The Granite Bay Volleyball team was not so lucky in their second pre-season game. 3-0  was the final score. Each match was neck-in-neck, both teams only behind or up by a few points.

The first match was a close 24-26, the second 20-25, and the final was 24-26.

The ball was everywhere, saves were common and great plays were made. Each team wanted the same thing and was willing to fight hard for it.

In the end, it was a tough game, but a great one at that.

The game took place on the football field on Wednesday, September 1^st at 7:00 PM and was a great start for this season.

With the event of the Youth Soccer Night occurring the same evening, there was a large crowd of fans and younger soccer players cheering for them as they took on the Whitney High School Wildcats for the first time this year.

Before the start of the game, the players were escorted onto the field by Eureka Youth Soccer players, a tradition of Youth Soccer Night.

The first half of the game was slow, with a few strikes from both teams.  The Grizzlies had two very nice strikes in the first 20 minutes, one by Kendall Modiste (#10) and one by Connor Puhala (#22).

The Grizzlies played mostly on the offense, keeping the ball close to Whitney’s goal box. Lucas Schorer (#4) was a key member in defense, making sure the Wildcats could never get too close to Granite Bay’s goal. Kevin Hollingshead (#12) also did well as goalie, blocking any attempt at the goal by Whitney players.

Both Connor Puhala and Connor Hallisey (#7) were key players on offense, making several strikes and attacks.

The first half ended 0-0, but with great attempts from both teams.

After the half-time 10-minute game between the U-11 Boys Select Soccer teams, the second half of the game began and the Grizzlies took charge of the game from the very moment it started.

A few seconds into the second half, Tanner Thompson (#16) scored a swift goal.

10 minutes later, Tyler Thompson (#23) scored the second goal for the Grizzlies with Cody Giddings (#18) on assist.

Tyler Thompson also scored the third goal for Granite Bay as a result of the ball hitting the side pole of the goal box and bouncing in, making it his second goal of the game.

A few minutes later, Tanner Thompson made a penalty kick into the goal, making it his second goal of the game as well.

The fifth goal for Granite Bay was brought in by Kendall Modiste with Cody Giddings on assist.

Ben Steinher made the final goal of the game for the Grizzlies in the last two minutes, bringing the final score to 6-0 and defeating the Whitney High School Wildcats.

The Grizzlies started strong in the first quarter with a score on a safety for two points. In the next series the Grizzlies scored a touchdown pass made by quarterback Brendan Keeney to Correy Brehm  making the score 9—0  in the first 8 minutes of the game.

The Grizzlies continued to lay on the touchdown passes caught by Matt Kasner, Chris Campbell and Danny Thomas leading the game 29—0.

Showing some fight, the Raiders scored 12 points on the Grizzlies before the half making for a much closer ball game.

In the second half the Grizzlies kicked off to the Raiders and the defense held them getting a hold of the ball and making it to the end zone to score for a 24 point lead. The Grizzlies threw an intercepted pass on the next series making the game 36—18.

The defense made a defensive touch down by knocking the ball out of the Raiders quarterback’s hands which was recovered by Ashwin Subramanian, but on the next kick off the Raiders ran the ball down the field for a touchdown making the score 42—24 and ending the game with an 18 point lead by the Grizzlies.

After the game offensive coach Mike Lynch said, “We weren’t surprised by what they were doing… they’re good athletes… they matched up very favorably with us size wise and our guys did a very good job protecting our quarterback.”

 Head coach Ernie Cooper said he wants to work on making the team more balanced. “We had no running touchdowns tonight… we had 5 passing touchdowns… and we scored on the fumble recovery in the end zone.”

Cooper also said later that there were just ten men on the field for one of the kick-off returns. “We were trying to get some guys in the game and we just messed up… we’ll look at the film and we’ll figure out how to correct it,” Cooper said.

The team also experienced some minor cramps their first game taking some of the players off the field. “Because of the hot weather all week, their tanks weren’t full going in and that’s how you get cramps…. So we really have to work on hydration,” Cooper said

Lynch agreed that hydration was a key factor in the game as well. “Our guys need to eat nutritionally. They need to get a lot of potassium in their diet.”

Overall, Cooper thought the team played well and made clear to the players that “everyone on the team is important whether or not you’re a starter doesn’t mean you’re not important.”

