeting that I was supportive of that decision to pull the hire until next semester when we’ll have a new administrative team, we’ll be hiring a new president of the college, a new senate president,” Hannan said.

“It made sense to pull the position, but it just doesn’t sit well that it even had to happen,” he said.

Snowden said the postponement of the psychology hiring does have its upsides.

“Now we have an entire semester and summer to get it to every UC and CSU with a psych grad program, to get it to every list serve and job search area that are specifically for psycholo-gy organizations, minority groups in psychology, women in psychology,” Snowden said.

“We can truly do a national search now because we have time. There’s no rush,” he said.

Snowden also said that he stands by his decision.

“I’ve been here 13 years, not every-thing that I do makes everyone happy. But, at the same time, I’ve made a lot more people angry than I have in the last six months over my 13 years and we all seem to get along just fine,” Snowden said.

“I look at the hiring committee as an opportunity to agree to disagree, and that’s how I’ve taken it and that’s how I’ll move forward with it,” he said.

By Johny Garcia & Nick Valenzuela

[email protected]

“People aren’t willing to talk to you about it because, frankly, they’re scared of retaliation, and that may be an even bigger issue ... I don’t stand for that, so I am going to speak my mind. I am going to tell you when I think you’re wrong.”

– James FrazeePsychology professor

“It was a solid list. All content experts, all people who traditionally are great colleagues and would be fantastic on hiring commit-tees ... But it just wasn’t a diverse committee. It wasn’t diverse in perspec-tive, it wasn’t diverse ethni-cally.”

– Robert “BJ” SnowdenRTVF professor

thecrcconnection.com

Elizabeth Royte, the au-thor of this year’s OneBook Project selected reading, was interviewed by Students for a Sustainable Future Club Presi-dent Jaime Gonzales about her book “Bottlemania: Big Busi-ness, Local Springs, and the Battle Over America’s Drink-ing Water ” on April 29.

Taking place in the re-cital hall, a full and engaged audience listened to the pair discuss topics ranging from climate change, bottled water alternatives, waterways and current legislation.

Royte who has authored other books such as “Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash” and written for pub-lications like National Geo-graphic and New York Times Magazine had specific reasons for wanting to visit Cosumnes River College.

“I’ve never been to Sacra-mento and I’m fascinated by California. I’m also a big fan of Joan Didion who grew up in Sacramento and has writ-ten very eloquently on water issues,” Royte said.

“I’m so happy that all of the students are reading my book so I wanted to honor their interest and come and talk to them,” she said.

Gonzales began by inter-viewing Royte and then then the floor was opened for audi-ence questions.

One of Gonzales’ first questions to Royte was about the effect she thinks her books has had on sustainability ef-forts, overconsumption and waste.

“After the book came out, I was happy to see that the rate of increase of plastic water bottles went down and stayed down for a couple of years, but I can’t really take credit for it because I think that the econo-my had a lot to do with it and also there were a lot of activist groups out there and I want to give them credit,” Royte said.

Royte said that that the amount of people who pur-chase plastic water bottles is a number that constantly fluctu-ates and has since risen again. She went on to discuss one big problem that using so many plastic bottles is creating es-pecially in developing nations who do not have the means to

deal with it. “Every year we are put-

ting 8 million tons of plastic into our oceans,” Royte said.

Later on in the interview, Gonzales asked Royte her opinion on why it is so diffi-cult for states to pass laws to enforce recycling and whether or not recycling is really the solution to the world’s waste problem.

“Often times a proposed solution is to recycle bottles, however there are currently only 11 states in the U.S. that have current container depos-it legislation,” Gonzales said. “Since the release of ‘Bottle-mania,’ a number of states including Texas, Tennessee and Massachusetts have un-successfully attempted to pass unsuccessful container depos-it legislation.”

Royte said that states have a hard time passing legislation because of a large amount of industry pushback and it can take years to achieve anything.

“Recycling is great, but it is something that we do at the end of the fight when other ef-forts to recover these resourc-es have failed,” Royte said.

“Recycling is the last of the three R’s that comes last.

First is reducing our consump-tion, and then reusing these materials and only when those aren’t possible do we recycle,” she said.

Recently introduced boxed water, an alternative to packaging it in plastic was also discussed, however Royte said that looking at how the boxes are disposed of deter-mine how promising they are, which isn’t very in most cases. She also said that we need to move away from the entire idea of buying single use wa-ter products and instead drink from the tap.

“If you can avoid buy-ing these containers whether they’re paper or plastic or met-al use a reusable container,” Royte said.

Climate change and it’s affect on water usage and need as well as its effect on waterways and how well they can handle and process large amounts of water were also brought up.

Gonzales brought up Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent mandate that residents have to severely cut back on water usage while the industry continues to have a sort of free for all and asked Royte to elaborate on this idea.

“Utilities focus on res-idential units because their customers are residential,” Royte said.

“Everyone needs to scale back and industry has scaled back quite a bit over the years they have learned to do much much more with much much less water and even in conser-vation and efficiently there has been a lot of innovation in that area,” she said.

She also added that farm-ers have been doing a lot of ground pumping for water and will soon begin to be me-tered and so their usage can be tracked.

Big business like Nestle and their monopoly on the industry as well as Royte’s future ventures that include some upcoming articles for National Geographic were also discussed before the floor was open for audience ques-tions.

Tyler Trunnell, a 21-year-old kinesiology major and at-tendee of the event who was very vocal during the audi-ence discussion said that he enjoyed it and got a lot of good information for a paper he is writing for his English class.

“I have a class where we

had to read Royte’s book this semester and we’re doing a nine page research paper so this will work as some of my evidence for my paper so I thought coming would benefit me,” Trunnell said.

