Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• Another University tennis player will try to make Ojai Tournament history when the event starts Wednesday. Uni’s Drew Dawson attempts to become the first three-time boys doubles champion since Charles Rogers of Los Angeles High won three in a row from 1907-09.
• Dawson, who signed with Notre Dame, also is working on becoming the first player to win doubles titles in the Ojai Tournament with three different partners. He will play with Arash Hafezi this year.
• Last year, University’s Gabe Brymer became the first to win three straight boys singles titles at Ojai since Bobby Riggs did so from 1935-37. Brymer will play in Ojai next week as a UCLA freshman in the Pac-12 championships.
• Mater Dei’s Stanley Johnson plays in the Jordan Brand Classic All-Star basketball game Friday in New York. The game will be televised at 4 p.m. on ESPN2. Past Jordan Brand Classic players include Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Blake Griffin, LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
• Johnson last week was named national player of the year by MaxPreps.com.
• With this week being the spring break week in many districts, some schools will hold letter-of-intent signing celebrations Monday.
• Corona del Mar golfer Hale Furey signed the Ivy League’s version of a letter of intent with Harvard. Other Sea Kings signees also went Ivy League, with baseball player Tyler Duncan and rower Chris Young head to Yale.
• Call him “The Natural.” Mater Dei’s Curtis Godin has emerged from nowhere to be state leader in the 100 and 200. In a dual meet with JSerra on Wednesday, Godin did a solo spin in the 400 for the heck of it and finished in 48.63 to break the school record. That’s the 12th-best time in the Southern Section this season.
• So far, the top boys sprint swimmer in the county is Brandon Boval of Tesoro. He has the county’s fastest time in the 50 freestyle at 21.20, and is second to Santa Margarita’s Grant Shoults in the 100 free at 46.74. Shoults has a best of 46.40 in the 100 free.
• Shoults also has the county’s third-best time in the 500 free at 4:36.06. Capistrano Valley’s Nick Norman is the county leader there with a best of 4:27.53.
• Lindsay Engel of Crean Lutheran continues to impress in girls swimming. A records-buster since her freshman year, Engel, now a Stanford-bound senior, leads the county in the 50 (22.93) and 100 (49.66) freestyles. Her best of 1:50.62 in the 200 free is second in the county to the 1:50.14 posted by Foothill’s Rachel Thompson.
• Three county players were on the Team California unit that finished second in the America’s Hockey Showcase last week in Pittsburgh. Evan Camba of Villa Park, Toby Costa of Servite and Drew Truxaw of Edison helped Team California beat other high school all-star teams from Arizona, Colorado, New England and Washington D.C. before losing to Team Illinois in the championship game.
• The Orange County All-Star Baseball game is June 9 at La Palma Park’s Dee Fee Field in Anaheim. Mike Caira of Pacifica is the North coach. Clemente Bonilla of Capistrano Valley Christian will coach the South.
• Servite senior baseball pitcher Patrick Faley is going to Ohio Wesleyan on a Branch Rickey Scholarship. Named for the famous Dodgers general manager who graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1904, the Branch Rickey goes to first-year students who show potential for high achievement.
• The Huntington Beach baseball team, which this week replaced JSerra as the No. 1 team in the county top 10, is No. 5 in CalHiSports.com’s state top 20. JSerra is No. 11 in California.
• Mission Viejo remains No. 1 in the state softball rankings. Other county teams in the CalHiSports.com top 20: No. 5 Esperanza and No. 9 Pacifica.
• Final approval of all league configurations for the 2014-15 through 2017-18 schools will be made at the CIF-Southern Section Council meeting April 30. CIF-SS rules, regulations and by-laws are created, amended or deleted at the Council sessions that occur three times a school year.
• As for playoff groupings – which leagues are in what playoff divisions for various team sports – that process will continue through ensuing weeks with approval taking place a special fourth CIF-SS Council meeting June 10. CIF-SS rules allow for the president of the Council, Jim Monico of the Paramount Unified School District, to call special meetings when requested to do so by a majority of the CIF-SS Executive Committee.
• The CIF-SS Executive Committee is an 18-member panel that is the administrative body of the section. It rules on appeals for such actions as transfers, interprets CIF-SS rules and makes recommendations to Council on upcoming proposals. County representatives on the Executive Committee are Irvine principal Monica Colunga, Santa Ana Valley athletic director Terry Orabona, Jim Perry of the Huntington Beach Union High School District, and Don Sedgwick of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
