PREP REVIEW / DONNA CARTER : Mike Joyner: Stroke of Success for Navy

Estancia High School graduate Mike Joyner displayed some very nonplebeian-like behavior in the Army-Navy golf match earlier this month. Joyner, a freshman at the U.S. Naval Academy, was the medalist with a score of 74, helping the Midshipmen to a one-stroke, 383-384 victory over Army on the Navy golf course in Annapolis, Md.

This wasn’t just any match, this was the match.

“Actually, it’s a big win,” Joyner said. “There is a lot of hype, not hype, but pressure from your classmates to do well. The big thing around here is, ‘Did you beat Army?’ ”

Each event against Army is so big, in fact, that athletes who defeat the Cadets in their sports get a special star along with their letter.

Joyner is used to starring. He was captain of Estancia’s Southern Section championship team and the squad’s co-most valuable player last season.

Navy Coach Larry Ringer originally underestimated the skill of the plebe.

“Mike is one of the finest strikers of the golf ball I have had here in my 15 years of coaching at the Naval Academy,” Ringer said. “I didn’t think he was as good as he is, and it has been a very very pleasant surprise.

“The qualities I have found in him is he has the look of a winner and a killer instinct on the golf course.”

Not so gold gloves: La Habra baseball Coach Paul Thomas believes his team leads the county in only one category--errors. The Highlanders, who are in last place in the Freeway League, have committed 61 errors in 20 games.

“I don’t think anyone can touch us,” Thomas said. “Of course, we can’t touch the ball, so it doesn’t matter.”

Comings and goings: Greg Yeck, El Toro girls’ basketball coach, made one mistake last summer. “I went to Europe and it spoiled me,” he said. “I learned there’s more to life out there than a basketball gym.”

Yeck, who led the Chargers to the South Coast League championship and to the Southern Section 5-A quarterfinals this season, will not return to coach the team in the fall.

“After eight years it has gotten to the point where the program is so large,” Yeck said. “It is a year-round program and I’m the only person on campus running it. They just don’t have the coaches for the girls’ programs like they do for the guys. If they need an assistant football coach, they can find a teaching position, but not for the girls.

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t come back, but after so many years of going 11 months a year, I wanted a break.”

Yeck coached the varsity team the past five seasons compiling a 107-37 record, reaching the playoffs all five years and advancing to the semifinals in 1988.

Kevin Kiernan, who coached the La Quinta girls to their first Southern Section title this season, has applied for the position.

Bye-bye Brea: The Brea-Olinda girls’ basketball team, winner of the Tournament of Champions in Santa Barbara in December, won’t return to the tournament next season, according to tournament director Len Locher.

“They’re the first defending champion in 12 years of the tournament that has declined an invitation to defend its title,” Locher said. “They have two returning All-CIF players (Jody Anton and Janielle Williams). They claim they won’t duck anybody, but it looks that way to me.”

Locher said Brea-Olinda Coach Mark Trakh made a decision to play in the Costa Mesa tournament next season.

“The trips cost us a lot of money last season and this year we have allocated that money for new uniforms next year,” Trakh said. “Len Locher runs an outstanding tournament and we will always support his programs, however, we just feel we are in a rebuilding year next year and would like to stay in Orange County.”

Eagle flies the coop: Santa Margarita sophomore guard Kristen Mulligan, who last year was Orange County’s third-leading scorer, will not return to the school in the fall, her father, Dennis Mulligan, said. Instead, she plans to attend Palos Verdes High School, whose girls’ basketball team was the Southern Section and Southern Regional 3-A runner-up to Brea-Olinda.

Santa Margarita opened two years ago and does not have a senior class, but Mulligan, a 5-6 point guard, led the Eagles to a second-place finish (20-7, 12-2) in the Olympic League by averaging 22 points and five assists a game.

“Basically there were other family-related issues for the move, but in terms of basketball in particular, it is to give her an opportunity to get involved with a more established program,” Dennis Mulligan said. “Santa Margarita, being a new school, in another three, four, five years will be there, but right now they are a little bit behind in terms of their summer programs and playing in the better tournaments.”

Said Eagle Coach Jeff Seckman: “I’m sick about it. We went from a hot team to a cold team. I feel bad, but she has got to do what’s best for her.”

Mulligan was named to Brea-Olinda’s all-tournament team early in the season, though Santa Margarita didn’t even place in the tournament.

“She is probably one of the best-kept secrets in the county,” Trakh said.

Crusing in third gear: When Frank Antonacci, Claremont High School athletic director, decided to switch his head baseball coaching job with the softball coach, he didn’t know things would be so easy.

But thanks to third baseman Amy Miller, Antonacci’s first-year with the softball program has been quite pleasureable, he said.

“Just put her out at third and she does the rest,” Antonacci said.

Miller has 47 runs batted in to move into seventh place on the all-time Southern Section list. The single-season mark is 53 RBIs, shared by three players. Miller still has a shot at the record because Claremont has qualified for the small schools playoffs.

Miller, 5-11, 210 pounds, has been power at the plate; she is leading the county with a .597 batting average.

Prep Notes

El Toro basketball player Sara Bone and Westminster field hockey player Kristen Bowman are among the 10 girls who are finalists for the CIF-Reebok scholar-athlete award. Canyon wrestler Zach Cooper, Saddleback track and field athlete Bob Price and Garden Grove wrestler Guy Uesugi are among the boys’ finalists. The winners, who will receive $2,000 scholarships, will be announced today. . . . Some of the county’s strongest athletes are expected to compete in the 12th South Orange County Weightlifting championships on Saturday at San Clemente High. Competition will be staged in the bench press and squat in five weight categories. For further information, call Dave Elecciri at 492-4165.