“I’ve never seen an author in person and so I thought it was really interesting,” he said.

Gonzales said that al-though he was nervous, he felt the entire event went off great.

“I think it went really well,” Gonzales said. “Eliza-beth and I had been talking for about a month and we’re both people who aren’t used to making public appearanc-es like this so we both shared the nervousness, but after we got together this morning and started talking more as friends that all sort of melted away and we became much more comfortable. The audience just did a really great job at making us feel at ease and their ques-tions were so great as well.”

After the event ended when asked if there was one thing that students took away from the experience what would she want it to be, Royte said that “your actions mat-ter.”

By Heather [email protected]

Author discusses water consumption, issues of sustainability in OneBook keynote event

Students for a Sustainable Future Club President Jaime Gonzales interviews Elizabeth Royte at a keynote event on April 29. Royte’s book, “Bottle-mania: Big Business, Local Springs and the Battle Over America’s Drinking Water” is the subject of this semester’s OneBook Project at CRC.

Bobby Bishop | The Connection


Given today’s booming technolog-ical climate, Cosumnes River College is currently in the process of considering the creation of web design developer associate’s degree.

Currently, CRC only offers certifi-cates in this field.

“Students can get certified here as a web designer,” web Professor Wen-dell Fishman said. “But we don’t have a degree yet.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of web develop-ers is expected to grow 20 percent from now until 2022. This is faster than the average of all other occupations.

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand is high,” Fish-man said.

“This makes sense because every-

thing is mobile and the web isn’t going away,” he said.

The occupational demand for web designers is not going unnoticed by certain students attending CRC.

“I want to focus on designing web-sites,” said Hassan Shabbir, 22, a com-puter science major. “I know that a job in this sector is paying very well and I already have an understanding of the languages.”

The languages Shabbir is referring to are HTML5, Dreamweaver, Creative Cloud and other code writing languag-es necessary to properly construct a website.

“If you want to enter this occupa-tion, the typical level of education is an associate’s degree,” Fishman said.

“To be able to work on websites for my career is something that’s very intriguing,” said Wayne Nguyen, 21, a computer science major.

“I’ve always been good at anything that has to do with a computer, but I want to get creative and make things that are original,” he said.

The necessity of an associate’s degree is what is prompting the con-sideration of a web design developer degree.

“It kinda makes sense that we could make this degree here,” Fishman said.

Creating a new degree to be of-fered at CRC is multi-step process. First, CRC must approve this degree.

After this step, approval is needed on the district level which is followed by enactment on the state level.

“If students are already interested, they can already start taking the class-es,” Fishman said.

“I have quite a few students who are pursuing the certificates,” he said.

Fishman is the professor who is spearheading the movement to create the web design developer degree.

He wants to create a field of web developers that are trained at CRC and have the right tools to succeed.

“This degree would prepare stu-dents to become expert web develop-ers, webmasters, web administrators and web programmers,” Fishman said. “Students will learn the skills that are necessary.”

Partnership puts spotlight on sexual assault

One in five college women and one in 16 college men are survivors of sexual assault in the United States, ac-cording to the U.S. Department of Jus-tice’s Campus Sexual Assault Study.

In 1993, these numbers were 49 percent higher, according to the DOJ’s National Crime Victimization Survey. Through years of campaigning, var-ious organizations working against sexual violence have brought aware-ness to the issue and helped curb the statistics.

Now, one local organization is working to bring more awareness to Cosumnes River College.

Women Escaping a Violent En-vironment, a Sacramento-based non-profit dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, has paired with CRC in an attempt to educate more college-age students about domestic violence and sexual assault.

“We’re actually partnering with CRC. The grant we’re working under is really to address violence on cam-pus,” said Rebecca Kneppel, campus violence and prevention coordinator at WEAVE. “What we’re doing is a lot of classroom presentations, and we’re trying to do them in series. If you do one presentation one time, you don’t really impact people. It’s really when you have a conversation for an extend-ed amount of time.”

Michelle Barkley, CRC’s head nurse, said that WEAVE had already been active in the area, but a new grant they received aimed to expand the or-ganization’s reach.

“[In the past] WEAVE has come

onto the campus, done presentations, they go to health education classes … different campus programs ask them to come out,” Barkley said. “They wanted to target a middle school, a high school and a college with more than 75 percent [of students] from so-cioeconomically disadvantaged fami-lies.”

Under the grant, WEAVE is also presenting at Will C. Wood Mid-dle School and Hiram Johnson High School, Barkley said.

According to the annual Clery report, CRC had four incidents of forcible sex offenses, five incidents of domestic violence and no incidents of dating violence between 2011 and 2013.

However, 2013 marked the first year domestic violence and dating vi-olence statistics were recorded in the Clery report after amendments made to the Violence Against Women Act requested colleges make honest esti-mations of such crimes in 2013, said Los Rios Police Capt. Chris Day in an email.

Kneppel said the estimations like-ly aren’t the true numbers.

“Sometimes colleges have differ-ent definitions of sexual assault and domestic violence, and unless it’s su-per extreme, they might not count

them,” Kneppel said.Kneppel said that schools some-

times report lower numbers of sexual assault to make their campus appear safer, but this practice can result in students attending a college they think is safer because of underreporting.

“Colleges are really under pres-sure right now to report accurate numbers because it can affect financial aid,” Kneppel said.

“If you’re not reporting accurate numbers, federal financial aid will be pulled from your school. So they’re like saying straight up, ‘you need to not be deceptive in this process,’” she said.

On CRC’s campus, there are cur-rently no programs specifically dedi-cated to helping victims of sexual as-sault and domestic violence.

Students can go to the police de-partment or health services to report incidents and get help, but the college has yet to create a support group-like program for victims.

