Tired Sorgi Withdraws From Event

Mission Viejo’s Erica Sorgi withdrew from the women’s platform competition of the U.S. National Diving Championships Thursday at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta.

Sorgi, a favorite going into the competition, removed herself from the semifinals on the advice of her coach, Hongping Li.

“I’ve been to a lot of meets this year,” said Sorgi, 16. “I did the Goodwill Games, juniors and this all in a row. It’s hard.”

Sorgi, who leads the three-meter springboard event, still plans to finish her competition on the one- and three-meter boards. She won both of those events at last week’s Junior National Diving Championships. The one-meter finals are set for tonight and the three-meter finals are on Saturday.

San Juan Capistrano’s Kristen Marquis failed to make the finals in the women’s platform competition.

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Huntington Beach’s Melissa Esmero continued to advance in the backdraw at the USTA girls’ 16s National Championships at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego.

Esmero defeated Alexis Matire of Marlboro, N.J., 6-0, 7-5, and advances to play Elina Bairos of Sarasota, Fla., at 9 a.m. today. The winner will play again at 1 p.m.

Newport Beach’s Caylan Leslie was eliminated by Kathleen Brlaszak of Fairfax, Va., 7-6, 4-6, 6-2, and Corona del Mar’s Nadia Vaughan lost to Danielle Schwartz of Livingston, N.J., 6-2, 6-1.

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Dana Point’s Brandon Fallon and Newport Beach’s Geoff Abrams each advanced to the men’s singles quarterfinals at the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. National Summer Championships at the University of Illinois.

Fallon, who graduated from Dana Hills High, is a sophomore at Nevada Las Vegas, and Abrams, a Newport Harbor High graduate, is a junior at Stanford.

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Four county surfers dominated at the Katin Team Challenge championships in three-to-five foot waves on the south side of the Huntington Beach Pier.

Huntington Beach’s Wyatt Simmons and Barry Deffenbaugh, Capistrano Beach’s Terence McNulty and San Clemente’s Evan Slater won their heats in the second and third qualifying rounds.

Qualifying continues through Saturday. The individual finals are Sunday. Larger waves are expected over the weekend because of Hurricane Georgette.

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Ben Cesar has been named assistant track and field coach at UC Irvine. Cesar, a member of the Philippine national track team from 1993 to 1997, was an assistant coach last year at Concordia. He is a UCLA graduate who was a sprinter at Irvine in 1991-92.

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Jeff Dunlap, a former assistant basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton College, has joined Coach Larry Farmer’s staff at Loyola of Chicago. Dunlap played basketball at UCLA under Farmer from 1984-86.