Monrovia 11, South Pasadena — The Tigers’ stay in first place was a brief one as Monrovia erupted early and rode Joe Mata’s five shutout innings to an easy win. Mata had three hits at the plate, as did David Perez.

La Canada 5, Temple City 1 — Sparty bounced back from last week’s loss to South Pas behind a stellar performance from lefty Justin Lewis, who went the distance. Lewis also had a two-run triple in the first inning.

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Arcadia’s search for a new varsity football head coach is ongoing. The school will be accepting applications through Apr. 8, according to AD Ryan Press and hopes to have a coach named by the start of spring practice.

Former head coach Chris Long resigned following the 2012 season, his only at the school.

Press also ended any speculation that former head coach Jon Dimalante is a candidate.

Aram’s take: As of now, there’s no teaching position. But, the school will reassess the situation after the school year once retirements and whatnot take place with the teaching staff. Not having a teaching position right away may depress the market. Have to worry about the program getting a late start. Hopefully somebody is overseeing the offseason weight training.

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The Rio Hondo League powers-that-be will vote Friday whether to bring/invite Crescenta Valley to join the league, according to a source.

It’s unclear whether Blair, which is struggling in several major sports, would stay or go. Blair reportedly wants to stay, which could mean a seven-team league.

Aram’s take: If you look at the RHL (for football) as Monrovia and everyone else, then this may do little for you. I guess it would be another speed bump for the Wildcats, but they still tower over the league. In other sports, well, that’s a different story and CV would be a pretty interesting add, especially in baseball. S

South Pasadena 4, La Canada 2 — The Tigers bounced back from last Friday’s loss to San Marino by bringing La Canada back down to earth. Christian Miyamea had two RBIs and got the save by getting the final two outs after La Canada loaded the bases with one out in the ninth.

Temple City 7, San Marino 1 — The Rams opened league play by opening up an early lead on the Titans and never looking back. Gabe Juarez got the win for TC, which is now in first place in the RHL with a 1-0 record (hey, that’s all it takes). San Marino suffered its first loss of the season.

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La Canada 2, Monrovia 1 — The Spartans got a walk-off single by Jacob Yonan in the seventh inning to hand Monrovia its first loss of the season and a loss in the Rio Hondo League opener for both teams. La Canada lefty Justin Lewis no-hit the Wildcats for 6 2/3 innings before leaving in favor Clayton Hermann, who struck out the last Monrovia hitter of the game to eventually earn the win.

San Marino 4, South Pas 0 — Jeff Bain goes the distance and helps himself at the plate with a two-run double.

Tim Tucker has been named the new varsity boys basketball coach at Maranatha on the same day he resigned the same title at Pasadena after 19 successful seasons.

The move comes a day after Tim Godley resigned as coach at Maranatha after five seasons. Tucker told his Pasadena team yesterday, then made it official by signing the paperwork at Maranatha on Tuesday afternoon.

“From a Bulldog to a Minuteman,” Tucker said of the address change. “It was probably the toughest decision that I’ve ever made as a coach. What it came down to is that I needed a change because I needed to be rejuvenated. I needed to be excited again and I was starting to get not as excited going to Pasadena High School because I was doing the same with different players.

“And the other side of it is that the offer Maranatha made to me was just too good to pass up.”

Tucker, a 1978 graduate of Pasadena, won two CIF championships as a player. As a coach, he led the Bulldogs to 15 league championship, including nine consecutive, and two CIF championships. Tucker has been named the Star-News Coach of the Year five times.

Because of its success, Pasadena was moved into the CIF Southern Section super division 1-AA, where some of the Southland’s top heavyweight programs play. The Bulldogs did not enjoy their usual deep postseason run, losing to Loyola in the second round of the playoffs.

Tucker is hopeful his longtime assistant coach Tony Brooks will be promoted to head coach at Pasadena, thus making for a smooth transition. Pasadena athletic director Kevin Mills sounded like he was on the same page, but wouldn’t get into specifics.

“Stay tuned,” Mills said. “I have some thoughts, but I don’t want to put them out there just yet. I want to run it by the powers-that-be. But I have a thought that could make it a smooth transition.”

Tucker played for legendary former Bulldogs coach George Terzian and certainly carried on the legacy of success as a coach. His Pasadena teams not only dominated the local landscape, but they consistently proved capable of beating some of the Southland’s best programs, too.