“In the past there’s been some talk of it,” Barkley said.

“For a while I think it was because we didn’t have space, but we’re get-ting more space. But now it’s just the interest and the energy someone has to get [a program] going. Because if there is interest and someone is able

to do it, getting the right person there and getting something going, it very well could happen,” she said.

Andrew Schiele, a 19-year-old bi-ology major, who helped out during WEAVE’s denim day event on April 29, said that WEAVE’s presence on campus provides victims with a valu-able new resource in getting help.

“I feel like WEAVE is a really good organization, and they would take care of the majority of anything that happens,” Schiele said.

Students should note that Knep-pel and campus nurses are mandated reporters, meaning they must relay any incidents reported to them to the police.

“Anything that anyone says to [Kneppel] she does have to report,” Barkley said.

“As a college nurse, I’m a mandat-ed reporter … if they report anything to me, I generally contact the campus police,” she said.

Schiele said that the first step to curbing sexual assault in society is to get more people talking about it.

“There has to be a complete move-ment for everyone to actually partici-pate,” Schiele said.

“If only a few people are doing it, there will always be people that ignore it and go against it, which will cause more problems,” he said.

While there were multiple events on campus this semester, Kneppel said WEAVE’s efforts will begin to pick up more next semester.

“I feel like it’s going to pick up a lot in the fall,” Kneppel said. “We’re learning what the students need here, because of course I’m not going to come here and talk about stuff people don’t want to know about. I want to see what people are interested in.”

Campus may soon see new web design degreeBy Omar Chan

[email protected]

By Nick [email protected]

“What we’re doing is a lot of classroom presentations, and we’re trying to do them in series. If you do one presentation one time, you don’t really impact people. It’s really when you have a conversation for an extended amount of time.”

– Rebecca KneppelWEAVE campus violence and prevention coordinator

“I’ve always been good at anything that has to do with a computer, but I want to get creative and make things that are original.”

– Wayne Nguyen21, computer science major

>>FeaturesMAY 7, 2015

As technology continues to grow at a rapid pace, it is obvious that digital technolo-gy isn’t going away anytime soon. As these devices become a bigger part of our daily lives, it’s our eyes that are paying the price.

With 61 percent of adults staring at digital screens for more than fi ve hours a day, according to studies done by The Vision Council, an organi-zation that serves as the glob-al voice for vision care, it is no wonder digital eye strain is be-coming more common.

Digital eye strain is the temporary discomfort felt af-ter more than two hours in front of a digital device, ac-cording to The Vision Council. Symptoms may include eye strain, dry eyes, headaches and even blurred vision.

“The human eye is not designed to look at computer screens eight hours a day,” said Michael Wang, a local op-tometrist at the Royo Eye and Laser Center in Sacramento.

According to The Vision Council, two in fi ve millen-nials, which includes many college students, spend up to nine hours looking at a screen that emits harmful blue light.

Wang said that one of the big problems is that people don’t blink enough, which can cause uncomfortable dry eyes.

“When patients are look-ing at a computer for eight hours, they don’t blink be-cause they are so focused,” he said. “They are consumed, almost obsessed, by their cell phones and by their comput-ers.”

Wang said people us-ing screens should use the 20/20/20 rule. This involves looking away from your

screen every 20 minutes, look-ing 20 feet away and blinking for 20 seconds.

The sun can also be a huge part in preventing eye strain.

“Lighting makes a huge diff erence,” Wang said “Sun-light is the best light for the eyes.”

Wang said the animal kingdom is an example of how sunlight can be benefi cial to the eyes. Animals who live in the sunlight, like hawks and eagles, have very good eye-sight, unlike animals that live in the dark, such as moles and shrews.

“I’m trying to encourage kids to read by sunlight in-stead of in the dark and to put the iPad away,” he said.

Wang said he reminds pa-tients that, although sunlight is good for the eyes, direct ultraviolet light emitt ed from the sun can be just as harm-ful as blue light emitt ed from

screens. However, sunglasses are

an easy way to protect your eyes when outside.

As digital screens be-come an essential part of our lives, fi nding ways to limit the amount of strain put on the eyes becomes more important. Inventions, such as glasses with digital lenses are help-ing people focus more clearly on screens and limiting these harmful eff ects.

Although prevention is a huge part of fi ghting for our eyes, it’s only possible if peo-ple are aware of the eff ects of their devices.

Unfortunately, 73 percent of adults are unaware of the harmful eff ects of blue light, according to The Vision Coun-cil.

Chris Ragotero, a 20-year-old criminal justice major, said more information on the sub-ject should be posted where

students can easily see it, such as D2L or the CRC web-site.

“Our generation is known for using technology all the time,” Ragotero said. “We should take a lot of precaution on this.”

Justice Cooper, a 20-year-old liberal arts major, said bad eyesight runs in her family, so she wants to be more cautious in preserving her eyesight.

“I’m defi nitely not going to be on my phone as much, because I wear glasses,” Coo-per said.

Wang said some easy ways to begin prevention are to take breaks, make a con-scious eff ort to blink, use arti-fi cial tears, which Wang calls “lotion for the eyes” and to take advantage of the sunlight and its benefi ts.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Wang said.

By Nicole [email protected]

Courtesy Photo

E Y ES T R A I N

L I N K E D T OOVERUSE OF TECHNOLOGY

73% of adults are unaware of the dangers of blue

light emitted from digital screens

61% of adults experience digital eye strain due to prolonged use of

digital devices

Source: The Vision Council

For their newest pro-duction “The Chis-era,” the Cosumnes River College the-atre arts depart-ment was given the

rare opportunity to not only work side-by-side with the playwright, but to also be the first theater company to per-form the work.

