Prep Review / Donna Carter : Irvine Girls’ Volleyball Team Gets New Honor

Irvine High School girls’ volleyball team, the first girls’ volleyball team in California to win back-to-back Division I state titles, has been named the best in the nation by Volleyball Monthly magazine.

In its January issue, the publication named Irvine the prep national champion for 1988. The Vaqueros went undefeated (21-0), winning the Southern Section 5-A championship and defeating Davis in the Division I state final.

Bev Oden, Irvine’s All-American middle blocker, was named player of the year by the magazine, marking the second consecutive year that an Orange County athlete has won the award. Jenny Evans of Newport Harbor, now at UCLA, was co-player of the year last year. Oden also was named The Times’ volleyball player of the year.

Oden has yet to select a college. She spent the past weekend visiting UCLA on her final recruiting trip. She already has visited Pepperdine, Stanford, California and University of the Pacific. Stanford and Pacific may have the inside track. Bev’s sister, Kim, played for the Cardinal and her sister, Elaina, is a senior at Pacific, where she has led the Tigers to two National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championships.

He nose what it takes: Estancia, fielding a team of only seven players Wednesday, was in the fourth quarter of a tough Sea View League basketball game against Tustin when leading scorer Mike Curtis went down.

Curtis was defending Tustin’s Dylan Steiler. Steiler drove toward the baseline and Curtis slid over to defend, Estancia Coach Tim O’Brien said.

“There was a no-call, and Mike just got hit. It was nothing flagrant, it was just bodies hitting,” he said.

Well, some part of Steiler’s body connected with Curtis’ nose. “We called timeout and went out on the court. It was obvious (his nose) was not where it should have been,” O’Brien said.

“I said, Mike, do you want to sit out?’ And he said, ‘Oh, there is no way. Don’t even think about it.’ “He played and the game eventually went into overtime. Mike scored five points in overtime. The nose is bleeding and he’s got cotton up it and you know he is seeing stars.”

But Curtis stayed in the game, finishing with 22 points as his team lost, 52-51, in overtime. Estancia was missing two players Wednesday, one because of injury and the other because of personal reasons.

Despite his doctor’s advice to have his nose set as soon as the swelling subsided and to stay off the court in the meantime, Curtis decided he would play in Friday’s game against Newport Harbor.

Though Estancia lost, again by a score of 52-51, it was not for lack of effort on Curtis’ part. He gave Estancia the lead for the first time with 34 seconds remaining. But Newport’s Paig Parish scored a layup with 4 seconds left to win the game.

“He got 29 points and was our leading rebounder with eight, and this is a kid who is probably 6-foot tall at best,” O’Brien said. “He’s got his face right in there with the elbows.

“I have known he was a tough kid, but he made a believer out of me. Just overcoming the mental part of it . . . not being fearful of getting it hit showed a lot of character, a lot of guts. We lost the game, sure, but you have to give Mike a pat on the butt and an ‘Attaboy’ for his efforts.”

Curtis, who was playing without a protective face mask, had his nose set Saturday.

Before Brea-Olinda’s girls’ basketball team traveled to Buena High School in Ventura County Saturday, Buena was 85-1 over the past 10 years on its home court.

Make that 85-2.

The Wildcats defeated Buena, 64-63, in front of 1,600, ending an 18-game streak for Buena, the second-ranked team in the 5-A.

All things considered, Brea was lucky to escape with the victory.

Starting guard Tammy Blackburn sat out most of the first half after picking up her third foul in the first quarter. Center Jinelle Williams fouled out early in the fourth quarter. Guard Aimee McDaniel was hampered by shin splints, but most importantly, the outcome of the game hinged on the shoulders of freshman Jody Anton.

After trailing by seven points, Allison Bickel’s 15-foot shot brought Brea to within a point, 63-62, with 48 seconds left.

Buena was in no hurry to shoot. It began to stall for the last shot, but with 28 seconds left, Blackburn stole the ball. Brea called timeout and set up a play for McDaniel, whose shot with seven seconds left rimmed out.

But Anton got the rebound and was fouled with 4 seconds remaining. She had two free throws coming, enough to win, lose or tie the game.

Buena’s coach called back-to-back timeouts to try to rattle the freshman.

“During the timeouts, the whole crowd is yelling, ‘Freshman! Freshman!,’ ” Brea Coach Mark Trakh said.

“She swishes the first one, and she smiles and starts jumping up and down. But we had to remind her the score was still tied and she had to hit another one. And the second one hit nothing but net. Two clutch free throws in a pressure situation.

“The fact that we came up to their gym with a young team and beat them, it was just great.”

Fathers and sons: Quarterback David Henigan, last season’s Southern Section co-player of the year after leading Fountain Valley High School to the Division I title, is being recruited by Rice University in Houston.

Doing the recruited is Mike Heimerdinger, Rice’s new offensive line coordinator. Henigan came to Heimerdinger’s attention last season when Heimerdinger was an assistant at Cal State Fullerton.

But the connection began much earlier. Heimerdinger’s father coached Henigan’s father in high school. Mike Henigan, athletic director and offensive line coach at Fountain Valley, played quarterback at DeKalb High School in Illinois for Bob Heimerdinger in the late ‘50s.

New reign: Esperanza has the last undefeated girls’ soccer team in Orange County.

The Aztecs, under Coach John Coppage, are 21-0-2 overall and undefeated in eight Empire League games.

They have two league matches remaining, but they could lose them both and still walk away with the league championship. El Dorado is second in the league at 5-2-1.

The Aztecs were second in the Southern Section 4-A rankings behind Mission Viejo, but should move into first place this week after Mission Viejo’s loss to Capistrano Valley Tuesday.

Despite all their success, the Aztecs probably have not reached their potential. The team has 13 juniors, four sophomores, one freshman . . . and no seniors. Sophomore Lynn Murray leads the team in scoring with 20 goals. She already set the school’s single-season scoring record almost two weeks ago when she scored her 17th goal in a victory over Cypress. She broke Gina Pachino’s 16-goal record set in 1985.

Teammate Michelle Rullo is right on Murray’s heels with 18 goals.

“We really have the optimum as far as team concept,” Coppage said. “We have 13 of 18 girls who have scored. Scoring is really spread out well, and we are scoring more goals this year then last year. But defense has also been a key.”

The Aztecs have allowed only six goals in 23 games this season and have never given up more than a goal a game. The team has 17 shutouts.

“We haven’t had a lot of shots on goal because our defenders have been rather tenacious to say the least,” Coppage said.

Coppage was Esperanza’s boys’ soccer coach until last season, when he took the girls’ team to the 3-A finals. He said he switched because he promised himself he would coach boys for four years and had already gone five.

“My daughter, Chrissy, is on the team and that is one of the reasons. She leads the team in assists with 19. I had some friend who had girls in the program and they kind of talked me into taking it one year. Part of it is I wanted to see if I could do it.

“I must have been nuts,” he said.

Prep Notes

Melinda Norton, an All-American volleyball player at Irvine, will attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on a volleyball scholarship. Norton was a four-year starter at Irvine where she helped lead the Vaqueros to the state championship two consecutive seasons. . . . Gate receipts for the 1988 Southern Section football playoffs fell $60,000 short of the organization’s projected budget. The playoffs, which are the section’s second largest source of income after dues, earned $290,000 after expenses. . . . Wanda Sequiera of Tustin High School broke the school single-game assist record with 15 in a 71-36 basketball victory over Corona del Mar last month. Mary Hegarty, who played four years at UCLA and whose brother, Pat, was an academic All-American quarterback at Texas El Paso last fall, set the record in 1977 with 12 assists.