Pepperdine’s Johnson goes yard ve times to win WCC Player of the Week

Infielder hit .571 during four-game stretch, including an impressive showing at South Alabama Invitational

By MCKENZIE JACKSON Special to The Malibu Times

Pepperdine Waves baseball player

Ryan Johnson smashed ve home runs en route to being named the West Coast Conference Player of the Week on March 6. e senior in elder won the weekly recognition after batting .571 during a four-game stretch in which the Waves went 2-2.

Johnson, previously named the Player of the Week in March 2021, started all four contests. e slugger went 8-for-14 at the plate with 11 RBIs and seven runs scored in addition to the ve homers. In the rst matchup, a 6-5 loss to Cal

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State Northridge on Feb. 28, Johnson went 1-4 at the plate.

In the March 3-5 South Alabama Invitational, his bat caught ablaze. Johnson hit a three-run homer over the center eld wall in the rst inning to give Pepperdine a 3-0 lead over South Alabama in the rst game of the Invitational. He nailed a solo home run in the eighth inning. e Wave also hit a double and had walk. Johnson nished with ve RBIs, tying his career-high.

Johnson smashed two home runs in Pepperdine’s 16-0 victory over Southern on the second day of the Invitational. His rst, a two-run blast, was in the opening inning, giving Pepperdine a 2-0 lead. He smacked another two-run dinger three innings later. at over-the-fence hit gave the Waves a 7-0 lead. Johnson hit a deep sacri ce y ball to left eld in the seventh inning to drive in Pepperdine’s 12th run. He also walked in the contest and nished the game with ve RBIs.

Johnson’s fth homer was in Pepperdine’s 10-1 loss to Iowa on the Invitational’s nal day. He slammed the solo

In cinematography, deep focus keeps all elements of an image in sharp focus, simultaneously capturing key activities in the foreground and background.

“At the very least, deep sets are visually interesting. ey look good, they seem real, but there’s more to it than that,” Lebo said. “A deep set allows for deep focus, and Welles could highlight several issues at the same time.”

On a technical level, Citizen Kane is important for the innovative lighting and focusing methods of its cinematographer, Gregg Toland, and the dramatic editing style of Robert Wise. It was Orson Welles’s debut as a lm director, and it has been hailed by many critics as one of the greatest movies of all time.

“If you look at any movie from the ’30s and ’40s the action is from left to right, people talk, they move this way, and they don’t have a lot of creative freedom to move around,” Lebo said. “By extending the set back, the director Welles has much more creative freedom to move characters naturally, the way they normally do in life, through the scenes.”

While color lms were barely introduced around the 1930s and ’40s, “Citizen Kane” was lmed in black and white. Lebo said they had a tight budget and couldn’t a ord to use colored lm.

“I hope that you can see the making of ‘Citizen Kane’ was one long exercise and a brilliant problem-solving lm,” Lebo said. “And tonight we just began to touch on some of the elements that contributed to creating this cinematic lm.” e next Speakers Series segment is on Tuesday, March 21, at 7 p.m. and will feature Dr. Ian Jukes, the founder of the InfoSavvy Group, an international educational leader ship consulting rm based in Canada. He has been a classroom teacher, teaching every grade from kindergarten to grade 12. He has written or co-written 27 books and education series. His most recent books include: “Lit eracy is Still Not Enough,” “Learner Voice, Learner Choice,” “LeaderShift 2020,” “A Brief History of the Future of Education,” and the award-winning “Reinventing Learning for the Always-On Generation.” bomb over center eld in the rst inning. Johnson went 2-for-4 at the plate. e Waves opened the season on Feb. 17 with a win over Boston College, then they lost two straight to the Eagles be fore also losing to UCLA. ree games scheduled against Alabama were canceled before Pepperdine downed CSUN 5-4 on Feb. 26.

Lebo has written books on other iconic lms, including “ e Godfather” and “Casablanca” and served as a historical consultant to Para mount Pictures for the 50th anniversary of the release of “Citizen Kane.” In addition, he writes about cultural history, science, the humanities, society, and the impact of digital technology.

Johnson went 2-for-5 with a double and a walk in the rst game of Pepperdine’s doubleheader against Cal State Fullerton on March 12.

Throughout Pepperdine’s first 13 games of the season, Johnson is batting .422 with 19 hits, 16 RBIs, seven home runs, and four doubles. He led Pepperdine with 37 RBIs, 32 runs scored, 10 home runs, and 12 doubles last season. He also had 11 games with multiple RBIs, tops on the squad.

Pepperdine had a 5-8 record heading into its game against CSUN on Monday. After the loss to Iowa, the squad su ered an 11-1 loss to UC Santa Barbara and dropped two of its three contests to Cal State Fullerton.

Mending Kids

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Malibu families have hosted children from South America, Africa, the Philippines, and other impoverished areas as they await life-altering medical care. e local families serve as foster parents. ey take the children to medical appointments, accompany them to surgery, and participate in aftercare while they recuperate before eventually returning to their home countries.

“Often these families already have children,” Fox explained. “Many have children about the same age so it’s a great cross-cultural experience for both the host families and the patients. Often times, those families stay in touch with the patients after they’ve left the U.S.”

Back by popular demand, Mending Kids is throwing its birthday party at the Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue on March 18. e venue was selected speci cally as an architecturally interesting site with the added bene t of indoor/ outdoor space “to have people feel a little more comfortable,” said Fox.

“We’re honoring local realtor Chris Cortazzo, a Mending Kids supporter who has also hosted fundraisers at his Malibu home; Dr. Robert Cho, a Shriners pediatric surgeon; and Romina Ubillus, an inspiring former patient from Peru who will be sharing her journey back to health and now is a pre-medical student who wants to give back,” Fox added. e 200-seat event is sold out but the nonpro t is still accepting sponsorships for the gala program.

“We want to make 2023 the year we reach 5,000 kids mended and we want to go on to mend the same amount in half the time,” Fox said.