“The Chisera” follows characters in two timelines, 1903 and present day, while exploring the man-made cli-mate issues that are still rel-evant to our region today. Part of the play follows Mary Austin, a woman who lived during the California water wars of the early 1900s while the other part follows geolo-gist Alice and her daughter Lily in present day.

After a trip through Ow-ens Valley, director Cheri For-tin said she was inspired by the tender beauty of the desert valley, according to the play’s program.

She began to research Ow-ens Valley and found an ar-ticle about playwright Paula Cizmar and her work in prog-ress.

Soon after, Fortin contact-ed the playwright, and Cizmar agreed to let CRC’s theatre department work on the first production of the play, ac-cording to the program.

“You rarely get the chance to first work with a playwright, to have a workshop where the script is being changed as we go along,” said Justine Lopez, 22, who portrayed Mary Aus-tin in the play. “It was inter-esting [because] we were able to ask questions directly to the p l a y w r i g h t . There were some lines that were given to us two days before opening night.”

T i m o t h y Dimal, 19, who played Ever-ett Diaz, said the playwright drew inspira-tion from the actors and vice versa.

“We had a long scene that she really didn’t know what to do with it,” Dimal said. “But once she heard it in our voic-es, she got ideas and ended up changing it.”

Dimal said the final cut of the scene flowed a lot better than the original script.

While many people might think putting on a play with a long history of productions

is easier, “The Chisera” cast said they felt differently.

“If it’s a play that’s al-ready out, you would have to get all of the insight from yourself,” said Ryan King, 21, who portrayed Fred Eaton, Mary Austin’s a n t a g o n i s t . “But to have the playwright there as an extra resource, you

reach your decisions and your objectives and it’s just easi-er to put things together as a whole.”

Lopez said she thought of it as more of a chance to create new paths for actors in the fu-

ture because there is nothing for them to look back on, they have to rely on themselves.

While they have to rely on themselves and their skill to put on an all-new work, Di-mal said a good production requires there be a strong re-lationship between the actors and the playwright.

“I think it’s important that a playwright should work with the actors directly there-fore they can make a nice, re-ally solid production,” Dimal said.

However, there were some challenges in working on a new play, especially for those playing characters from a different time.

“The hardest part was to portray someone that is from 1903,” Lopez said. “You have to subtract all the modern mannerisms that we have and to put yourself into the mind-set of early 1900s.”

King said this role was more of a struggle because Fred Eaton is more grounded than the comedic roles he is used to.

“This part, as a whole, I think had the most growing points as an actor,” King said. “I feel that’s one of the great opportunities in collegiate the-atre.”

In the play, the Chisera are spiritual beings of the desert that communicate with Mary Austin.

“It’s almost like the genius of the Chiseras feed wisdom in a sense to Mary,” Lopez said. “They are all knowing, they are part of nature [and] they are timeless.”

Much like the Chiseras teaching Mary about the des-ert, “The Chisera” is meant to speak to the audience about the issues going on in our own community, as California dries up from the drought.

“I think people will learn

from this…they’ll learn histo-ry they’ve never known be-fore,” Lopez said. “Or [they’ll] realize something about what their impact is on the Earth. They will be aware.”

King said that the fact that “The Chisera” is a new production gives the actors a chance to make their mark and teach the audience about the issues around them.

“There’s wanting to enter-tain people and then there’s wanting to send a message and get people to think,” King said.

“The Chisera” has two fi-nal shows on May 8 and 9 at 7:30 p.m. on both nights. Up next for the theatre arts de-partment is a performance of David Wood’s “The Ginger-bread Man” in December.

New theatre production tackles California droughtBy Nicole Goodie

[email protected]


The Chiseras, one pictured above, are spirits of the land in the form of rocks that spoke to the character Mary Austin at various points of the narra-tive. Rachel Dirksen, Taran Bullar and Michelle Nadra wore the costumes for the Chiseras during the performance and moved into different shapes and poses throughout, even becoming living scenery for the characters to move around during certain moments of the production.


“The Chisera”by Paula Cizmar

Directed by Cheri Fortin

Cast:Mary - Justine Lopez

Susanna - Ronnie FowlerFred - Ryan King

Alice - Zoie UtterbackLily - Haleigh Miller

Everett - Timothy DimalChiseras - Rachel Dirksen,

Taran Bullar, Michelle Nadra

Next Production:“The Gingerbread Man”

December

“There’s wanting to entertain people and then there’s wanting to send a message and get people to think.”

— Ryan KingTheatre Arts Major, 21

THECRCCONNECTION.COM PAGE 7

Saving dough: eating pizza on a budgetSearching for cheap foods to satisfy a late-night craving or for fuel before an intense study session is common for most college students, and one of the staples of the college life is pizza. Looking around the city we found � ve places that o� er a variety of pizzas that go beyond the usual chains and also � t well into the tight budget of a college student.

Slice of Broadway - 2424 16th StreetWhat we ordered: Slice of Pepperoni pizza $5.50

When you walk into this shop you almost wouldn’t think it is a pizza shop as it has a very cozy feel, with couches and chairs to sit in, it almost feels like a sports bar or tatt oo par-lor in its decor. Their pizza was very classic in style and composition, but was still delicious. For just $5.50 we were able to get a slice which actually is two slices and equals a quarter of a 20 in. pizza. It was defi nitely the best value with the price and size of the piece. It’s a fan-tastic place to curl up with your favorite slice.

New York Pizza - 9059 Bruceville RoadWhat we ordered: Slice of Cheese pizza $2.50

If you’re in the mood for pizza and don’t want to go far from the campus, New York Pizza is defi nitely the place to go. You’ll need someplace else to go afterwards to eat the pizza, either to tables at nearby places or a park, because there is no seating within. It’s a shop more geared towards picking up and going. For the slices you only have the option of cheese or pepperoni, but you get basically what amounts to two slices of the pizza for just $2.50.

