{"id":9,"date":"2019-05-11T13:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-11T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999949713"},"modified":"2019-06-24T03:36:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T03:36:18","slug":"jordan-kaeka-the-last-of-a-lakewood-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/jordan-kaeka-the-last-of-a-lakewood-legacy","title":{"rendered":"Jordan Kaeka: The Last Of A Lakewood Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Kaeka knew she was in for an emotional afternoon, last Tuesday, when Lakewood High softball hosted South Torrance in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it for a long time because people are excited for the end of the school year, and I\u2019m kind of not because it\u2019s the last one,\u201d said Michelle, a teacher and gymnastics coach at Lakewood. \u201cI get a little teary-eyed thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those emotions ran over as she watched her youngest daughter, Jordan, ground out to end not only the playoff game, but the Lakewood softball season and the Kaeka family legacy at Lakewood High, as well, meaning that next year will be the first year since 2008 that a Kaeka is not playing sports for the Lancers.<\/p>\n

Michelle and Dewey Kaeka met as student-athletes at Lakewood High in the late 1980\u2019s. Dewey won a CIF baseball championship in 1987 under coach Spud O\u2019Neil and Michelle earned a college scholarship as a volleyball player. They were married and moved back to Lakewood a year after Michelle graduated from college and their three children have followed in their footsteps: Danny played baseball at Lakewood as a member of the Class of 2012, Jessica played volleyball as a member of the Class of 2015 and Jordan just finished her third year on the varsity softball team, this year as a captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a Lakewood family,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cI was born to play softball at Lakewood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle (Class of ’88) returned to Lakewood with the help of then-athletic director Cathy Nicholson and has been teaching physical education at the school for nearly 30 years. She is also the gymnastics coach on campus and said she\u2019s enjoyed having her kids at work with her for the last decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people can\u2019t imagine going to school with your mom there, but I don\u2019t think my kids ever thought of it that way,\u201d Michelle said. \u201cThey would always come by and visit me. Jordan, for the most part during freshman and sophomore year, ate lunch with me every day. It was nice. All of Jordan\u2019s friends call me ‘Mom.’ I\u2019ve had tons of daughters for lots of years with my kids on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Kaeka Family (left to right): Jordan who plays softball, father Dewey who played baseball at Lakewood, mother Michelle who attended and currently teaches\/coaches at Lakewood, Danny who played baseball at Lakewood and Jessica who played volleyball at Lakewood.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jordan is a naturally outgoing leader unafraid to crack a smile during a tense softball game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a shy person,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve always put myself out there. I\u2019ve been that way my whole life, and my siblings aren\u2019t like that at all. I always had to one-up them growing up. Everything was a competition between us three. That was one way I could get ahead of them was to be loud and get the attention on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the Kaeka\u2019s played for Lakewood\u2019s award-winning youth sports programs; Jordan tried soccer and volleyball before falling in love with softball because of the friends she made while playing at Heartwell Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a lot of friends along the way and softball has been more fun than any other sport I\u2019ve played,\u201d she said. \u201cI played my travel ball with [Lakewood] Hustlers and have been friends with my teammates like Alyssa Torres, Cassie Camou, McKenzie Hutchinson, since we were really young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s natural softball ability allowed her to play multiple positions growing up and landed her on the Lakewood junior varsity team as a freshman. She won the team MVP award after moving to shortstop and, as a sophomore, was moved up to the varsity in right field where coach Andy Miramontes had to fill a team need.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am primary a catcher and can be a utility player, so it was frustrating moving way out to right field,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cBut my teammates knew I was frustrated and told me to just keep working.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jordan spilt time at catcher and second base last year as a junior, Lakewood went through one of its worst seasons in recent history. The Lancers had their 65-game Moore League winning streak snapped by Wilson and lost the league title for only the second time in the last 11 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of this season we had a team talk without the coaches,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cWe said that this last year was unacceptable and we need to get it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lakewood and Millikan played for the league championship last month, it was Jordan who smacked a two-run triple in the 10th inning of a tie game, to drive in the winning runs. She hit over .500 as a senior and was named The562.org Athlete Of The Month for April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis feels amazing,\u201d Jordan said after the win. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working so hard and every girl on this team has the heart to win it. I feel like we knew we were going to win by the way we were playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, order is restored,\u201d Miramontes said. \u201c[Kaeka] is absolutely the kid I want in that spot. She\u2019s a great senior leader and one of the best senior captains we\u2019ve had since I\u2019ve been here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those outgoing leadership qualities and years of watching sports as a family has Jordan looking to study communications and sports broadcasting when she goes to Cal State Northridge next year to play for the Matadors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom and I always talk about how sports broadcasting has evolved so much with women being involved,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cThat pushed me more. The people around me [inspired me]\u2014we\u2019re seeing how everything is changing. I want to be a part of all of that change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michelle said that Jordan\u2019s comfort level with adults comes from growing up in the tight Lakewood community.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it\u2019s really family oriented,\u201d Michelle said of Lakewood. \u201cWhen we would go to the kids’ open house for elementary school and we would see all of the people that we went to school with there with all of their kids. Most of us stayed, and so we still get together with our kids, their kids and now grandkids for some. We can\u2019t imagine living somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kaeka family is also having a tough time imaging what life will be like without more than one Kaeka on the Lakewood High campus everyday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really weird,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cI\u2019ve been here for so long, but it\u2019s gone by really quick. I didn\u2019t believe anyone my freshman year when they said it was going to go by in the blink of an eye; but it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Jordan leaves in July I\u2019m going to be lost,\u201d Michelle said. \u201cOne of the parents made a \u2018Fathead’ poster of Jordan and I\u2019m going to sit it in my car and she\u2019ll ride to school with me every day. I try not to think about it right now because I know I\u2019m going to be a mess when it actually happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Michelle admits, the end of the Kaeka era at Lakewood is not all bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing and coaching and teaching at Lakewood means everything I have is red and white,” she said. “Even the pictures of my kids playing sports are all red. I\u2019m so over red.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to Lakewood athletic director Mike Wadley talk about Lancer Nation and what it\u2019s like having his own son on campus<\/a>. Lakewood\u2019s season is over, but there are still other local teams alive in the CIF playoffs and you can find all of that coverage at The562.org<\/a> right now!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next year will be the first year since 2008 that a Kaeka will not be playing sports for the Lancers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":16390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-high-school-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6002,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/6002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}