Saturday Night - Clear. Low of 55F. Windy. Winds from the WNW at 15 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph.

Sunday - Clear. High of 82F. Breezy. Winds from the NW at 20 to 25 mph with gusts to 30 mph shifting to the NNE in the afternoon.

Saturday - Partly cloudy in the morning, then clear. High of 75F. Windy. Winds from the NW at 20 to 25 mph with gusts to 35 mph.

Saturday Night - Clear. Low of 54F. Breezy. Winds from the NNW at 5 to 25 mph with gusts to 30 mph.

Sunday - Clear. High of 79F. Winds from the WNW at 5 to 15 mph.

SEATTLE -- Cal State Bakersfield's softball season ended Friday with a 2-1 loss to Seattle University at the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.

The Roadrunners finish 15-40. They went 0-2 in the double-elimination WAC Tournament.

SEATTLE -- Cal State Bakersfield's softball season ended Friday with a 2-1 loss to Seattle University at the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.

The Roadrunners finish 15-40. They went 0-2 in the double-elimination WAC Tournament.

The biggest question mark Friday night was how Cal State Bakersfield would play the day after the players learned their coach was retiring at the end of the season.

"You don't know what's going to happen in that situation," said CSUB coach Bill Kernen after the Roadrunners routed New Mexico State 13-1.

STOCKTON -- For Condors coach Troy Mann and his players, it's all about belief.

Trailing 1-0 in the third period on Friday night and time ticking down, the Condors never panicked, scoring two late goals to beat the Thunder 2-1 and take a 3-1 lead in ECHL Western Conference Semifinal The Condors can wrap up the series tonight in Stockton, which would put them into the Conference Finals for the first time in team history.

Ever stared at the phone and willed it to start ringing? Derek Carr knows the feeling.

And, though it came a day later than he would have liked, Carr got the call he wanted Friday afternoon: The Oakland Raiders were on the other line, telling the Bakersfield native they were about to make him the 36th pick in the NFL Draft.

“I’m just so fired up that they called,” said Carr, a record-setting quarterback at Fresno State who graduated from Bakersfield Christian. “When that pick came up, and I saw they were next, I was just waiting, looking at my phone. It started ringing, and I almost forgot how to answer it, I was so excited.”

For the second straight day, the Carr family gathered at David's house in southwest Bakersfield to watch the draft. After the phone call and just before Oakland's pick was announced on live television, Rodger Carr, Derek's father, emerged from the house and yelled, "Raiders!"

Baseball

Garces 12, East 7

Jared Handel tossed six solid innings, allowing just four hits and striking out six to lead Ridgeview to a 6-2 victory over South on Friday.

"Jared threw the ball really well today," said Ridgeview coach Jason Hunsaker. "He threw strikes and kept them off balance. He played simple baseball."

BAKERSFIELD, CA - A heartwarming follow up to a Contact 17 News story we brought you a few weeks ago. A local woman, adopted at birth, is getting to know her biological family after decades of searching.

First, Jean Phillips learned that her biological niece was right under her nose. Phillips is not only her niece's hair stylist, she has also styled her biological mother's hair and none of them knew it.

On Friday, Phillips met her older brother for the first time - a moment 50 years in the making.

It was graduation day inside Marinello School of Beauty in Bakersfield.

But outside...

"Here comes your sister!"

...It's a family reunion.

"Wow, you're you!"

After 50 years of searching, Jose Ramirez of Sacramento finally met his biological sister, Jean Phillips.

"It feels like a big part of my life has been put in place. That's what it is to me," Phillips said.

Phillips was adopted when she was just days old and after moving from Simi Valley to Frazier Park, she ended up in Bakersfield. Just weeks ago, she learned one of her clients, Angelina Ramirez, is her biological niece.

"All I can say is that a huge hole has been filled, a big puzzle piece or something, the missing piece," Phillips said.

It's a puzzle that both Phillips and her brother have been determined to piece together for decades.

"What can I say? I'm just overwhelmed right now. Call it divine intervention and also human effort, you know, and I'm happy that it came to pass," Ramirez said.

Despite the setbacks, Ramirez says he always believed this day would come. And, he's encouraging others who are searching for a long lost loved one to keep the faith.

"Well, I can say to anybody who's looking for their biological people, families, brothers, parents, don't give up. It's there," Ramirez said.

"It's just huge. It means the world to me, it really does. To have all this family, they're huge, and I see in their faces, I see the resemblances and I just think 'there's my people! I love them! I want to hold them' so it's just overwhelming and amazing. I'm really happy," Phillips said.

The family is planning on bringing Jean's biological mother from San Antonio, Texas, to Bakersfield next month.

Kern County Environmental Health Services released an analysis of air samples in Arvin homes -- eight weeks after residents were evacuated because of a gas leak -- that found high levels of at least two toxic chemicals: benzene and naphthalene.

