Opalinski, Chisolm-Carrillo Win in Volleyball

Top-seeded Janice Opalinski and Linda Chisolm-Carrillo took advantage of a series of early errors by second-seeded Judy Bellomo and Lisa Strand to score a 15-7 victory in the women’s winners’ bracket finals of the $70,000 Laguna Open Volleyball Tournament Sunday at Laguna Beach.

Opalinski, a San Juan Capistrano resident who teamed with Elaine Roque to win the championship last year, and Van Nuys’ Chisolm-Carrillo took advantage of five return errors by Bellomo and Strand to take a 12-2 lead.

After Bellomo and Strand narrowed the deficit to 12-7, Chisolm-Carrillo and Opalinski scored the last three points to close out the victory.

“We just couldn’t get that 13th point when they were coming back,” said Chisolm-Carrillo, who started playing with Opalinski last year. “They started settling down and we became impatient.

“(But) we eventually got the serve back and settled down to win the match.”

Opalinski, who also teamed with Kathy Gregory to win the Laguna Open title in 1985, said she and Chisolm-Carrillo have yet to jell as a unit.

“We’re still trying to get into that groove as a team,” Opalinski said. “We’ve had no losses in this tournament so far, but we can still lose this tournament.”

Bellomo and Strand will face the winner of today’s 8:30 a.m. losers’ bracket semifinal match between second-seeded Dale Keough-Hall and Karolyn Kirby and the fifth-seeded team of Linda Robertson and Julie Schaar. The winner will play the Opalinski-Chisolm-Carrillo team in today’s 2 p.m. championship match.

In earlier winners’ bracket semifinal action, Strand and Bellomo defeated Keough-Hall and Kirby, 15-12, with Opalinski and Chisolm-Carrillo beating Gayle Stammer and Lori Zeno, 15-6.

Stammer and Fountain Valley resident Zeno were later knocked out of the double-elimination tournament by Robertson and Schaar, 15-3, in a match that earned Robertson, a former Laguna Beach High School star, and Laguna Niguel resident Schaar their berth in the losers’ bracket semifinals.

Meanwhile, in the men’s winners’ bracket finals, No. 1 seeded Pete Aronchick of Culver City and Mark Eller of Pacific Palisades needed an hour and a half before they could score a 15-7 victory over Dana McFarland and Kevin Cleary.

Aronchick and Eller, who trailed at one point, 4-1, scored nine of the next 10 points to take a 10-5 lead. After Aronchick and Eller extended their lead to 13-6, Cleary and McFarland scored on an errant Eller serve before Eller finished the match with two scoring spikes.

Cleary and McFarland will face the winner of today’s 10 a.m. losers’ bracket semifinal match between the fourth-seeded tandem, Dane Selznick and Andy Fishburn and 11th-seeded Mike Fitzgerald and Matt Rigg. The winner will play Aronchick and Eller in today’s 4 p.m. championship match.

Fitzgerald and Rigg, who started their day by losing to Aronchick and Eller, 15-6, earned their spot in the losers’ bracket semifinals by upsetting third-seeded Jeff Southcott and Wes Welch, 15-9.