Not only did Elk Grove (Calif.) Franklin High upset The Sacramento Bee's top-ranked prep baseball team, but junior star Sean Nicholson made Davis (Calif.) High look silly.

Scoring amid a seven-run barrage in the top of the seventh inning, Nicholson leaped Davis catcher Hayden Duer in what The Bee aptly dubbed "a SportsCenter-like highlight," sealing a 12-3 upset of the top-seeded Blue Devils in the Division I sectional playoffs.

Franklin should never have even been in that position. Despite entering the sectional tourney with a 14-13 record, they've since won 3-of-4 postseason games -- including upset wins over Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills, Calif.) and Davis -- to improve to 17-14.

And Nicholson almost wasn't even on Franklin. This past summer, he transferred from crosstown rival Elk Grove -- the team that sent the Wildcats to the losers bracket despite a Nicholson RBI in a 9-6 second-round defeat on Saturday. California Interscholastic Federation rules prevented Nicholson from joining

Occasionally, a high school team moves beyond what is expected and does something far more gracious than expected. That was the case in California, where a boys volleyball team unilaterally offered to move a key match against a regional rival to accommodate the foe’s prom.

The Esperanza volleyball team celebrates it's Division 2 sectional crown — EHSVolleyball.net

As reported by the Los Angeles Times and a variety of other Souther California outlets, the Anaheim (Calif.) Esperanza High volleyball team was scheduled to face off against Goleta (Calif.) Dos Pueblos High on May 11. Unfortunately, that was the day of the Dos Pueblos prom.

The Dos Pueblos squad had a right to ask for a change in the time of the game, but not the date. Still, when Dos Pueblos asked to move the game to a new day, Esperanza agreed quickly out of principle.

"It was a classy move by Esperanza to help us out, and we really appreciate it," Dos Pueblos Athletic Director Dan Feldhaus told the Times’ Eric Sondheimer.

In the end, things still worked out of Esperanza, with the Aztecs knocking off Dos Pueblos 22-25, 25-13, 25-22, 25-21. The victory pushed Esperanza into the CIF Division 2 semifinals, albeit a couple days later.

Bob Ladoucer, the legendary coach whose role is being filled by Jim Caviziel — APThe San Francisco 49ers have emerged as one of the model organizations in the NFL. Behind the guidance of owner Jed York and coach Jim Harbaugh, San Francisco has transformed from a bottom feeder into a perennial Super Bowl contender with an abundance of offensive riches and defensive strength. At this point, the 49ers needs are more of the tweak variety than a systemic transformation.

So, what do the 49ers need? Apparently a legendary high school coach, if recent reports from Comcast Sports Bay Area are to be believed.

According to CSNBayArea.com’s Matt Maioco, a 49ers insider, Harbaugh has reached out to recently retired Concord (Calif.) De La Salle High head football coach Bob Ladoucer, sounding out the decades-long coach of the Spartans about a consulting job with the 49ers in which he would help Harbaugh navigate “team dynamics”.

That’s a major step up for Ladoucer, who led the De La Salle Spartans to 399 victories and a whopping eight mythical national titles. Ladoucer’s prep legend is so compelling that a major motion picture (starring Jim Caviziel) chronicling his life and tenure at De La Salle is currently under production.

For the moment, the former De La Salle head coach is still on the coaching staff for the Spartans, serving as a volunteer running backs coach. At the same time, he is playing an active mentoring role to new Spartans head coach Justin Alumbaugh, who told MaxPreps that his predecessor is apparently happy in his new more limited role, in part because it puts a limit on the stress he feels on a daily basis.

It had been more than 13 years since three-time Olympic gold medalist Brendan Hansen set the national public high school 100-yard breaststroke record at Philadelphia's Haverford Senior High in 53.67 seconds on March 10, 2000.

Then three California prep swimmers eclipsed that mark in a single race.

Campolindo (Moraga, Calif.) High senior Steven Stumph touched the wall in 53.39 seconds to capture the North Coast Section title at the Concord (Calif.) Community Pool (h/t MaxPreps), edging out Miramonte (Orinda, Calif.) High senior Charlie Wiser (53.57) and Granada (Livermore, Calif.) High junior Nick Silverthorn (53.61).

"I haven't seen anything like it," Campolindo coach Ron Heidary told the Contra Costa Times. "I think the consensus from everybody I talked to was that was the most extraordinary heat of swimming that anybody has ever seen."

Steven Stumph set the national high school 100-yard breastroke record this weekend -- blip.tv

CollegeSwimming.com's No. 12 senior recruit, the USC-bound Stumph also won the 100-yard butterfly in a North Central Section record time of 47.88 seconds in addition to swimming the second leg of the winning 200-yard medley and 400-yard freestyle relay squads that finished in meet record times of 1:30.52 and 3:01.70, respectively.

Naturally, Stumph's Campolindo team cruised to the North Coast Section championship.

In the movies, Andrew Garfield can shatter backboards from the 3-point line, as he did in "The Amazing Spider-Man." Sure, he traveled and committed an offensive foul, but some impressive roundball skills nonetheless. In real life? Spidey has no skills.

A YouTube video posted over the weekend seems to catch the tail end of a pickup game between Garfield and a pair of little kids in New York City's Chinatown (h/t Big Lead).