For the last five months, The Gazette has been requesting copies of documents from the Roseville Joint Union High School District about a complaint filed against the district by a Granite Bay High School parent.
   The district has resisted and fought The Gazette’s requests.
   But several experts, including a Sacramento attorney who represents professional newspapers in California, say the district is not in compliance with state law regarding access to public records, and the school district could be legally liable for its failure to comply.
   A complaint was filed last fall against a GBHS teacher and administrators on behalf of GBHS senior Carson Schmidley by his parents.

   The Gazette filed several requests with the district for a copy of the complaint. All the requests were eventually denied.
   Jim Ewert, an attorney for the California Newspaper Publishers Association in Sacramento, advises member newspapers about various laws that affect access to both public meetings and government-related information.
   According to Ewert, nearly any document pertaining to a state or local agency, such as a school or school district, is a publicly accessible document.
   “Under the Public Records Act, any document that is created, used or maintained by a state or local agency is presumed to be a publicly available document, unless there is an exemption in the law that allows the agency to withhold that document,” Ewert said.
   John Bowen, an adjunct professor of journalism at Kent State University in Ohio and the chairman of the national Journalism Education Association’s scholastic press rights commission, explained in an e-mail interview that obtaining documents is a relatively simple process – at least in theory.
   “One simply has to ask for them, being as precise as possible,” Bowen said. “Every citizen has a right to access of public documents. The agency might be able to charge a reasonable fee to cover copying and take a reasonable time to organize the materials, (but public documents generally must be made public).”
   In other words, any citizen has the right to view a public document.
   “Any member of the public (can obtain these documents),” Ewert said. “There is no age requirement. All you have to do is walk in and ask for it.”
   Bowen explained that, too often, public officials judge the validity of requests for public documents instead of simply complying.
   “(The) most common (reason for denial of a public records request) is the feeling that materials requested are not public documents and not available to the public,” Bowen said. “Also, (officials think) that documents can be denied unless the person can claim a ‘need to know.’  You do not have to explain why you want the documents.”
   Attorney and law professor Paul Nicholas Boylan explained in an e-mail interview that often, once someone faces resistance from a public agency, they assume they’re not entitled to the documents and back off.
   “Students face the same obstacles every ordinary citizen faces: ignorance of the law,” Boylan said. “Public agencies that want to keep information away from public scrutiny or examination take advantage of and depend on people – students or otherwise – not knowing their rights. They say no, and 90 percent of the time that’s all they have to do. No one questions the decision to say no.”
   In order to prevent agencies from using loopholes, the California Public Records Act clarifies what agencies can and cannot do to avoid supplying documents they wish to withhold.
   “The California Public Records Act forbids local agencies, including school districts, from taking advantage of mistakes people make when requesting public records,” Boylan said.
   Boylan also explained that the Act also requires agencies to aid requestors in clarifying their requests, in order to obtain the documents they seek.
   Some documents are exempt from the Public Records Act and cannot be obtained by the general public.
   “There are a whole host of statutes that describe categories of documents that may be withheld,” Ewert said. “For instance, if a document is generated by an attorney who is representing the client, (it) is considered an attorney-product document, and that document is not required by the school district to be disclosed, especially (when) it would harm the district’s ability to carry out litigation or negotiations.”
   According to Ewert, however, most government documents are generally supposed to be accessible to the public.
   “There are more documents that can be accessed than cannot be accessed,” Ewert said.
   Bowen said the illegal withholding of documents is not that unusual in the United States.
   “I have heard of plenty of instances (of documents being withheld illegally),” Bowen said. “The only (problem that) one my students, when I taught high school journalism, ran into was a librarian refusing to give us a list of teachers who used the Internet in the school library. She felt we did not have a right to that information. We filed a request with the principal and had the information within 20 minutes.”
   Bowen said any type of document is susceptible to being withheld illegally, but financial records are the most common.
   “Any time a local agency has something to hide, they will put up road blocks to stop anyone from discovering the truth,” Boylan said. “It can be for any or no good reason.  Lately, the most common dispute involves electronic records, such as e-mails.