Pieology- 1020 16th StreetWhat we ordered: Hickory BBQ Chicken $7.95

The simplest way to describe Pieology is that it is the Chipotle of pizza places, as you can build your own pizza from all the available toppings for just $7.95. The size of the pizzas, 11.5 inch-es, is perfect for a quick slice with friends. The hickory was tangy and light, and the thin crust gives the perfect crunch that is delicious and fi lls you up without leaving you feeling too full. A good diet cheat kind of pizza.

Old Town Pizza - 9677 Elk Grove Florin RoadWhat we ordered: 12 in. No Sleep Till Brooklyn $14.75

Man cave is probably the fi rst thing that comes to mind with this shop. It’s the type of place that a bunch of guys go to after work and hang out to drink beer and eat pizza. While there were people of all genders, it was clear that the atmosphere was meant to appeal to what they expect men to like. The No Sleep ‘till Brook-lyn pizza with mozzarella, ricott a, meatballs, onion and fresh basil was a very modest pizza with ingredients that mixed well for some of us but not for others who found it bland.

Uncle Vito’s Slice of NY - 1501 16th St.What we ordered: Slice of Pesto $3.95

Upon fi rst look, Vito’s fi ts the mold of a hole in the wall establishment with seemingly basic pizza and brews. Once you have a slice though, it’s far from basic. We tried a slice of the Pesto pizza that comes with tomatoes, pesto and feta cheese. The tomatoes melt with the pesto for a more sublte fl avor. Even those of us that hate tomatoes enjoyed this slice. It was so good on its own that there was no need to add parmesan or pepper fl akes.

Compiled by: Bobby Bishop, Nicole Goodie, Heather Kemp, Scott Redmond & Ceejay Willis

Photos by: Ceejay Willis

All pizza scores are out of � ve

Courtesy Photo

Higher One, the bank that Cosumnes River College and many other colleges in the United States use to give students their fi nancial aid award, is nothing but a big hassle.

There is nothing worse than when a company tries to say they care about college students and helping them make the most of their money when they actually do the complete opposite.

Sure, there are some positives about the company, like the ability to receive fi nancial aid through direct deposit instead of having to wait for a check in the mail and the fact that you can use the card almost any-where, but the list stops there.

Whenever someone slides their debit card to purchase an item, Higher One charges an extra 50 cents to their account as a trans-action fee.

This may not seem like a lot of money, but say you shop four places in one day, that is $2 gone.

Other ridiculous fees include $19 a month for inactivity, a $25 fee for transferring money to another account and a $2.50 fee when you take money out of a non Higher One ATM, according to Higher One’s website.

If Higher One was just a normal bank, their actions may not be so upsett ing, but the fact that their website claims to want the best for students while si-multaneously scamming money from them is what makes the situation so irritating.

“In an age when the other guys are cutt ing student-fo-cused programs, we are constantly striving to roll out new and diff erent ways to off er you more,” Higher One’s website says. “After all, we’re a company found-ed for students, by students and we’ve never forgott en our pledge to give you more choices and bett er value!”

Anyone who has dealt with Higher One for even a semester knows that this statement is total bull.

Besides the diffi culties that all students face when dealing with Higher One, CRC and other Los Rios campuses face addi-tional issues with the company.

The ATMs at the campuses hardly ever work, leading to stu-

dents not being able to withdraw money without visiting another bank’s ATM.

Higher One points the fi nger for the ATM malfunctions at the Financial Aid Offi ces and vice versa, resulting in nothing being fi xed.

It’s prett y hard to avoid being charged the $2.50 for with-drawing money from another bank’s ATM or the 50 cent fees for

swiping as a debit card when you cannot access your money.

Conspiracy? Maybe.While CRC and Los Rios have adopted Higher One and its fees,

other colleges have fought for their students.

Portland State Univer-sity and Southern Oregon University negotiated to stop the debit fees that stu-

dents are charged when re-signing their contract with Higher One in 2011, according to The Oregonian.

Higher One made $66 million just from fees charged to

students in 2010, according to The Oregonian.

While it is ultimately students’ responsibilities to manage their mon-

ey, being bombarded with unfounded fees is not helping anyone.

It is time for students and admin-istrators to stand up to Higher One and

demand changes to their contracts or fi nd a new bank.

This controversy is not going away. There is even a Facebook page titled “Fuck

Higher One” completely dedicated to exposing their wrongdoings and urging them off all col-lege campuses.

The company is constantly being investigat-ed and sued.

Recently, they agreed to pay out a $15 mil-lion sett lement to students in response to claims

that their marketing tactics and fees were preda-tory, according to Michigan Live Media Group.

Higher One outright admitt ed to preying on college students. It’s clearly time to expose this wolf in sheep’s clothing and get the company off of Los Rios’ territory.

We invite all students and faculty to join us in asking our campus leaders to take a stand for each and every one of us against Higher One.

PAGE 8 MAY 7, 2015

>>OpinionE D I T O R I A L

School needs to re-evaluate their terms with Higher One bank

S AV E Y U RS T U D E N T S

S M E M N E Y

When thinking about the pres-idents who have served this nation throughout history, all except Barack Obama are white and they are all male. Older males who are steadfast in their beliefs and stand up for what they feel is best for the country.

Clinton is a name that stands out from the pack, and besides Bill Clin-ton’s questionable interactions with an intern, he is generally remembered as a good president.

To my delight, on April 12, Hillary Clinton announced her bid for presi-dency on her website, YouTube page and Twitt er account.

According to the Huffi ngton Post, her tweet got 100,000 retweets in just hours, which is prett y amazing.

