final against Italys Assunta Galeone and did well to claim victory via waza

ANAHEIM, Calif. - After six months of steady play capped by a stellar September, the Los Angeles Angels earned the best record in baseball and their first playoff trip in five years.And then that trip lasted only four days.Once theyve recovered from an unceremonious AL Division Series sweep at the smoking-hot hands of the Kansas City Royals, the Angels must figure out what they can salvage from a 98-win regular season and a brutally swift post-season exit.Angels manager Mike Scioscia succinctly summed up his 15th season and the merciless nature of October: (The Angels) played hard all season, and we had a rough three games.And the Angels high-priced hitters had the worst games of all for a team that scored only six runs in 31 post-season innings.Mike Trout, the likely AL MVP, went 1 for 12 in his first post-season series. Albert Pujols, the $240 million slugger, was 2 for 12 with two RBIs.Josh Hamilton was booed repeatedly by Angels fans when he returned for the post-season after sitting out most of September with various upper-body injuries. The $125 million left fielder with three years left on his contract went a miserable 0 for 13 against the Royals.We won a lot of ballgames, but in the playoffs, the slate is wiped clean, Hamilton said. I dont think we played poorly.Until the last 10 days, the AL West champions were an uncommonly resilient ballclub. Even after losing starting pitchers Garrett Richards and Tyler Skaggs to season-ending injuries in August while playing in one of baseballs best divisions, the Angels hadnt lost more than four straight games all year a€” before they dropped the final three games of the regular season and their only three playoff games.You dont go in with any badge saying you won the most games, and youre certainly not going to get any points for that going into the playoffs, Scioscia said. We did a lot of things well during the series. We just didnt finish some games off. Those guys got some big hits, and they beat us. But you have to get your foot in the door. We know how tough it is to get your foot in the door.Whether the Angels can keep that foot in the door is the question of the off-season.With their first playoff berth since 2009, the Angels finally accomplished something worthy of the enormous expectations brought on by their hefty payroll. That wont be much comfort while owner Arte Moreno watches two teams with a fraction of that financial investment playing for a World Series berth this weekend.Morenos urgency has a price beyond those big checks. Los Angeles has signed Pujols, Hamilton and Trout to contracts worth more than a combined $500 million, but the Angels also parted ways with several top prospects and first-round draft picks in the past few years while trying to win now.So the Angels are likely to return next season with Trout and much the same core of well-compensated players mostly in their 30s, supplemented by whats considered one of the majors thinnest farm systems. It worked well this season, but its hardly the intuitive way to win.Yet the Angels also have plenty of promising pieces. Two of the best young starters in baseball emerged from their system this season in Richards and 16-game winner Matt Shoemaker, while the Angels bullpen became a force after a few canny in-season moves by general manager Jerry Dipoto.And though he wasnt impressive last week, Trout is still the best player in baseball at just 23 years old. The franchise will be built around Trout for the foreseeable future, a blueprint that pretty much any team would love to have.Pujols, who still has seven years left on his $240 million contract, spent the entire summer angrily dismissing suggestions that anything except the post-season held any importance to Los Angeles. When the Angels flopped in the playoffs, Pujols already was looking ahead to next October.Weve got too many veteran guys here, he said. I think we can bounce back. Its not going to be the last post-season were going to be together as a group. Alex Smith Jersey . 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Dexter Manley Womens Jersey .C. -- The Charlotte Bobcats said head coach Steve Clifford underwent a successful procedure Friday to have two stents placed in his heart. Charles Mann Womens Jersey . Not bad for a defenceman. The goal, that is. Although the shuffling dance steps werent bad, either. Barrie scored 55 seconds into overtime, Semyon Varlamov stopped 29 shots, and the Avalanche moved a step closer to their first playoff berth in four years with a 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.Natalie Powell claimed a bronze medal for Great Britain on the final day of the IJF World Judo Masters in Mexico. Powell bounced back from a heavy defeat against world champion Kayla Harrison to secure third place in the -78kg category, while team-mate Gemma Gibbons finished fifth.The British duo had to fight each other at the quarter-final stage and it was Powell who claimed the victory - she threw her team-mate for yuko before getting the hold down and taking the contest by ippon. That left Powell to face American judoka Harrison for a place in the final, but the Briton had no answer to a fierce attack just over a minute into the bout, and an ippon throw meant victory for the world champion.Gibbons, silver medalist at London 2012, went into the repechage final against Italys Assunta Galeone and did well to claim victory via waza-ari after having fallen a yuko down in the early stages.That meant broonze medal fights for both British judoka, but Gibbons was unable to overcome world No 3 Guusje Steenhuis from the Netherlands - Steenhuis managed to get a single yuko and that proved enough for a narrow victory.ddddddddddddut there was better news for Powell, who secured a pair of waza-ari throws against Chinas Zhehui Zhang to secure a medal in the final event counting for Olympic qualification.Powell said: Its really good to finish the qualification on a high note. Its been a tough few years and after winning the European bronze it was hard to get myself up again for another big tournament.Winning the bronze means that the points I have gained will put me into seventh seed for the Olympic Games if selected.Harrison would go on to successfully defend her title with a win over fourth-ranked Brazilian Mayra Aguiar - she was already in front when closing the fight out with an ippon 54 seconds from the end. ' ' '