  Boylan said he’s currently involved in litigation in which a client requested e-mails from a public agency. The agency agreed to comply, but only with hard-copy printouts of the e-mails. According to Boylan, the Public Records Act requires electronic records to be provided in the electronic format in which they are maintained, but public agencies don’t want to do that because documents in electronic format can be quickly and easily searched for specific terms.
   “E-mails in particular have what is known as ‘metadata’ attached to them,” Boylan said. “Metadata shows where an e-mail came from, where it was sent and even who may have altered it.  Secret messages – even photographs – can be hidden in metadata that doesn’t show on the e-mail message page.  This is the kind of thing public agencies don’t want to produce because they are afraid of what it might reveal.”
   The Gazette was seeking two types of documents in particular – a copy of the claim filed against the district by the Schmidley family and copies of e-mails between several faculty members and administrators pertaining to the claim.
   “Claims are considered disclosable documents under the Public Records Act,” Ewert said. “The Public Records Act requires the redaction of information that is exempt and also requires the district to disclose the remainders of the document.”
   In layman’s terms, the law requires the district to comply with The Gazette’s request for a copy of the formal claim, and there isn’t a whole lot of gray area except that the district could redact – or edit out – any nondisclosable information, Ewert said.
   E-mails are slightly more complicated, however.
   E-mails written by public school employees are accessible to the public because they are, in theory, owned by the school district. However, if they contain nondisclosable information, the e-mail is still disclosable, but the nondisclosable information can be redacted.
   “The agency would be required to redact, or black out, that information which is exempt from disclosure and provide the requestor with the remainder of the documents,” Ewert said. “If it contained confidential student information, then that information would be required to be redacted, and the remainder of the document would be required to be disclosed.”
   On The Gazette’s first attempt to obtain the Schmidley documents in January, an e-mail from Steve Williams, the district director of pupil personnel services, denied The Gazette access to both the claim and the e-mails. He argued that the Public Records Act did not apply.
   Williams, in his e-mail, said the law is nullified when the document is related to a particular identifiable student.
   Ewert said the option for an individual or organization whose records request is denied is simple – appeal or sue.
   In order to avoid litigation, The Gazette requested the documents a second time via letter, which cited court cases supporting The Gazette’s right to the documents.
   Ten days later, The Gazette received a letter from attorneys working for the district who noted that the district would require an additional 14 days to respond to the records request.
   Terry Filliman, the lawyer who wrote the letter informing The Gazette of the delay, declined to comment.
   The Gazette eventually received a letter from Ron Severson, the district assistant superintendent of personnel, who noted that all The Gazette’s requests for public records were denied.
   The letter included several arguments why the district believed The Gazette was not entitled to the documents.
   It said “the request is not specific enough for the district to understand.” It also said that “the public interest in withholding these documents clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure” and that “the request is denied as it appears to seek access to records pertaining to pending and/or threatened litigation to which the district is a party.”
   Phillip Trujillo, whose law firm was cited in the letter written by Severson, declined to comment.
   Severson said he believes the district has always acted legally when it comes to Public Records Act requests.
   “To my knowledge (the district has never withheld documents illegally),” Severson said. “We tend to run these by our attorneys and follow their best legal advice.”
   Boylan, however, said he believes The Gazette was legally entitled to the requested documents.
   “(I) absolutely (believe the documents The Gazette requested were withheld illegally),” Boylan said. “I’ve read the request and the district’s responses.  (The Gazette) ask(ed) for e-mails. The district rejected your request on the grounds that the e-mails you are asking for are “student records” (that are) exempt.
   “That isn’t true. Those e-mails are public record within the reach of the (California Public Records Act).   The district is allowed to black out – or redact – private information within those e-mails, like student names or private phone numbers, but they have to produce the rest of the e-mail, including the metadata.”
   Ewert also said none of the reasons in the district’s letter warrant the denial of The Gazette’s requests.
   “Just to be clear, my understanding is the request was made for (copies of) a claim that was filed with the school district,” Ewert said. “That (kind of) claim has been determined by several courts and several attorney general opinions to be disclosable under the Public Records Act. (So if no documents were received, and there was no offer to redact information), then it would be in violation of the law.
   “You have a lawyer, on the record, saying that the district violated the law.”