Things were going great, as a powerful and accomplished woman was fi nally gett ing support and recog-

nition that she could be a legitimate competitor.

Then, articles started claiming that in order to make it past the Demo-cratic Primaries and beat any male counterpart for the White House, she would have to soften her image and become more likeable.

Clinton’s likeability is a bit ques-tionable, as she does come off stone faced at times. Compared to Bill, she is far less charming, but we have had quite a few unlikable presidents in our history.

Likeability is also subjective, as the Pew Research Center conducted a poll last year that said 64 percent of people surveyed found her likeable.

Also, according to The University of New Hampshire’s most current survey on the 2016 election, Clinton will not only overwhelmingly win the nomination to run for the Democratic Party, but will win the entire election by 58 percent.

The troubling thing is how closely articles writt en after her announce-ment echo thoughts expressed in leaked 1992 democratic polls meant to strengthen Bill’s career.

Americans polled referred to Hillary as a “tough political wife” and the consensus was that “few Ameri-cans think of you [Hillary] in personal terms (warm, caring, funny, kind, maternal) or have a sense of your [Hil-lary’s] deep love of children,” accord-ing to the Wall Street Journal.

No woman or girl should have to be feminine, soft, maternal or any-thing else for that matt er.

More importantly, no president should be soft.

It is ludicrous that anyone would even suggest Hillary become anything but tough and political if she is going to be president.

Should she negotiate with terror-ists too?

With all of the pressures and

demands put on a president’s plate everyday, there is no way to survive or get anything done unless you have a strong personality and opinion.

No one would dare tell Obama, Bush, Reagan or any other president to lighten it up.

If you are going to criticize Hillary for anything, it should be her lack of understanding about how to use an email account.

These criticisms that are based on her gender are similar to those cast against Obama in 2008 because of his race.

Whether you are a democrat, re-publican or a member of a third party, there is no denying that the country took a huge step forward when those criticisms were ignored and we elect-ed Obama.

Muddying the water with talk of gender roles and stereotypes does nothing but take us a step backwards, and that is not the way to go.



‘No one would dare tell Obama, Bush, Reagan or any other president

Hillary Clinton is being criticized for things that her male counterparts do not have to deal with.

Courtesy Photo

t o l i g h t e n i t u p . ’

May 7, 2015

>>Sports


Athletic summer camps offered on campus for kids

Over the summer, Cos-umnes River College spon-sors a variety of community education classes in the form of sports camps for kids and young adults.

Volleyball, basketball, soc-cer, tennis and swimming are all being offered this summer. The campus will provide use of their athletic facilities for the camps.

The classes are organized by age and skill, and CRC head volleyball coach and summer volleyball camp di-rector Cassie Baxter said par-ticipating in any camp gives youngsters a new experience and a chance to build their skill sets.

“This summer camp allows the youth in our area to enhance their skills while being on a college campus,” Baxter said. “Being able to see our state of the art facilities and interacting with current CRC athletes gives the child an opportunity to envision themselves at that level.”

Summer swim lessons were the first program offered when CRC opened in 1970 and remains the most popular camp to this day, said athletic director Liz Belyea.

“We run about 1,400 kids through that [swim] every summer,” Belyea said.

Each camp has its own goals and activities, like volleyball, which is offered to children ages 10 to 17 at the

beginner/intermediate and intermediate/advance levels, Baxter said.

“These skills camps are designed to focus on all aspects of the game with an emphasis on fundamentals,” Baxter said. “Drills and games are geared toward specific age and ability groups.”

Baxter said that both individual and team training as well as practice and play repetitions are emphasized.

Head swim coach, and director of the swimming camp for the past seven years, Elizabeth Abrams said that teaching water safety is her program’s main focus.

“Water safety is our number one goal. We are a community with lakes, rivers and pools surrounding us,” Abrams said. “We hope that these campers will go away from our program with the knowledge and ability to safe-ly swim independently. In ad-dition to safety, teaching the proper techniques and strokes provide the swimmers with a skill set they can use as they expand their participation in other aquatic programs in the community.”

Swim lessons are offered from the toddler level to beginning adult classes and private lessons.

Some camps also reward participants for their hard work.

“Camp ends with an all-camp tournament and awards ceremony,” Baxter said. “Each day ends with a number one

Attitude Award and number one Hustle Award from each team with a chance for a $5 Jamba Juice Award.”

Abrams said that the last

day of the swim camp is the one the kids enjoy the most.

“The best part of Summer Swim is the last day of each session,” Abrams said. “There is always a theme, staff dress up and fun games are a must. The kids love to see their swim instructor dressed up as their favorite Disney charac-ter.”

Prices vary by camp, but are very comparable to programs offered elsewhere, Belyea said.

There are also discounts for enrolling siblings, accord-ing to the Hawks website.

“Our summer swim program goes five days a week for two weeks while a lot of the other ones are four days a week for two weeks and charge about the same amount, so we are pretty com-petitive,” Belyea said.

While coaches and CRC faculty serve as directors, the program reaches into the community to find other staff.

“The people who teach, that we are really proud of, for summer swim that we have come in are a lot of kinesiology majors from Sac

State,” Belyea said. “We really try to have good quality staff rather than just people who are marking time.”

Campers can show off their new skills at other community events held on campus during the break like the Volleynation volleyball two-day doubles tournament for all ages and levels on Aug. 8 and 9.

For more information about the camps, enrollment or pricing visit crchawks.com/information/camp_informa-tion.

Courtesy Photo

Summer Camps Basketball: Ages 7-16July 6-10

Soccer: Ages 6-14

June 29- July 2, July 6-10, July 13-17

Swim: All Ages

June 8-19, June 22- July 3, July 6-17, July 20-31

Tennis:Ages 4-17July 6-10

Volleyball: Ages 10-17July 13-17


Being a sports fan is really hard.