“There was some shock, a lot of disappointment and a lot questions about where the program was headed,” Tucker said about the reaction of his players at Pasadena when given the news.

“The tradition will continue on.”

Shifting from a large public school like Pasadena to a small Christian private school in Maranatha won’t be easy, but Tucker is already laying out plans to turn his new program into something special.

“Tim (Godley) had done a good job here and built a good foundation to help me not have to start from scratch,” Tucker said. “They’re a winning program. I don’t feel like I have a long way to go here to get it done. I think that you’ll see some things happen in our program, starting this summer.

“We’re going to do some of the same things we did at Pasadena. We’re not going to play an easy schedule. We’re going to play the teams that Pasadena played. This is the direction they want to go. They want to compete and I welcome the opportunity to make that happen.”

Tucker lives in Altadena and is owner and CEO of Bourne Inc., which is a non-profit company that provides residential group homes for at-risk children.

Pasadena coach Tim Tucker has been in talks with Maranatha officials about becoming the school’s next boys basketball coach.

Tucker has built Pasadena into an area and Southland power. On Monday, Maranatha put out a press release saying that Tim Godley had resigned after five seasons.

It should be noted that last offseason there was talk of Tucker nearly taking the job at La Salle before deciding to stay put at PHS. One source said that Tucker was even offered the La Salle job, before he turned it down. Jelani Gardner was ultimately hired by the Lancers.

Aram’s take: I’m trying to figure out the pros and cons of this. Obviously, a coach has more leeway at a private school in terms of transfers, but it’s not like PHS was having any trouble getting transfers in anyway. Maranatha is likely able to offer Tucker a bump in pay, so that’s a plus. Maranatha’s playoff division is pretty difficult for what the Minutemen have got in terms of talent, but, Pasadena plays in the toughest division in SoCal.

Tim Godley has resigned as Maranatha boys basketball coach, the school said via press release on Monday afternoon.

Godley was 93-49 in five seasons and his 2011 team won the Olympic League.

I count it as pure joy to have been in this position and look forward to the next chapter ahead,” Godley said in the press release. “I plan on continuing to teach at Maranatha for the foreseeable future.”

Pasadena Poly got two goals from Noel Askins and lead 4-0 deep into the second half before Oaks Christian scored twice in the closing minutes to make the final 4-2 on Saturday at Warren HS in Downey. Also scoring for Poly was Kayla Valencia and Simone Abegunrin.

A week after suffering its toughest loss of the season, the Pasadena Poly High School girls soccer team has a chance to end the season in style.

The Panthers will again be playing for championship hardware. This time, the CIF State Division 3 Southern California Regional championship against Oaks Christian at 10:30 a.m. at Warren High in Downey.

“It’s a real honor to be playing at this point,” Poly coach Pat Gray said. “Not many teams get the opportunity to play in two finals, let alone one. It’s the dream of most teams to play in a final or a championship of some kind, and we have the opportunity to play in two of them.

“Once we made it to the regional finals, it felt like a real honor for us to still be playing soccer when not to many high school teams are still playing right now in Southern California.”

Poly enters Saturday’s game at 22-2-1. The Panthers blasted University Prep in the first round of the state playoffs on Tuesday, then dispatched of St. Bonaventure on Thursday with a 2-1 win.

Last Saturday, Bishop Amat handed Poly only its second loss of the season with a 4-2 setback in the Southern Section Division 2 championship game. Oaks Christian is a two-time defending state champion, but lost to Poly last week, 4-2, in the semifinals of the Southern Section playoffs.

In that game, Poly standout Sarah Mendenhall injured her right knee and is out for the season. But during warmups, Oaks Christian defender Abbey King, who is actually a friend of Mendenhall, suffered a knee injury and has not played since. She’s not expected to play today, either.

Noel Askins, Becca Hanel and Kayla Valencia have picked up the slack offensively for the Panthers, who have stayed as explosive as ever offensively despite not having Mendenhall.

The difficult task for Poly today is bucking the old cliche about how beating the same team twice in the same season. The Panthers had little trouble with Oaks Christian, thanks to a dominant second half in which the Lions had precious few scoring chances.

“I’ve heard that cliche, but as I was telling the girls, the games have to be played and it doesn’t really matter who’s across from us,” Gray said. “I thought the first time that we played Oaks Christian, they were an outstanding team and they’ll be an outstanding team tomorrow.”