UCI sweeps to NCAA title

LOS ANGELES — All through its postseason run, the deepest team UC Irvine men’s volleyball Coach John Speraw ever had kept shuffling the deck. But in the NCAA final against top-ranked USC on Saturday night, the Anteaters merely rode their same hot hand.

Senior opposite Carson Clark, a four-time All-American, pounded a match-high 22 kills with a .465 hitting percentage to help the No. 2-ranked ‘Eaters top to Trojans, 25-22, 34-32, 26-24, in front of 9,612 at USC’s Galen Center.

The victory, in front of the third-largest NCAA championship men’s volleyball crowd ever, gave UCI the program’s third NCAA crown in six seasons. Men’s volleyball now matches men’s water polo with three NCAA titles for UCI.

“Carson is the man,” summed up UCI junior setter Chris Austin, who also stepped up with 48 assists and a team-best 15 digs.

Clark, the school’s all-time kill leader with 1,861, had 10 kills in Game 2 to help UCI (26-5) rally from a 14-7 deficit. He had seven more in the third set, by which time Speraw had delivered instructions to Austin about going to the go-to guy. He was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

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Sage wins in five, claims crown

CYPRESS — The Sage Hill School girls’ volleyball program’s history with monolithic St. Margaret’s has featured more back to the drawing board than it has back and forth.

But it was the Lightning who captured the majority of the momentum to claim a momentous victory over their Academy League rival, the Southern Section powerhouse Tartans, on Saturday night.

Sage Hill, which split its two league matches with St. Margaret’s this season and shared the Academy League crown with the Tartans, earned a 27-29, 25-21, 22-25, 25-18, 15-9 triumph in the CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA title match at Cypress College.

It’s the second section championship for Sage Hill (25-5), which swept St. Margaret’s in the Division IV-A final in 2005.

Sage’s latest victory denied St. Margaret’s (20-10) the chance to repeat as IV-AA champion. The Tartans earned their fifth section crown last season and were handed their fourth defeat in their nine section title-match appearances.

…Continue reading Sage wins in five, claims crown

Clark, three UCI alums in the mix

UC Irvine junior opposite Carson Clark and three former Anteater All-Americans have been named to U.S. men’s national volleyball’s preliminary 25-man roster for the 2011 FIVB World League.

Clark, who leads the Anteaters and is ranked fourth in the country in kills (4.63 per set), joins setter Brian Thornton, outside hitter Jayson Jablonsky and middle blocker David Smith representing the Anteaters on the roster. Thornton, Jablonsky and Smith, were each first-team All-Americans during their UCI careers and led the Anteaters to the program’s first NCAA title in 2007.

The 25-man roster will be trimmed to 20 (including two liberos) by May 4. The team must submit a roster of 12 to 14 players taken from that 20-man pool prior to each World League weekend.

The FIVB World League is an elite men’s volleyball competition in which the world’s 16 best teams are divided into four pools and play an Intercontinental Round for six straight weekends from May 27 to July 3. Each team plays every other team in the pool for two matches at home and two matches away.

The four pool winners and the four second-place teams advance to the Final Round, which will be held July 6-10 in Gdansk, Poland. As the host country, Poland will automatically advance to the final round, so only the winner or second-place team from its pool will advance.

UCI bats booming

UC Irvine's Brian Hernandez was two for four with two RBIs. (Photo by Kent Treptow)

The UC Irvine baseball team topped visiting Nevada, 15-3, Saturday and has now outscored the Wolf Pack, 32-7, in the first two of their scheduled three-game, season-opening nonconference series.

The Anteaters’ 32-run production is not only the most prolific two-game start to a season, but tied for the third-best back-to-back total in school history.

The 1979 ‘Eaters blasted Utah, 13-0, then 22-0 in a doubleheader. And the 1974 squad topped UCLA, 13-6, then three days later, thumped Hawaii, 22-1.

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Alumni, Major Leaguer eye UCI opener

The UC Irvine baseball program opened the season Friday with a 17-4 thumping of visiting Nevada (for story, click here).

Before the game, Danny Bibona, a two-time All-American and the Big West Conference Pitcher of the Year in 2010 and 2009, was recognized at home plate. UCI Coach Mike Gillespie presented the left-hander, now in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization, with a large framed jersey.

Also in attendance Friday were standout UCI alums Ben Orloff and Jeff Cusick, as well as Jamie Moyer, who spent the last 24 Major League seasons pitching for seven teams.

Moyer’s son, Dillon Moyer, is a freshman infielder for the Anteaters, who came off the bench to go hitless in three at-bats. He did make an above-average defensive play at second base.

Bibona did not throw out the first pitch, though some might have hoped he threw out the first 90 to 110, after junior starter Matt Summers could not get out of the third inning due to control problems, despite being staked to an 8-0 lead after two innings.