Sure watching your team lose, trying to keep up with all the statistics of the chosen sport, buying mer-chandise to support the team or watching as the coach or manager makes a bonehead-ed move that sends the best player away can be hard.

What’s really hard though is having to reconcile that love of the sport with the fact that some of the people playing the sport or running the sport are not fi t to be cheered for because they are disgusting human beings.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. recently took home a giant paycheck, with more money to follow from endorse-ments, after a long antic-ipated fi ght with Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather has an admitt ed history of do-mestic abuse, a history that includes him serving time for his crimes.

Yet boxing fans fl ocked from all over, paying ob-scene amounts of money to watch the fi ght. Some did it because they were rooting for Pacquiao and wanted Mayweather to lose, but with a 50/50 chance of him winning they were still supporting him even if they didn’t realize it.

For that moment in time, crimes and abuse didn’t mean anything.

The same goes for the Baltimore Ravens’ Ray Rice, caught on video in late 2014 beating his wife Janay Rice, and the Minnesota Vikings Adrian Peterson, who savagely beat his son with a switch.

Many fans of the teams ignored the fact that the men did these heinous acts be-cause both are seen as some

of the most skilled players their teams have to off er.

Being a sports fan is hard because it’s not always cut and dry about the reac-tion of fans to these men and their crimes. What makes being a fan hard is that if you are a fan of the sport, but not what the offi cials or athletes do, it’s hard to walk away from what you love because of some bad eggs.

I’m a fan of football, a San Francisco 49ers fan all the way, but I was disgusted earlier this year when they refused to let go of defensive end Ray McDonald who was accused of domestic abuse.

The problem is, I love the sport of football and I love the 49ers. Even know-ing that poor decision that was made, I’m still a fan and wear their team merchan-dise proudly and can’t wait for the season to begin.

It’s a very murky area where the love of a team or sport and the disgusting acts of owners, athletes or offi cials meet. It should be a simple matt er to turn and leave it all behind, to vote with the wallets, to let these people know that what they did was wrong.

Yet, it’s not that simple. Loyalty to a sport or orga-nization is a hard feeling to shake. It really can’t be explained.

It needs to change though. Our silent accep-tance of this behavior of athletes and offi cials can’t continue.

With every piece of mer-chandise we buy or every ticket we purchase, we’re telling those in charge that no matt er what we’ll support the sport, team or athlete.

As sports fans, it’s a dangerous line we walk, and we need to stop walking it as soon as possible. While we still can and before it’s too late.

By Scott [email protected]

It’s not easy to be a sports fan

Editor in Chief: Heather KempFeatures Editor: Scott RedmondNews Editor: Nick ValenzuelaOpinion Editor: Johny GarciaSports Editor: Heather KempVisuals Editor: Ceejay Willis Faculty Adviser: Rubina Gulati

Sta� : Bobby Bishop, Omar Chan, Taylor Gomez, Nicole Goodie, Stephanie Lopez, Tierra Palumbo, Francisco Rodriguez, Tim Taylor, Jasmine Teng

The Connection is an award-winning newspaper published bi-weekly by the Journalism 410 & 411 media production class. Editorials and opinion pieces do not necessarily re� ect the opinions of the students, sta� or faculty of CRC or Los Rios Community College District. The Connection is a member of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges and California Newspaper Pub-lisher’s Association.

Letters to the Editor must be typed, signed and include the � rst and last name of the author and a phone number. They must be 200 words or less and may be edited for length, clarity or taste.

The ConnectionCosumnes River College

8401 Center ParkwaySacramento, CA 95823

Telephone: (916) 691-7471Fax: (916) 691-7181

[email protected]

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#CRCcampus

With their fi rst season behind them, the Cosumnes River College women’s swim team accomplished a lot in their inaugural year.

Being a new team to the campus, there were under-standably some growing pains, but the women did not let it stop them.

“A lot of the girls were either new to swimming or hadn’t swam for a period of time, so there was a huge learning curve from the begin-ning of the season to the end,” said CRC’s swimming head coach Elizabeth Abrams.

Abrams said that the small size of the team, which was only fi ve swimmers, end-ed up being very benefi cial for them in the long run.

“We had a really small group of girls, but the up-side to having a small team was that the girls got a lot of individualized att ention and training,” Abrams said. “We were able to focus on the girls individually and that also cre-ated a great team experience.”

The swimmers said that having a small team allowed them to grow strong friend-ships.

“It was a great season because we were able to bond so much and I know I made friends to last me a lifetime,” said freshman swimmer Natasha Supan, in an email interview.

The women received sev-enth place at the Big 8 Confer-ence this season.

“Even being so small we were strong enough as a team

not to be last like everyone expected,” said freshman Me-gan Lapomardo in an email interview. “We are the lady Hawks and we are here to make our claim in the pool.”

With some experience under their belts now, the women are ready to return to the pool with additional members next season.

“I will be returning next season to continue to get bett er and pick up where I left off at,” Lapomardo said. “I’m also looking forward to meeting the new coming girls and welcoming them to our amazing lady Hawks swim team.”

Some of the ways the coaches are recruiting are by informing the local high school swim teams about the new swimming program at CRC.

“Coach Sieger and myself have been going out to a lot of the local high schools in the area and visiting their teams, and just lett ing them know that we have a program,” Abrams said.

“In addition to that, just students on campus are in-quiring,” Abrams said.

And as far as future plans go, Abrams said that she is hoping to host games at the CRC pool with a bigger team next season.

“Small steps for big long-term goals is kind of where we’re at right now,” Abrams said. “We plan to host a few home meets next season, which will be a next step in growing our program and, in addition to that, just having a larger team with the hopes of being more competitive as a whole.”

