Sort just a block within a spreadsheet - could do that easily in Appleworks!

Specific example: 5 boats sail in a series of races, with different finishing orders. I want to display the races on the same page, left to right, each race sorted in finishing order, then sum the points in an end column. Pretty basic stuff, very straightforward in Appleworks - just select each block and sort it independently of the others. Numbers does not support this function, only sorting all rows or columns - why on earth not? I have seen some workarounds, but far too tedious. Every upgrade seems to jettison some favourite functions!