Young Out Because of Arm Trouble

Marissa Young, last year’s Orange County player of the year in softball, is expected to miss four to six weeks of competition because of recurring arm trouble.

Young, who had an MRI exam last week, had battled tendinitis in the off-season. According to Mater Dei Coach Doug Myers, doctors think Young has a nerve problem in her pitching elbow.

The Monarchs opened this season ranked No. 1 in Orange County. Young is 7-1, with 71 strikeouts in 40 innings, but Mater Dei will also feel her absence in the lineup; she was batting .455 with two home runs and a county-high 16 runs batted in.

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John Koehler, Orange County’s winningest active girls’ basketball coach, announced his retirement last week after 17 seasons at La Habra.

Koehler’s teams compiled a 349-107 record, and won or shared 14 league titles.

“I’ve been coaching 34 years and decided it was time to sit back and watch the others play,” said Koehler, whose daughters, Brooke and Lauren, played for him.

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Fourteen players from Orange County were entered in the Easter Bowl Junior Tennis Championships in Miami. After three days of competition, only Taylor Dent, Ryan Moore and David Lingman are left.

The seventh-seeded Dent of Newport Beach cruised into today’s boys’ 18 division round of 16 against Moore with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over unseeded Chad Mooney of St. Albans, W.Va. Moore, a junior at Servite, advanced with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Kyle Kliegerman of New York. Lingman, a sophomore at Woodbridge, reached the third round of the boys’ 16s with a 6-2, 6-2 upset of seventh-seeded Bo Hodge of Athens, Ga.

In the boys’ 18 first round, Chase Exon, a junior at Woodbridge high, lost to ninth-seeded Andres Pedroso of Coral Gables, Fla., 6-3, 6-4, and Foothill junior Joost Hol lost to Adrian Pagani of Oldsmar, Fla., 7-5, 6-3. In the boys’ 16s first round, ninth-seeded Cody Jackson, a sophomore at Los Alamitos, lost to unseeded Mardy Fish of Vero Beach, Fla., 6-2, 6-3.

In the girls’ 18s first round, Villa Park senior Faye DeVera lost to fourth-seeded Julie Ditty of Ashland, Ky., 6-1, 7-6 (6-2). In the girls’ 16s second round, Corona del Mar freshman Caylan Leslie fell to third-seeded Ansley Cargill of Atlanta, 6-2, 6-0, and Mater Dei freshman Melissa Esmero lost to ninth-seeded Prim Siripipat of Wesley Chapel, Fla., 6-3, 6-2.

In the girls’ 14s first round, Susanna Lingman of Irvine lost to top-seeded Kelly McCain of Largo, Fla., 6-3, 6-2; Natalie Braverman of Newport Beach lost to fifth-seeded Jennifer Magley of Lawrence, Kan., 6-1, 6-2; and Alexandra McGoodwin of Newport Beach lost to Shelley Henderson of Arlington, Tex., 7-5, 6-1. In the second round of the girls’ 14s, Arpi Kojian of Santa Ana fell to second-seeded Kristen Schlukebir of Kalamazoo, Mich., 6-3, 6-2.

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Times’ all-county boys’ basketball players Chris Burgess and Eric Chenowith started, but posted less-than-stellar performances at Sunday’s McDonald’s High School All-Star Game at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Playing for the West, Burgess, a 6-10 forward from Woodbridge who is headed to Duke, and Chenowith, a 7-1 center from Villa Park who will play at Kansas, shot a combined two for 10 from the field, scoring five points. Burgess made one of two from three-point range, but was one for six from the field overall.

The East, behind 16 points from Elton Brand of Peekskill, N.Y., won, 94-81. Guard Kenny Gregory of Columbus, Ohio, was named the game’s most valuable player with 18 points.

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Trabuco Hills’ Jessica Jarnigan wasn’t too familiar with the softball rivalry between her team and Laguna Hills, but she did her teammates a big favor last week when she pitched a no-hitter against the Hawks.

Jarnigan, a junior who played in Massachusetts as a freshman, said the 2-0 victory was her first exposure to the rivalry.

Times staff writers Dave McKibben and Paul McLeod contributed to this story.