SPORTSCOPE : Local Teams Battle for Tennis Title

The UCLA women’s tennis team is seeded fourth and Pepperdine fifth in the NCAA Division I championships, which end Sunday at Stanford University.

Singles and doubles competition will be Tuesday through Thursday.

In today’s second round, UCLA will meet the winner of Wednesday’s first-round match between Mississippi and the University of San Diego, and Pepperdine will meet Oklahoma State. Unbeaten Florida, five-time defending champion Stanford and Georgia are seeded one-two-three, respectively.

UCLA players in individual competition are Kimberly Po, Kirsten Dreyer, Stella Sampras, Iwalani McCalla and Mamie Ceniza in singles and Po-Sampras and McCalla-Ceniza in doubles.

Po and Sampras, Pacific 10 Conference doubles champions, won nine of 10 matches in April and were named the Volvo team of the month.

Pepperdine women in individual play are Janna Kovacevich and Noelle Porter in singles, Kovacevich-Porter in doubles and Anna Brunstrom-Camilla Ohrman as the first alternate doubles team.

The UCLA men’s tennis team, ranked second nationally, finished the regular season 26-3 after shutting out UC Irvine, 6-0, last week. The Bruins will compete in the NCAA championships, which will be held May 17-27, at the University of Georgia.

The No. 7 Pepperdine men’s tennis team (21-2 overall) clinched its first West Coast Conference championship since 1988 last week in the doubles portion of the conference tournament, which had been postponed by rain in April. Pepperdine’s Cary Lothringer and Ari Nathan won the WCC doubles title.

Jean-Bernard Keen of Santa Monica College won the Western State Conference singles championship and teamed with Antonio Robertson to take the WSC doubles title. Keen will play singles, and he and Robertson will play doubles in the regional final today through Saturday at Riverside Community College.

The field in the women’s regionals includes SMC’s Candace Savalas in singles and Savalas and partner Ramona Darvish in doubles.

UCLA pitcher-third baseman Lisa Fernandez was named the Pac-10 softball player of the year.

First-team selections from UCLA besides Fernandez were catcher Erica Ziencina, second baseman Missy Phillips and outfielder Yvonne Gutierrez. Bruins on the second team were shortstop Kristy Howard and infielders Kerry Dienelt and Nichole Victoria.

Last week No. 1 UCLA (50-5 overall, 16-4 in league play) clinched its fourth consecutive conference championship by splitting double-headers against Arizona and Arizona State.

The No. 6 Pepperdine baseball team will try to clinch the West Coast Conference championship in a three-game series against Nevada this weekend at Reno.

The Waves (38-10-1 overall, 23-6 in WCC play as the week began) would have to sweep the series against the Wolf Pack to win the title outright. If Pepperdine wins two of three games this weekend, it would have to win one of three games at Loyola Marymount next weekend to take the title.

The Waves will play host to Cal State Northridge at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Last week the Waves won three of four games from Santa Clara in a series that ended on Sunday. Steve Montgomery, Pepperdine’s best reliever, pitched 5 1/3 innings in Sunday’s 6-5 victory over Santa Clara. Montgomery is 9-0 with three saves and a 1.02 earned-run average.

Santa Monica College utility player Dennis Heineman, who won the Western State Conference batting title with a .453 average, was named to the All-Western State Conference first team.

SMC second-team selections were outfielder Paul Johnson, second baseman Damian Valdivia and third baseman Mike Stella. The Corsairs’ Sal Moreno, Jason Marshall and Brian Dennis received honorable mention.

Johnson received the team’s first Art Rodriguez Award, named for the former SMC batting champion who died in 1990. Johnson set a school record this season with a .447 overall batting average.

Members of the UCLA men’s and women’s track teams will compete at different meets this weekend in an effort to qualify more athletes for the NCAA championships.

Last week the Bruins won a triangular meet against USC and Brigham Young and also beat each team in dual scoring. McArthur Anderson was a double winner for the Bruin men, taking the long jump at 24 feet 5 1/2 inches and the triple jump at 51-6 1/4. Tonya Sedwick led the UCLA women, winning the long jump with a personal-best 21-2 3/4, running a leg on the winning 1,600-meter relay team, finishing second in the 100 hurdles in a hand-timed 13.5 seconds and finishing third in the 400 at 56.82.

Santa Monica College has qualified 13 athletes for the Southern California community college track and field championships on Saturday at Bakersfield College.

SMC women runners are Heather Lomax and Marianne Meyers and the 4 x 100 meter relay team of Erika Gist, Toni Jack, Harriet Weithers and Angela Fantroy. Robyn Kahle will throw the javelin.

The Corsair men include shot-putter Lewis Capes, high jumper William Bowling and the sprint relay team of Mark Ricks, Terry Sigler, Anthony Jefferson and Mike Ewell.

The UCLA men’s varsity crew successfully defended its Newport Regatta championship last week, winning the race in 6:03.14, seven seconds ahead of second-place Stanford.

Sophomore guard-forward Earic Peters was named the most valuable player of the Santa Monica College men’s basketball team at an awards banquet. Sophomore guard Dana Harris was named the team’s top defensive player and freshman guard Dorian Manigo, the most inspirational.

The UCLA men’s golf team finished eighth with a 1,496 score for 72 holes at the Pac-10 championships. Stanford won with 1,430. Bruin Steve Haynes was 12th with 291.