Eighty-six cars spread out over five diverse racing divisions kicked off the holiday weekend with an exciting night of side-by-side action Saturday at Bakersfield Speedway.   Loren De Armond of Lemoore capped off the evening in style, winning the 25-lap IMCA Northern Sport Mod feature.   De Armond blew past early leader John Piker with 11 laps to go and then outdueled Robbie Witwer of Ridgecrest to take the checkered flag following a restart with four laps left.   “It feels really good,” De Armond said after his first win and top-5 of the year. “We’ve been running a lot better than our finishes.”   Piker was shown a mechanical black flag during a lap 16 caution and finished near the back of the 20-car field.   Witwer ended up as the runner-up. Darrell Hood finished in third. Mike Johnson was fourth and Geoff Menees fifth.   Earlier in the evening, Witwer held off a late charge from Piker to win the division’s 6-lap Trophy Dash.   “I never saw him,” Witwer said of Piker, who drove hard into the final turn in attempt at a winning pass.   Justin Yadon drove his 1935 Plymouth to victory in the 20-lap Okie Bowl Hard Top A-main.   Yadon powered underneath Bob Courtney coming out of turn four with six laps remaining and then held off Matt McCaslin by half a car length at the finish.   Allen Lehtienen was third. Brad Pesheck finished fourth and Josh Yadon took fifth.   Earlier in the race, Courtney used the same move Yadon put on him to take the lead, passing Justin Gonzalez, who held the point for the race’s first 11 circuits.   “They have been great races all night long,” Justin Tadon said. “ … This is an exciting time. This is a lot of fun.”   Doug Shepherd dominated the 20-lap Mini Stock feature, ending Clay Wattenbarger’s winning streak.   Shepherd passed Kyle Hood for the lead on lap two and never relinquished the point, holding off Wattenbarger in a green-white-checkered finish.   “I was really having to work hard tonight,” Shepherd said. “Clay’s a great driver.”   Wattenbarger, who won the previous three Mini Stock feature races, started in 12th and quickly picked his way up through the field to fourth place by lap seven. Not long after that division points leader was the closest challenger to Shepherd.   On the final dash to the finish Wattenbarger got bumped by another car allowing Darren Sherman to get by him for second. Brian Daves was fourth and Ethan Dotson took fifth.   Earlier, Wattenbarger followed up a win in his heat race by claiming victory in the first Mini Stock Trophy Dash of the Year.   “That was fun starting from the back and working my way to the front,” Wattenbarger said after the 6-lap Trophy Dash.   Anthony Balcazar took the top spot in Senior Mini Dwarf action.   Balcazar passed early leader Omar Macies Jr. at the midway point of the 20-lap race and then pulled away for his second feature win of the year.   Making only his second start of the year, Macies Jr. led the first 10 laps after starting on the pole.   Division points-leader Cameron McCauley took second, followed by Jeremy Clark and Tyler Bannister. Macies Jr. ended up finishing fifth.   Kabe McClenny continued his hot streak in the Junior Mini Dwarf division, winning a third straight A-main event.   McClenny passed Gavin Manning, who led a race-high seven laps, with five circuits remaining and then cruised to an easy victory.   McClenny who was 14th on the starting grid, worked his way up to sixth by the race’s first caution on lap three.   After that he steadily gained ground on Manning, eventually passing him on the backstretch. Kaden Cochrun was second, followed by Jake Pike, Lela Brogdon, and defending track champion Sunnie Simkins.

Poor pitching and a slumbering offense once again plagued the Bakersfield Blaze.

Playing without injured first baseman Donald Lutz, who leads the league in home runs with 13, Bakersfield was out hit 17-8 en route to a 9-5 loss to the San Jose Giants in Game 2 of a three-game set on Friday night at Sam Lynn Ballpark.

Cal State Bakersfield freshman Mitchell Huxhold has made the U.S. Olympic Trials cut in the 1,500-meter freestyle.

Huxhold's time of 15 minutes, 48.96 seconds during Friday's preliminaries at the Speedo Grand Challenge topped the Trials cut of 15:53.89 for the event.

Ridgeview was the defending Division III Central Section softball champion, but if there was any doubt Hanford West came to play, it was erased during the Huskies' first at-bat.

Bria Kennedy roped a double off the wall in left field, the first of her three hits, setting the tone for Hanford West's 4-0 victory over Ridgeview on Friday in the D-III title game.

Austin Davis had plenty of help as he earned his first collegiate victory for Cal State Bakersfield.

The Roadrunners built a 14-0 lead by the third inning and coasted from there in an 18-8 win over UC Santa Barbara Friday night at Hardt Field.

TAFT -- The RBI single up the middle never came. Neither did the run-scoring double to the gap or game-changing home run.

