Valencia’s Gabby Garcia, a four-time state champion in girls wrestling, is a finalist for the Tricia Saunders High School Excellence Award.
The award, which was first awarded in 2014, is named after Saunders, who was a four-time World Champion and women’s wrestling pioneer. She was the first woman inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and she is a member of the United World Wrestling Hall of Fame.
The other finalists: Roberta Christopher (Alaska); Teshya Alo (Hawaii); Payton Rigert (Oregon); Katie Block (Tennessee); Brianna Holcomb (Texas); and Jordyn Bartelson (Washington).
The winner will be announced May 5.
Garcia, the Register’s girls wrestler of the year this year, recently signed a letter of intent with King University.
– DAMIAN CALHOUN
BOYS AND GIRLS SWIMMING
League prelims and finals in swimming and diving will be held this week.
The first swim finals are Wednesday with the Orange Coast League at Costa Mesa. The week concludes with several league swim meets on Friday.
Swimmers qualify for the CIF-SS meet based on time standards.
– DAN ALBANO
LACROSSE
The first-round games in the boys and girls U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section playoffs will be played Tuesday.
The second round will be held Thursday and the Orange County semifinals are Saturday at Irvine High.
– DAMIAN CALHOUN
BOYS VOLLEYBALL
The boys volleyball regular season ends this week. The CIF-SS pairings will be released Friday afternoon.
The final day for league matches is tonight.
There will be some nonleague matches throughout the week as teams gear up for the playoffs, including the annual Battle of the Bay between Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar on Friday.
The Sunset League could have a third-place tiebreaker match between Edison and Los Alamitos. Edison begins the week 5-4 in league and faces Newport Harbor tonight. Los Alamitos is 4-5 and will take on Marina.
The tiebreaker match, which would determine the league’s third guaranteed playoff berth, would be held Wednesday, likely at a neutral site.
– DAMIAN CALHOUN
COACHING MOVES
Zach Brogdon was hired Friday as the boys basketball coach at JSerra. Brogdon, 28, coached at Capistrano Valley Christian the past six seasons. … Joedy Gardner was hired Monday as the boys basketball coach at Fairmont Prep. Gardner coached at JSerra the past seven seasons. … Matt Bowman was named head coach of the Crean Lutheran football team on Thursday. Bowman had been an assistant coach at Crean Lutheran since 2009. … Tesoro hired Christian Cardey as its boys water polo coach. … Dallas Moss named boys basketball coach at Laguna Hills.