Baseball coaches get behind dish

Even though UC Irvine’s Mike Gillespie failed to fulfill his prediction that he was a slam dunk, no-brainer winner of the third annual Southern California baseball coaches cooking challenge at media day Wednesday at ESPN Zone in Anaheim, he was associated with one winning effort.

UCLA Coach John Savage, a former UCI head man who was Gillespie’s pitching coach at USC prior to becoming the Anteaters’ coach from 2002 to 2004, named his dish after his former mentor.

Savage, who called his take on the sliders theme “Filet de Gillespie,” won the award for best presentation.

Gillespie, entering his fourth season at the UCI helm, also paid tribute in naming his version of sliders that emphasized Asian flavor. He called them “Sliders Kimura,” after Fumi Kimura, the UCI athletic communications director who handles baseball.

Pepperdine Coach Rich Rodriguez won the Top Chef honor for the second year. His dish: Malibu Mud-Sliders.

UC Irvine’s blue (and gold) plate special

UC Irvine men’s and women’s basketball coaches Russ Turner and Molly Goodenbour received a good omen Wednesday when they combined to capture the “Best Creativity” award during the Big West Conference Cookoff Challenge at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim.

The event, which coincides with Media Day for conference coaches, included men’s and women’s coaches from five schools preparing a dish that was evaluated by three judges.

Turner, who said his best dinner preparation involves either a microwave or transporting his two kids to a fast-food restaurant, credited Goodenbour for creating their shrimp fajitas dish.

“Every big man needs a good point guard,” Turner said of Goodenbour, a former star point guard at Stanford.

Turner was pleased to  come away with an award — The Top Chefs and Best Presentation medals went to Cal State Northridge — though he was less than impressed with the gold medallion that went with it.

When asked if he might auction the trinket off on e-bay, Turner dismissed the notion, before replaying to a reporter “If you want it, it’s yours.”

Turner quickly reconsidered, however, deciding he at least wanted to show it to his kids to verify his temporary kitchen prowess.

Cal State Northridge men’s coach Bobby Braswell was only modestly impressed by his school’s strong culinary showing, noting: “This may be the only thing we win this year.”

Sailors denied in OT

Newport Harbor High's Daniel Stevens (2) shoots past Long Beach Wilson's Erik Vogalzang during the Sailors' semifinal win in the S&R Sport Cup. (Kent Treptow / Daily Pilot)

IRVINE — Los Alamitos rallied from a three-goal deficit in the final 5:49 of regulation to force overtime, then earn a 10-9 victory in the championship game of the S&R Sport Cup boys’ water polo tournament Saturday at Irvine High.

After the Griffins (12-4) pulled even, 7-7, with 1:17 left in regulation, Newport Harbor junior Farrel South drove past his defender after taking a pass from Davey Jorth and whistled a shot through the arms of the goalie to give the Sailors (11-2), a one-goal lead with 59 seconds remaining.

But a defensive breakdown on Los Al’s final possession of regulation allowed senior Austin Ringheim to convert a wide-open skip shot with three seconds left to force a pair of three-minute overtime periods.

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The official story

Coaches are often leery about getting the worst of the officiating when they venture great distances to play a game.

But it was Grossmont Community College and not visiting Orange Coast that had the biggest beef with the men in the striped shirts during the Griffins’ hard-fought 42-35 football victory Saturday.

Grossmont Coach Mike Jordan and his staff were animated in their displeasure with officials, particularly in the waning moments.

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Sailors’ Aiello stands tall

Newport Harbor High senior Alex Aiello.

A product of the athletic culture as a longtime competitor growing up, I have been lucky enough to continue to enjoy the realm of sports in my professional life.

With this experience, I have often found myself advocating the virtues of athletics as a teacher of life lessons.
No greater evidence of this could be found that what I witnessed Tuesday afternoon, in the aftermath of a nonleague girls’ tennis match between Woodbridge and host Newport Harbor.
The visiting Warriors won on games, 72-71, after both teams split 18 sets. But Woodbridge, apparently miffed at the constant cheering Newport Harbor players shared with one another during the match, responded with some obviously mocking cheers of their own.
It was clearly conduct unbecoming of mature, sportsmanlike athletes and I later found out I was not the only one who noticed.
After Sailors Coach Kristen Case had delivered her post-match address to her players, they huddled together before dispersing. It was then that senior Alex Aiello spoke up and delivered a moving message.
To paraphrase, Aiello said she was proud of the way the Sailors, as a team, had conducted themselves in the face of the aforementioned shabby conduct of some Warriors players. She said she would rather lose and behave with honor than win and behave as some of the visiting players had.
It bears mentioning that Aiello, along with her doubles partner, had been benched after the opening round, in which they were defeated, 6-0. Rather than lament her individual plight, Aiello spent the rest of the match cheering — and observing.
Aiello’s post-match statements to her teammates were as pointed as they were poignant, and served as yet another example of how sports can enhance the development of life skills that will contribute to victories beyond the competitive arena of athletics.