The air sample results were taken on three dates -- March, 24 and 31, and April 15 -- by Advanced GeoEnvironmental Inc., a company hired by Petro Capital Resources LLC, the owner of the pipeline, and provided to the county. When PCR refused to release the results, the county did, instead, on Thursday.

Budget maneuvering has begun at the county of Kern.

On Tuesday, District Attorney Lisa Green will ask the Kern County Board of Supervisors to approve the hiring of two deputy district attorneys, an investigator and a legal secretary to investigate and prosecute a growing number of crimes committed in Lerdo Jail and local community correctional facilities.

Alternative B through the Westpark neighborhood remains Caltrans' preferred and least expensive route for Centennial Corridor, the controversial freeway link between Highway 58 and the Westside Parkway -- but would require the demolition of far more homes and businesses than previously thought.

With its release Friday of the project's draft Environmental Impact Report, the state transportation agency found Alternative B would improve traffic throughout metropolitan Bakersfield -- but as currently planned would require the demolition of 200 single-family homes, 110 multiple-family structures and 121 commercial buildings.

PORTERVILLE: A Porterville man out of jail on bail was nabbed by law enforcement officers after he allegedly stole thousands of dollars worth of cargo.

On Thursday, Robert Wayne Blackwell, 35, broke into the back of a trailer that was parked on Highway 65 a few miles north of the Kern County line, according to The Recorder. California Highway Patrol officers witnessed Blackwell break in to the staged, locked tractor trailer at about 1:30 a.m., according to the report.

BAKERSFIELD, CA - A unique and careful rescue was done Friday morning by workers with the California Living Museum.

Wildlife officials rescued a severely injured American White Pelican in Hart Park.

"Toward the end, she simply walked up onto the bank and we were able to capture her there," said Lana Fain, California Living Museum.

Staff at the museum say the pelican suffered severe injuries after having a fishing lure in its beak for about six months and several hooks in its body.

"It looks like something that's probably used in ocean fishing. These are migratory birds so we're not sure where she picked this up from," said Fain.

Wildlife officials say the lure was stuck so deep in its beak, the pelican had a hard time eating and drinking.

Officials say the bird was running out of time.

"They migrate here in October. So, she was probably too weak because of her injuries to fly out with the rest of the flock," said Fain.

The California Living Museum says although it doesn't rescue animals, staff knew this was a serious situation and acted fast.

"This is something we do not normally do. We had to get Fish and Wildlife's permission to do it," Fain continued. "They're the ones who do the captures and the rescues and everything like that. They gave us the permission to do it and that's why we went out and did what we did today."

A successful rescue that now gives this American White Pelican the chance to roam free again, uninjured.

Fain says they will keep the pelican a little longer and it will then be seen by a veterinarian before it's released into the wild.

BAKERSFIELD, CA - The trial began Friday for a woman accused of texting while driving then causing a deadly crash in 2012. Anna Marie Reynosa is charged with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. 
Opening statements were given Friday afternoon. The families of both the victim and the defendant sat in the audience. 
The District Attorney's Office is trying to prove cell phone use is to blame for the death, the first case of its kind. 
Covering her face, Anna Marie Reynosa sat crying in the courtroom as the prosecutor laid out the night of April 14, 2012. 
"She didn't slow down even though she knew the speed limit at the intersection was 45 miles per hour," said Esther Schlaerth, Deputy District Attorney. 
Prosecutors say Reynosa was going 65 to 68 miles per hour when she hit and killed 20-year-old Charla Wilkins that night. Not only that, prosecutors claim Reynosa was texting when she hit Wilkins who was on a motorcycle stopped at the intersection. 
"She slammed her Toyota Tacoma truck in the back of Charla Wilkins' motorcycle so hard that that motorcycle was eaten up by the front of her truck," said Schlaerth.      The prosecution says this was five days after Reynosa got her third speeding ticket. But, Reynosa's public defender said just because she was speeding then doesn't mean she was speeding the night of April 14th.
"It's not evidence she was speeding in this case," said Ernest Hinman, Reynosa's attorney. 
The defense also claims the prosecution cannot prove Reynosa was texting.
"There is zero, zero, zero physical evidence of the time stamp of when the text message was made or saved on that phone," said Reynosa. 
Reynosa pleaded not guilty to felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. If found guilty, she could get up to six years in prison. 

Anna Marie Reynosa’s failure to obey traffic laws — including not texting while driving — despite three speeding tickets and repeated warnings from law enforcement resulted in the death of a motorcyclist and calls for a conviction of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, prosecutors said during opening arguments Friday.

Reynosa’s trial is unique for Kern County in that it’s the first time a motorist has been charged with vehicular manslaughter in connection with texting while driving.