THE TIMES ORANGE COUNTY ALL-SPORTS AWARD : Climbing to the Top of the Pile : Villa Park Sits Atop the Large School Standings for the First Time, While Perennial Contender Corona del Mar Leads the Small School

Picture the Los Alamitos football team. Nationally recognized. Big. Fast. Strong. Able to leap backpedaling cornerbacks in a single bound.

Hard to believe it has been tackled by the racket-wielding girls of the Villa Park tennis team.

Tony Hartley, meet Faye DeVera.

All things being equal (and they are) for The Times Orange County’s 1995-96 All-Sports Award, the Villa Park girls’ tennis team largely represented the difference between first and second place among the large-school division schools through the fall sports season.

The All-Sports Award--a high school sports report card--is the county’s only comprehensive competition involving the 21 boys’ and girls’ sports that have a sanctioned Southern Section championship. The award recognizes schools that have shown a capacity to be successful--albeit only in the win-loss column--across the board.

Los Alamitos won the first large-school title in 1993-94, Mater Dei won last year. Villa Park now finds itself in that line of succession after one trimester of competition.

This is foreign territory for the Spartans, who have never been much more than a blip on the scoring chart. Two years ago, Villa Park came out of the fall season in 12th place and finished ninth. Last year, the Spartans were ninth in the fall and finished 13th. “Even though our best season might be behind us, we have a couple of areas where we can still score some points,” said Sue Gardiner, Villa Park girls’ athletic director and The Times Orange County girls’ tennis coach of the year.

Gardiner pointed to girls’ basketball, where the Spartans are expected to win the Century League title, an improved boys’ basketball team and a strong wrestling program; in the spring, there are strong swimming and softball programs.

“Everyone has been excited all season and this is the frosting on the cake,” she said. “This is a great school academically and athletically, and to see things start to come together for us is encouraging. We have such neat coaches and great kids--everyone is working for a good quality program. The school deserves it; it really is a great school.”

However, it could be tough for the Spartans to hang on. The winter is prime time for fourth-place Mater Dei, which has the county’s top-ranked boys’ basketball team and the No. 3 girls’ basketball team. The Monarchs’ soccer programs also are solid.

In all likelihood, Mater Dei is headed deep into the section basketball playoffs, and that’s where the serious points are made.

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There is no doubt Villa Park was buoyed by the performance of the girls’ tennis team, which upset two-time defending champion Laguna Beach to win the Division II title. In fact, there is a specific match Gardiner says determined the outcome of the fall All-Sports scoring: the Spartans’ No. 1 doubles team of Susan Shaw and Anny Chien playing against a team they weren’t supposed to do very well against. Shaw and Chien forced a tiebreaker and eventually lost in games, 7-6. However, Villa Park won on games, 72-71; had Shaw and Chien lost, 6-4, and not forced the tiebreaker, the Spartans would have been section runner-up and Los Alamitos would have about a 2 1/2-point lead in the All-Sports rankings.

The Spartan girls received 20 points for being the Southern Section champion, 10 points for finishing first in the Century League, and 10 points for winning all of their league matches.

Those perfect 40 points gave Villa Park 128.7 overall, compared to Los Alamitos’ 127.4. Santa Margarita is third with 120.9 points, and Mater Dei has 117.7.

But Villa Park also benefited from its water polo team, which scored six more points than Los Alamitos, and the girls’ volleyball team, which scored 9.2 points more.

But clearly, it was tennis that got the points no one expected and put Villa Park on top of the Orange County prep sports world.

Los Alamitos would have been in first place had it won its semifinal football game; the Griffins were seeded fourth, but lost to unseeded Loyola, 37-34. Los Alamitos got a perfect 40 points in girls’ cross-country.

“I can’t believe there’s a more competitive place in California than Orange County,” said John Barnes, Los Alamitos’ football coach and athletic director. “Whoever wins it has a real special award.

“It’s not like winning a league title that a team and coach can focus on. Some schools are known for having great football or basketball programs, but it’s hard to be known as a school that has a total athletic program.”

Again, Corona del Mar--with an enrollment of only 773--led the small schools coming out of the fall scoring period. The Sea Kings had 126.4 points, and will be trying to fend off the Servite/Rosary tandem (115.6) and El Modena (110.4).

To accommodate increasing enrollment in Orange County schools, the small school cutoff was increased to 1,275 students (from 1,200 the previous two years), which keeps schools in Division II-AA and above together. Also, enrollment figures for Connelly and St. Michael’s Prep are doubled because they are girls- and boys-only schools.

Corona del Mar won the small school title two years ago but finished fifth last last year, well behind champion Laguna Hills.

The Sea Kings have never trailed in the fall, and again had good fortune based largely on the football team (25.9 points), boys’ cross-country (30), girls’ cross-country (21) and girls’ tennis (31).