The 29-year-old actor has his pocket picked by one kid and can only watch as the child's buddy drains what appears to be a game-winning bucket in his eye. Not even the costume could save Garfield, who was in Manhattan shooting "The Amazing Spider-Man 2."

Garfield previously showed off his awkward form and poor shooting percentage at a charity event last summer. With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently Garfield's responsibility is to repeatedly get beat at basketball by New York City youth.

Garfield has good reason for his basketball inadequacy. He was raised in England by a swimming coach of a father who also subjected him to gymnastics at City of London's Freemen's School. It takes a rare talent like Manute Bol or Tim Duncan to turn swimming success into court clout. And Garfield is no Big Fundamental.

"I was a gymnast and swimmer until 13," Garfield once told Britain's The List. "Then I gave sports up and started naval gazing. I needed something to keep me afloat, so my parents suggested acting classes. I took them and a very encouraging teacher suggested I could make a career out of it. As soon as that happened, I felt some kind of purpose."

Little League is an a sports association of inclusion, with teams finding ways to accommodate those who might not play elsewhere. There’s even an entire division for players who are mobility impaired.

Yet a Little League in Massachusetts has taken a hard line against one 12-year-old, and not because of anything he’s lacking. Rather, he’s just too good on the mound … or at least with "too much power.”

As reported by MassLive.com, the web home of the Springfield Republican, 12-year-old Westfield, Mass. native Tanner Beebe is a member of a team in the Westfield “Minor League” division, in which all his friends and other 12-year-olds play. Like any number of players in the division, Beebe is an aspiring pitcher, and appeared dominant early in the season. That’s when a league official clocked him tossing 60 mile-per-hour strikes from the traditional Little League mound -- roughly equivalent to an 80 mile-per-hour MLB changeup -- the league stepped in and banned him from pitching.

The reason for the ban is that technically Beebe is too old to pitch in the Minors division. Yet the Westfield League has traditionally let 12-year-olds continue to pitch regardless of age or size.

12-year-old Tanner Beebe is no longer allowed to pitch because of his power — Don Treeger:MassLive.com

Beebe isn’t a threat for his size -- he stands approximately 5-foot-1 and 90 pounds -- but he is for his talent. Yet, rather than see him promoted to the higher “Majors” division, Beebe and his father, with support of league officials, agreed that he should continue playing in the Minors. There’s a good reason for that, too; before this year Beebe had focused on lacrosse, so he is only making his baseball debut at age 12.

Beyond that, Beebe’s father, Chris Beebe, serves as his coach in the Minors, meaning that the 12-year-old would have to leave his father’s team to continue pitching legally. Chris Beebe vociferously defends the family’s decision to place their novice son in the Minors, pointing out that developmentally he was “a full five years behind the 12-year-olds in the majors.”

That the youngster emerged as a pitching phenom was a surprise to everyone, yet now it has landed the league in hot water. When Westfield Little League officials appealed to the Eastern regional chapter of Little League in Bristol, Conn, the Connecticut association refused to grant any leniency and allow him to continue pitching.

The report to the Little League Eastern office followed a slee of complaints about Beebe's dominance on the mound, with parents reportedly taunting the 12-year-old during games.

Instead, I supporting the Beebes attempt to regain his pitching eligibility, Little League threatened to take back the league’s Little League charter if Beebe continued to pitch.

It’s not as if Alexandria (Va.) St. Stephens/St. Agnes School goalie Sam Beazell was in desperate need of positive press. The goalie has long been a steady stalwart in cage throughout his senior season, justifying the scholarship he’ll accept to play at Loyola next year in the process.

Still, Beazell found an intriguing way to steal headlines during the Saints’ Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association tournament, landing himself on both sides of the scoring ledger.

The play that put Beazell in the rarified air of goalies who score is the one you see above, where he launched a pitch-perfect 80-yard heave that caught his counterpart for Woodberry (Va.) Forest School out of position and earned St. S/St. A a big goal in what was at the time a tight state semifinal.

Of course, that perfunctory description doesn’t do Beazell’s strike justice. The goalie flung the shot sidearmed, giving it a good hard hurl and then watching it fly all 80-yards through the air, striking the Woodberry Forest goal without so much as a bounce en route.

Now that is scoring your first goal with a flourish.

It’s one thing to throw a perfect game. It’s another entirely to do so in the manner that Michael Strem did.

St. Francis' Michael Strem, number 10, twirled a perfect game in the CIF playoffs — YouTube

As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, Strem tossed a perfect game in a 2-0 victory against Monta Vista (Calif.) High, leading Mountain View (Calif.) St. Francis School on to the second round of the California Interscholastic Federation Central Coast Section Division I playoffs.

Incredibly, Strem retired the 21 batters he faced on just 66 pitches, an average of just more than 3 pitchers per batter. According to the Mercury News, 48 of Strem’s offerings were strikes, with the St. Francis ace finishing the game with a total of 8 strikeouts.

As it turns out, it’s an awfully good thing that Strem was so effective. If he wasn’t, his team wouldn’t be playing anymore. The game remained a 0-0 stalemate until the sixth inning, when a single by St. Francis batter Mark Cardinalli drove in the game’s two runs with a single through the infield.

Naturally, Strem isn’t the first high school ace to toss a perfect game. Still, to spin the gem he did in the playoffs, with the efficiency of his pitch count is some achievement.