All season long, the hits and runs had been plentiful for the Taft High softball team.

NEWARK, N.J. -- Adam Henrique scored off a wild scramble in front at 1:03 into overtime and the New Jersey Devils defeated the New York Rangers 3-2 to advance to their first Stanley Cup finals since 2003.

The Devils will face the Los Angeles Kings for the Cup in a series that will start in Newark on Wednesday.

Baseball

Central Section Division III championship

AUSTIN, Texas -- Cal State Bakersfield sprinter Jordan Taylor advanced to the second round of the 100 meters Thursday at the NCAA Division I West Regionals at the University of Texas.

Taylor, the Great West Conference champion in the 100 and 200, ran the 100 in 10.39 seconds, the 22nd fastest time of 47 runners who advanced.

KERMAN -- All day Thursday, Bakersfield Christian senior pitcher Casey Bloomquist told himself he needed to be on his "A" game when he faced top-seeded Kerman.

Bloomquist pitched brilliantly in the Central Section Division IV championship baseball game, but it wasn't enough.

FRESNO -- It wasn't exactly a thunderous hit, and it didn't come from a star player, but in 50 years, it's the one Garces players will tell their grandchildren about.

The Rams' No. 9 hitter, Steven Hardt, hit a seeing-eye single through the right side to score pinch-runner Chris Sakowski and lift Garces to a 4-3 victory in eight innings in Friday's Division III Central Section baseball championship at Fresno High.

Production crews, actors and extras spent four long days making movie magic this week at Auto Club Famoso Raceway and will wind up shooting scenes for "Snake and Mongoose The Movie" this morning.

The film, which is planned for release in the spring of 2013, tells the story of one of the greatest rivalries in sports history and of the groundbreaking accomplishments of Don "the Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen in the world of entertainment sports marketing and sponsorship though drag racing. Prudhomme was on hand every day of production to lend his advice. McEwen arrived at the track Thursday.

Hunters can now purchase 2012-2013 hunting licenses and apply for the Big Game Drawing online, the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) announced. Transactions can be conducted at any DFG license sales office, license agent or online.

All premium deer hunt tags, and elk, antelope and bighorn sheep tags are awarded through the DFG Big Game Drawing. To qualify for the Big Game Drawing, the sales transaction must be completed before midnight on June 2, 2012. When the transaction is complete, the customer will receive a receipt to show their hunt choices have been entered in the drawing. Mail-in applications will not be accepted. Beginning June 22, hunters can contact a DFG license sales office or look online to check the results.

Kern County, southern San Joaquin Valley

LAKE ISABELLA: Wind and rising water levels continue to be a problem for the crappie anglers. The bite is fair, very spotty. Boat anglers are getting a few fish off Rocky Point and Kissack Cove in 10 to 25 feet of water. These continue to be quality fish to 2 pounds with most fish in the 1-4 to 1-8 range. The catfish action is probably a better bet with very good action in most of the coves on fish to 5 pounds on frozen shad and mackerel. The trout remain pretty good at the auxiliary dam. Also quite a few bass being caught and the bluegill bite is just starting.

Nisa Ontiveros strikes out an awful lot of batters for Ridgeview High's softball team, but she's not afraid to rely on her defense.

That became quite literal in the seventh inning of Wednesday's Central Section Division III semifinal, when Ontiveros went full extension to catch an infield pop-up, lost her balance -- and caught herself when she wrapped second baseman Jackie Marintez in a bear hug.

You can't have high school football without officials, and you can't have officials if they all retire without replacements.

That's a growing problem, said Ken Lopez, treasurer of the Kern County Officials Association. He said a number of older officials are nearing the end of their careers, and the organization's farm system isn't exactly deep.

Softball

Central Section semifinals

Porterville-Monache had too much offense, and too much Kaitlyne Thompson, for Frontier Wednesday afternoon.

The eighth-seeded Marauders, fresh off an upset win over top-seeded Garces in last week's Central Section Division II softball quarterfinals, scored runs in each of the first five innings to beat the defending champion Titans, 9-2 at Frontier.

The 17th Arvin City Amateur Championship is scheduled to be played this weekend on the Sycamore Canyon golf course in Arvin, but a small field, if the tournament is played, will compete.

As of Wednesday afternoon, only a handful of players had signed up to play in the event which is the first of six of the Michelob Ultra/Sports Authority Player of the Year tournaments in which players earn points in the championship flight towards the 2012 Player of the Year title.

Hail Mary is a football term, but it's also a Catholic term, so maybe it's fitting that Garces pulled off the baseball version Tuesday.

The Rams scored five seventh-inning runs to stun Lemoore 6-5 at home in the Central Section Division III semifinals.