Chaminade Beats Familiar Foes

The Chaminade High girls’ soccer team revisited past glories Monday with a pair of impressive victories in the Excalibur tournament at Foothill High.

The 32-team event, regarded as one of Southern California’s premier tournaments, had not been kind to the Eagles in recent years. However, Chaminade defeated El Modena, 5-1, in the first round and St. Lucy’s, 2-0, in the second round to reach its first Excalibur quarterfinal in seven appearances.

Chaminade (9-1-1), the two-time defending Southern Section Division III champion, will play South Torrance, the defending Southern Section Division II champion, today at 2 p.m.

South Torrance, 27-0-2 last season, is undefeated this season. Other teams in the quarterfinals include traditional powers Mission Viejo, Capistrano Valley and Los Alamitos.

“There’s no hiding from any teams here,” said Mike Evans, Chaminade coach. “I certainly didn’t expect this and I guess no one else down here did either. They’re all asking who we are and where we’re from.”

Against El Modena (7-3-2), which Chaminade defeated in the 1997 Division III title game, the Eagles scored three goals in the first eight minutes of the second half and outshot El Modena, 17-3. Jennifer Valentine scored two goals and Amy Watts had two assists.

Valentine, who has seven goals, scored in the 20th and 41st minutes against St. Lucy’s (7-1-1), which Chaminade tied, 0-0, in last season’s Division III final.

Chaminade is No. 3 in The Times’ regional rankings.

In other girls’ games:

Chatsworth 7, Newbury Park 0--Shannon DeVos had two goals to help the Chancellors (8-1-1) defeat the Panthers (0-8-2) and advance to the Hart tournament quarterfinals today against Danville Monte Vista.

Other quarterfinal games, all at 12:15 p.m., are Hart vs. Nordhoff, South Pasadena vs. Louisville and Ventura vs. Quartz Hill.

The tournament semifinals are at 3:05 p.m. and the final is Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Chatsworth defeated Hart in a shootout to claim the 1997 tournament title.

Valencia 1, El Camino Real 1--Heather Zubis scored in the first half for Valencia (6-1-5) but Viva Guerrero scored in the final five minutes of regulation for the Conquistadores (3-0-2) in pool play at the Hart tournament.

The teams engaged in a post-match shootout to determine which would finish second and third in their pool.

Valencia won, 2-1, and qualified for the fifth-place bracket when goalkeeper Michelle Bontempi denied Megan Porter on the Conquistadores’ final shot.

Quartz Hill 1, Saugus 0--Julie Gold’s fifth goal, from 15 yards in the 62nd minute, lifted the Rebels (4-2-2) to a pool-play victory at the Hart tournament.

Birmingham 1, La Salle 1--Jennifer Wesser gave La Salle a 1-0 halftime lead at the Hart tournament before Krissie Oakes of Birmingham (2-2-2) tied the score of the pool-play game on an assist from her sister Jill.

BOYS’ GAMES

Reseda 4, Palmdale 0--Oscar Sims scored three goals and Kenny Zepeda scored another to lead the Regents (8-3) to a pool-play victory in the Hart tournament.

Earlier in the day, Sims and Carlos Morales scored in a 2-1 victory over San Pedro.

South Torrance 2, Simi Valley 1--Kurt Schmidt scored on a free kick from 20 yards in the final minute to lift South Torrance (10-0-2) in a pool-play game at the Marina tournament.

Sergio Renes pulled Simi Valley (5-4-1) into a 1-1 tie in the opening seconds of the second half.

Earlier, the Pioneers defeated St. Paul, 6-0, with Renes and Whitney Fike each scoring two goals.