The key performance was probably turned in by Corona del Mar’s football team, which overcame the arrest of its coach in the second week of the season. Under interim Coach Dick Freeman, the Sea Kings finished second in the Sea View League and reached the Division V semifinals.

Laguna Hills (82.1 points) is still poised to repeat history; the Hawks trail Corona del Mar by 44.4 points. Last year, Laguna Hills trailed Corona del Mar by 46.1.

The Times ranked the county’s 77 public and private high school programs using a formula developed by Times editors and prep sports staff. The rankings are based on a formula that considers record (overall through Southern Section finals or league only, depending on whether it’s a “team” or “individual” sport), league finish (points for first, second, third and at-large playoff teams) and section playoff performances. The boys’ and girls’ scores are combined to determine the overall winners.

A school received no points for a team if it went winless, did not compete in that sport or did not report. Every effort was made, through correspondence and phone calls with the school and the Southern Section office, to obtain a point total for every team fielded by every school. However, records were unavailable or not received in some cases.

Each division champion at the conclusion of the spring sports season will be awarded a traveling trophy, a trophy to keep and a banner to display in its gymnasium. Second- and third-place teams in each division will receive trophies.

Here’s a look at how Villa Park earned its large-school division-leading 128.7 points this fall. (Point totals are rounded to 0.1. The computer program used to determine the rankings carried calculations out to .001)

* Football: Villa Park was 8-4 (a .666 winning percentage) for 6.67 points, earned 10 points for finishing first in the Century League and eight points for reaching the section quarterfinals. Total: 24.7.

* Boys’ cross-country: The Spartans went 1-4 in league (two points). They got no points for finishing first, second, or third, or for reaching the playoffs as an at-large team (because they didn’t). Total: 2.

* Girls’ cross-country: The team went 2-3 for four points and finished third in league (five points); it earned 12 points for reaching the section semifinals. Total: 19.

* Girls’ tennis: A 10-0 league record (league-only because it is an “individual” sport) was worth 10 points, a first-place finish was worth another 10, and the Southern Section title was worth 20. Perfect season. Total: 40.

* Girls’ volleyball: The Spartans went 12-6 for 6.67 points and earned five points for finishing third in league. Total: 11.7.

* Water polo: This was a key performance because the Spartan girls’ tennis total matched Los Alamitos’ perfect girls’ cross-country score. Villa Park’s water polo team was 26-5 for 8.387 points, finished second in league for seven points, and was the section runner-up (16 points). Total: 31.4.

The Times’ water polo coach of the year, Jeff Ehrlich, said his team did better than expected because it got a lot of support from the other programs on campus.

“There’s not a lot of jealousy at Villa Park [this year],” Ehrlich said. “When your starting quarterback [Sam Stremick], who has a playoff game in two days, is sitting in the stands wearing a water polo hat at the CIF finals--that says something about your school.

“When your school’s programs are supporting each other, it makes the daily operation a lot better.”

Los Alamitos earned 27.5 points for football, four for boys’ cross-country, 40 for girls’ cross-country, 28 for girls’ tennis, 2.5 for girls’ volleyball and 25.4 for water polo.

“It makes you appreciate the total athletic program,” Barnes said of the award. “When we won, it was the first time we really sat down and appreciated the fact that we, boys’ and girls’ sports, were all one.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

All-Sports Divisions

Using enrollment figures from the Southern Section, Orange County’s high schools were split into two divisions. The cutoff point was 1,275 students.

LARGE SCHOOLS (31)

1. Los Alamitos 1,947; 2. Esperanza 1,940; 3. Saddleback 1,898; 4. Fountain Valley 1,790; 5. Santa Ana Valley 1,770; 6. Irvine 1,727; 7. Century 1,679; 8. Westminster 1,667; 9. El Toro 1,658; 10. Aliso Niguel 1,626; 11. Huntington Beach 1,586; 12. Capistrano Valley 1,578; 13. Santa Ana 1,548; 14. University 1,545; 15. Marina 1,523; 16. Mater Dei 1,519; 17. Edison 1,516; 18. Sunny Hills 1,494; 18. Dana Hills 1,478; 20. San Clemente 1,472; 21. Orange 1,468; 22. Mission Viejo 1,387; 23. Loara 1,349; 24. Trabuco Hills 1,349; 25. Villa Park 1,338; 26. Woodbridge 1,333; 27. Anaheim 1,326; 28. Foothill 1,303; 29. Canyon 1,288; 30. Cypress 1,282; 31. Santa Margarita 1,280.