By Stephanie [email protected]

Swim team looks to build its program after � rst season

Scott Redmond | The Connection

A swimmer from the Hawks team participating in an event at the Big 8 Invitational at American River College on March 13 .

THECRCCONNECTION.COM

The Cosumnes River College soft-ball team is offi cially moving on to the next round of playoff s after defeating the Fresno City Rams on May 2 and 3.

During their May 2 game, the team left the fi eld victorious with a 5-2 win and spectators were left wondering if the women could keep their mojo overnight and win their rematch the next day.

In the fi rst inning of game two, the Hawks experienced a rocky start, striking out almost immediately while Rams freshman pitcher Sarah Santana hit a homerun and brought her team to an early 1-0 lead.

At the top of the second inning, Hawks freshman shortstop Brenda Ve-lasquez and freshman pitcher Christy Satt erlee both got walks and Velasquez was able to score a run after a hit from freshman catcher Raechel Hooper.

With the score tied 1-1, the women quickly struck out the Rams, ending the second inning.

“One thing I like about this team is that we were down early and we don’t let it phase us,” said Hawks head coach Kristy Schroeder.

With the bases loaded in the top of the third, sophomore third base-man Hanna Miller’s hit to center fi eld earned her a 3 RBI double that brought home sophomore outfi elder Chris-tin Stein, sophomore pitcher Amanda Horbasch and freshman second base-man Kaitlin Pires, giving them a 4-1 lead.

The third and fourth innings proved to be diffi cult for the Rams as

the Hawks scored yet another run in the fourth when sophomore fi rst base-man Briana Cherry’s sacrifi ce bunt brought Velasquez home.

The Hawks kept their 5-1 lead into the sixth inning which they started with a bang, as Hooper hit a home run increasing their lead 6-1.

Although they tried, the Rams once again could not respond with any runs in the sixth. However, the Hawks were struck out quickly in the seventh inning, leaving the Rams one last shot at redemption.

With Rams sophomore pitcher Selena Ruiz on second and freshman pitcher Carissa McMillion on fi rst, freshman pitcher Aubrey Blankenburg got a walk, loading the bases.

With two outs, Santana was up to bat at the make or break moment that could have increased the Rams score and potentially lead to winning the game or going into extra innings.

Even though Santana hit a home run earlier and had two runners on base, Horbasch, was not intimidated and was able to strike Santana out as well, leaving the fi nal score at 6-1.

Schroeder said she was happy about the game’s outcome and some of its big plays.

“Hanna Miller came up big with the nice hit there,” Schroeder said. “And it was great that Raechel Hoop-er ended it with a home run there be-cause one run makes a big diff erence.”

Freshman pitcher Olivia Dibble said that the team played well through-out the entire game.

“We were consistent all the way through the game and didn’t really have a bad inning,” Dibble said.

The Hawks will next play Cabril-lo College in game two of the Super Regionals being held at Sierra College on May 8-10. Potentially, depending upon the outcome of their match with Cabrillo, the Hawks could face Sierra or Shasta colleges on May 9 and May 10 on their path to the State Finals.

Horbasch said she is confi dent and excited to be moving onto the next

round of playoff s.“I’m excited for it, we’ve taken Si-

erra before,” Horbasch said.Schroeder said that she hopes to

keep the team’s momentum going.“I feel prett y good going into

that and we’ll just keep doing all of the things that we’ve been doing and hopefully having a good showing off of it,” Schroeder said.


Hawks softball brings home the winA� er two consecutive victories against Fresno City, the team moves on to Super Regionals

Baseball beats Gavilan and continues

postseason play

The Hawks baseball team beat the Gavilan College Rams on May 1 and 2 during the fi rst round of playoff s.

Cosumnes River College’s team won their May 1 game 6-2.

“We played well,” said head coach Anthony Bloom-fi eld. “Fitchett [sophomore right fi elder Alex Fitchett ] had hit one out of the park and Blake [sophomore fi rst base-man Tyler Blake] hit one out the fi rst end in game one.”

During their May 2 game, the Hawks were once again victorious, winning 4-2.

“The second game was a nail biter until the last in-ning,” Bloomfi eld said. “We came through and bunted

some balls and played really well. I thought we were more talented than they were po-sition wise, but their pitchers matched up with our guys.”

Sophomore pitcher David Smith said that he thought their games went well.

“We played well together as a team and the guys were executing. We kept it loose, but at the same time serious,” Smith said.

Since the Hawks beat out Gavilan, they are moving on to play in Super Regionals on May 8 and 9 at Feather River College with the possibility of a tie breaker game on May 10.

Bloomfi eld said to prepare for their upcoming games the team is looking to eliminate mental errors and throw a lot of strikes.

“We’re going against the league champion in Feather River and it will be a tough

task for us, but we think that the Big 8 is the best confer-ence so we’ll see where we match up,” Bloomfi eld said.

Fitchett said that he will be treating their playoff games just like any other.

“I’m superstitious, but it’s just another weekend for us. We’ve just got to go in and keep a level head and keep the grind,” Fitchett said. “You can’t change just because it’s playoff baseball, you’ve just got to keep doing what you’re doing.”

Bloomfi eld said that the team he has this year reminds him of the Hawks state cham-pionship winning team he coached in 2012.

“It’s a good group of guys,” Bloomfi eld said. “Its got the same feeling that we had back in 2012, all we have to do is keep playing and keep winning.”

By Bobby Bishop & Heather Kemp

[email protected]


Freshman shortstop Brenda Velasquez running across home plate at the Hawks May 3 game against the Fresno City Rams during playo� s.

spring 2015 issue six

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