Rotary’s quintessential Craft Beer and Wine Festival to benefit multiple charities
San Diegans are invited to attend La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary’s 4th Annual Quintessential Craft Beer & Wine Festival on Saturday, April 22 from 1-5 p.m. at the Nobel Athletic Fields on 8810 Judicial Drive near the 805. This dog-friendly event features access and unlimited samples from 18 craft brewers, five regional wineries and eight Southern California distilleries. Thrive Animal Rescue will also be on hand to showcase adorable adoptable dogs.
Tickets cost $30 in advance, $40 at the door, and $15 for active duty military. 100 percent of the proceeds benefit 45 local and international humanitarian projects, which are stewarded by nearly 100 members of the La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club. Attending this year are world-class craft brewers like Maui Brewing Company, Ballast Point, Coronado Brewing, Karl Strauss, Thorn Brewery and Kilowatt. Three wineries from the Guadalupe Valley of Baja will be on hand, as well as two Ramona winemakers. Southern California distillers will be sampling rum, gin, whiskey and vodka, as well as saki. The Quintessential Festival will offer cold coffee sampling and several food vendors including organic sausages, cheese balls, chocolate and cupcakes.
Among the many beneficiaries of funds raised by La Jolla Golden Triangle and the Quintessential Festival are The Preuss School UCSD, the VA Hospital, Ronald McDonald House and projects benefitting local active military and their families. International efforts include the Rotary Jalalabad School in Afghanistan, and humanitarian projects in India, Africa, Israel and most recently, the provision of blankets for refugees arriving under emergency conditions in Macedonia.
For more information and for tickets, visit www.lajollagtrotary.org.
Springfest 2017 begins April 7
The UCSD Department of Music graduate students will launch Springfest, an annual graduate-run festival of experimental music, on Saturday, April 8. Featuring more than a dozen events held at the Conrad Prebys Music Center, on campus and at specified off-site locations, Springfest starts with the California Electronic Music Exchange Concert on April 8 and ends with the collaborative Encuentro at Bread and Salt on April 16, with graduate student Todd Moellenberg’s Staycation enduring in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater through April 16. “Immersion,” the festival’s popular collaboration with Birch Aquarium at Scripps, will take place this year on Sunday, April 9.
Bass player and graduate student Kyle Motl recently spoke with UC San Diego’s KSDTabout Springfest and played excerpts from the program he has planned for his solo Springfest concert on April 12.  
UCSD Baseball
Seventh-ranked University of California San Diego baseball program rounds out a stretch of six straight weeks against California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) North Division opposition when it welcomes top-ranked rival Chico State into Triton Ballpark for a marquee three-game showdown. The Tritons (22-6, 14-4 CCAA) and Wildcats (27-5, 20-1 CCAA) first contest a doubleheader on Saturday, April 8, beginning at 1 p.m. Both games are scheduled for the regulation nine innings, with about a 30- to 40-minute break in between. Sunday’s single finale starts at 12 p.m. Chico State is the reigning CCAA champion and preseason coaches’ favorite. The Tritons are 13-3 at home in 2017.
For the third straight week, UCSD’s series will pit two top-10 pitching staffs nationally in the NCAA Division II in terms of team ERA, with the ‘Cats third (2.41) and Tritons eighth (2.72). They are 1-2 in the CCAA. The sides continue to maintain comfortable leads in their respective divisions, with the Tritons up 3.5 games over two-time reigning West Region champion Cal Poly Pomona (12-9), and the Wildcats a full seven games ahead of Cal State Monterey Bay (12-7). Chico State also holds a 4.5-game advantage over UCSD in the race for the top seed at the CCAA Championship, and thus the league’s regular-season crown.
La Jolla Half Marathon and Shores 5K
Sunday, April 23 will be the 36th running of the La Jolla Half Marathon and Shores 5K. Over 5,000 runners are expected participate in the events. Half marathon participants start at the Del Mar Fairgrounds and run a scenic 13.1 miles down the coast to the finish line at Ellen Browning Scripps Park. Participants start near UCSD Mesa Housing on La Jolla Shores Drive, run the last 3.1 miles of the half marathon course and also finish at the Cove. All participants receive a top-quality technical fabric race shirt, souvenir cinch bag, B-tag timing, great course support and finisher medal for Half Marathoners. All finishers are also treated to a pre-stuffed bag filled with tasty post-race nutrition, coconut water, TruMoo chocolate milk and a complimentary Ballast Point beer along with Rubio’s chips, salsa and guacamole for those 21 and over.
Both races start at 7:30 a.m. with a three-hour time limit for the half marathon. Southbound traffic will be affected on 101 in Solana Beach and Del Mar, along Torrey Pines Road, in La Jolla Shores, Prospect Place, and Coast Boulevard. After the race many participants will stay in the Village to enjoy the shops and restaurants. So Village merchants be on the lookout for the proud finishers sporting their medals and race shirts.
The events are sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of La Jolla. One hundred percent of the net proceeds from the race are donated to charitable organizations in the months after the races. Please pardon any inconvenience caused by the event. The money raised makes a huge difference in the lives of many deserving people. There is still time to register if you are interested in participating either as a runner or a volunteer. For more information, visit www.lajollahalfmarathon.com. Registration for both events will also be available at the Hilton San Diego/Del Mar on Jimmy Durante Boulevard on Friday, April 21 from noon to 6 p.m. and on Saturday, April 22 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
UCSD softball
The UCSD softball team returns to California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) action, hosting nationally ranked No. 1 Humboldt State for a four-game series in La Jolla. The Tritons (19-17, 10-14) sit in the seventh spot in the CCAA standings while the Lumberjacks (21-6, 16-4) are second. Cal State Monterey Bay (29-4, 17-3) is currently in first. Friday’s doubleheader will begin at 1:00 p.m. The first of two games on Saturday is set to start at 11 a.m. 
The Tritons played 10 games in the span of six days in their NorCal road trip. UCSD kicked off the week with a four-game series at Sonoma State. The Tritons started off strong, winning the first contest, 2-0, but dropped the final three games in the series by scores of 8-5, 2-1 and 6-2. SSU took the series 3-1.
UCSD then headed to Turlock for the annual Tournament of Champions where it faced six GNAC teams over three days. The Tritons finished the tournament in 11th-place with a 4-2 record. UCSD fell to Western Oregon and Western Washington by scores of 4-1 and 1-0, respectively. The Tritons collected wins over MSU Billings, Northwest Nazarene, Concordia (Ore.) and Simon Fraser. For her efforts, sophomore Caitlyn Weisner was named to the All-Tournament Team.