SMALL SCHOOLS (46)

32. El Dorado 1,272; 33. Garden Grove 1,268; 34. Ocean View 1,268; 35. Brea Olinda 1,252; 36. Laguna Hills 1,252; 37. Santiago 1,252; 38. Valencia 1,232; 39. Kennedy 1,230; 40. Katella 1,212; 41. Los Amigos 1,208; 42. El Modena 1,165; 43. Savanna 1,155; 44. Buena Park 1,153; 45. Troy 1,151; 46. Tustin 1,148; 47. Newport Harbor 1,119; 48. La Habra 1,107; 49. Western 1,076; 50. Magnolia 1,058; 51. Pacifica 1,043; 52. Servite/Rosary (559/476) 1,035; 53. Sonora 1,033; 54. Bolsa Grande 1,032; 55. Fullerton 977; 56. La Quinta 944; 57. Rancho Alamitos 933; 58. Costa Mesa 785; 59. Estancia 777; 60. Corona del Mar 773; 61. Laguna Beach 574; 62. Orange Lutheran 450; 63. Calvary Chapel 446; 64. Brethren Christian 407; 65. Whittier Christian 375; 66. Connelly 166 (332); 67. St. Michael’s Prep 84 (168); 68. Capistrano Valley Christian 160; 69. St. Margaret’s 135; 70. Southern California Christian 134; 71. Huntington Beach Claremont 89; 72. Fairmont 72; 73. Heritage Christian 68; 74. Orangewood Academy 68; 75. Liberty Christian 56; 76. Pacific Shores 34; 77. Bethel Baptist 24.

Large School Top 20

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School FB BCC GCC GT GVB WP Total 1. Villa Park 24.7 2 19 40 11.7 31.4 128.7 2. Los Alamitos 27.4 4 40 28 2.5 25.4 127.4 3. Santa Margarita 21.7 28 29 15 18.8 8.4 120.9 4. Mater Dei 26.3 15 15 23 30.7 7.8 117.7 5. Sunny Hills 20.4 20 20 20 17.6 9.8 107.9 6. Dana Hills 2 11 36 28 24.1 3.6 104.7 7. University 22.9 15 30 15 12.9 6.7 102.5 8. El Toro 33.9 9 15 2 1.76 33.9 95.6 9. Foothill 10.5 4 34 3 4.3 39.6 95.4 10. Esperanza 17.3 11 27 2 13.7 23.8 94.8 11. Capo Valley 25.5 20 2 10 4.3 20.2 82.0 12. Huntington Beach 3 26 6 11 27.4 5 78.4 13. San Clemente 17.3 0 0 10 25.8 25 78.1 14. Orange 10.5 36 0 3 18.3 5.2 73.0 15. Irvine 12.5 2 36 0 18.6 4 73.0 16. Edison 8.5 33 2 15 11.9 0 70.3 17. Saddleback 3.5 23 20 4 1.3 11 62.8 18. Santa Ana Valley 24.7 21 11 0 1.9 3.8 62.3 19. Santa Ana 1 35 15 2 1.3 1.2 55.5 20. Aliso Niguel 22.1 4 13 2 8.1 3.8 53.0

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KEY: FB--Football, BCC--Boys’ cross-country, GCC--Girls’ cross-country, GT--Girls’ tennis; GVB--Girls’ volleyball, WP--Water polo.

Values are rounded to nearest 10th. Rounding might create slight discrepancies between sum of individual figures listed and total.

Small School Top 20

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School FB BCC GCC GT GVB WP Total 1. Corona del Mar 25.9 30 21 31 8.8 9.8 126.4 2. Servite/Rosary 38.6 4 6 20 17.8 29.2 115.6 3. El Modena 5.5 35 40 11 18.9 0 110.4 4. El Dorado 13.4 11 15 40 1.3 24.9 105.6 5. Orange Lutheran 30.9 20 32 2 15.8 0 100.7 6. Brea Olinda 12.5 15 20 14 11.1 25.1 97.8 7. Newport Harbor 4 0 21 19 28.7 22.7 95.4 8. Tustin 11.1 32 9 11 9.1 20.4 92.6 9. Katella 2 40 20 4 11.3 14 91.4 10. Laguna Beach 2 0 2 36 34.2 11.5 85.8 11. Laguna Hills 26.3 19 15 10 10.3 1.4 82.1 12. Pacifica 17.3 5 20 0 18 16.9 77.2 13. Garden Grove 2.2 17 13.7 20 10.3 11.2 74.4 14. Western 31.2 4 0 5 15.2 11.3 66.7 15. Kennedy 26.3 0 0 14 22.4 1.7 64.4 16. Costa Mesa 4 20 0 0 0.7 38.3 63.0 17. La Habra 3 0 13 5 26.2 15.6 62.8 18. Fullerton 30.5 2 11 2 2.1 12.3 60.0 19. Ocean View 3 2 2 15 30.9 5 57.9 20. Sonora 5 11 0 14 10.3 12.2 52.5

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KEY: FB--Football, BCC--Boys’ cross-country, GCC--Girls’ cross-country, GT--Girls’ tennis; GVB--Girls’ volleyball, WP--Water polo.

Values are rounded to nearest 10th. Rounding might create slight discrepancies between sum of individual figures listed and total.