Wear it.
The terry cloth most towels are made from is comfortable, light and absorbent, making beach towels perfect for refashioning into workout wear.
To make a sporty wristband, cut an approximately 2” x 7” piece of fabric from your towel. You may want to double-check that the strip is long enough by wrapping it around your wrist. Fasten it around your wrist with safety pins or sew on a button and make a corresponding hole for a more permanent fit.
To make a matching headband, simply cut a strip of fabric from the same towel and tie it around your hairline.
To make an eco-friendly sleep mask, trace a mask-shaped pattern (available free online) onto a piece of construction paper. Pin this to your towel, and cut the fabric along the pattern. Add two holes and ribbon. Cut eye holes for a spa mask.
Beach towels can also be folded into undeniably stylish togas, which can be safety pinned or tailored and sewn to fit.

Reuse it.
Beach towels, even at their rattiest and most worn out, can still be salvaged and used for something useful.
To make a phone sock, fold your towel in half, so that you will only have to cut out your pattern once. Trace a pattern slightly larger than your cell phone onto construction paper, cut it out and pin it to your folded towel. Cut around the pattern. Mesh the two halves of the phone sock together, inside-out, so that the prettier side of the towel is facing in.
Sew three of the four sides of the phone sock together, leaving one open for your phone. Flip it inside out and voila!
If you own a dog, you can make a simple dog toy by tightly braiding three longer strips of towel fabric together and tying off the ends with shorter pieces.
If you’re a cat owner, you can make a toy for your kitty by following the cell phone sock tutorial, adding catnip or small, cut-up bits of towel fabric as stuffing and sewing up what would have become the cell phone opening.
To spice up your bathroom décor, you can fold your beach towel like origami, using one of the myriad of YouTube tutorials on the subject. There are methods of folding everything from elephants to swans.
For quick pedicure toe-dividers, wedge rolled-up strips of towel material between your toes.
If your car becomes an oven during the day, you can fashion a nifty sit-upon to avoid having your legs glued to your upholstery. Either drape your towel over the seat, or cut out a small cushion from the fabric. You can also make steering wheel grips from towel fabric strips by wrapping them around the wheel and rubber-banding them in place.
If you find your towel is too bedraggled-looking to make something out of it, you can never have too many rags lying about the house. Simply cut it into squares. Hem the edges for a more clean-cut look. These mini-towels can always come in handy, from polishing screens and CDs to wiping up spills.

Give it.
If your towel has survived the summer somewhat unscathed, you could always try to give it a new home.
Some charities will sell donated towels at consignment shops, such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army. These organizations are more likely to accept beach towels in good condition with few stains.
Animal shelters, such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, will often accept used towels as bedding for pets. They are also very appreciative of dog and cat toys (see above).

No matter what you choose to do with your summer beach towel come September, be creative. Make nifty towel trinkets and help conserve the world’s resources.

Scooby Snacks are no longer just a dog treat. Now, they can be enjoyed by people, too.

Remember when you used to watch the TV show Scooby Doo?  Scooby was always rewarded with a “Scooby snack.” Now, the fictional treat has become a reality. It’s sweet and salty, and it’s the ultimate combination of mouth-watering tastes. This sweet treat is sure to satisfy your fix for a guilty pleasure without making your waistline suffer.

Ingredients:
1 12 oz. bag of M&M’s
1 12 oz. bag of Rolo candies or Hershey Kisses
1 9 oz. bag of pretzels (any shape, but Snyder’s Butter Snaps work the best)
Instructions:
   Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place pretzels out on a cooking sheet, but be sure to make sure they don’t overlap.
   Next, unwrap the  Rolos or Hershey Kisses. This is the most tedious and time consuming part of the recipe, but be patient as you work through it because it is worth the reward.
   Once you have finished unwrapping the candy, place one on top of every pretzel so that by the time you are finished, all the pretzels on your cookie sheet have a delicious piece of chocolate on top of them.
   Place the pretzels and chocolate in the oven, allowing the chocolates to slightly melt. It’s not an exact science, but this should take no more than five minutes.
   After you take the slightly melted chocolates and pretzels out of the oven, it’s time to work quickly. Take an M&M and press it into the top of the piece of melted chocolate. Be sure not to apply too much pressure.
  Once you have finished placing the M&Ms onto the Rolos or Hershey Kisses, place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator and let the treats cool.
  After about 15 minutes, the Scooby snacks should be ready to eat.
  This quick and easy treat is a great snack when you’re hanging out with a group of friends or even if you just have a craving for chocolate and pretzels.  No matter what, Scooby snacks are sure to be a crowd pleaser.