These City Rivals Find Familiarity Breeds Intensity

The Chatsworth High and Granada Hills girls’ soccer teams hope to renew their emotionally charged rivalry March 3 in the City Section 4-A semifinals.

In order for the meeting to occur, top-seeded Chatsworth must defeat eighth-seeded Grant and third-seeded Granada Hills needs to beat fourth-seeded Birmingham.

Games between Chatsworth and Granada Hills tend to feature hard tackles and relentless play because many of the players know each other from youth and club soccer. But the rivalry speaks more to proximity than to the competitive level of their games. Chatsworth has won the last four meetings by a combined 16-3.

“We just haven’t done a lot of scoring against them,” Granada Hills Coach Tom Harp said. “The only thing I can hope for is that we put the ball in the net a couple of times early because they’ve just worn us down as the games have gone on.”

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Dribbling Upstream: Second-round games for Southern Section boys’ and girls’ teams are scheduled to be played today in quagmires throughout the region. Some teams, such as the Thousand Oaks boys, have hit on alternate plans. Others, like the Oak Park girls, will muck it up.

Thousand Oaks, which plays host to Marmonte League rival Royal, has moved the Division I contest to Wednesday at 3 p.m. The winner was scheduled to play the winner of Santa Barbara-Loyola in a Thursday quarterfinal but that meeting will now take place Friday, Thousand Oaks Coach Mark Tietjen said.

Monday afternoon, Oak Park Coach Ted Eggleston, a dentist, took time off from his practice to inspect the Oak Park High field on which the Eagles will host Tri-Valley League rival La Reina today in a Division IV game.

“Some parts of [the field] are completely under water,” Eggleston said. “But it won’t drain for four or five days and it’s worse when it [hardens into ruts], so we’re going to play.”

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Wedding Goals: Chaminade girls’ Coach Mike Evans faced a dilemma Saturday. At the same time as his sister’s wedding reception in Arcadia, his team was scheduled to host Lancaster in a first-round Division III game.

At 6 p.m., Evans said goodbye to the rest of the wedding party and headed to his car for the drive back to West Hills. But his pager buzzed with a message informing him that Chaminade had taken a 1-0 lead after three minutes.

A minute later, Evans was notified the Eagles were up 2-0 and decided to return to the dance floor. As the reception progressed and the game’s score mounted to its eventual 12-0 conclusion, each goal was announced over the reception’s public address system.

“It was the best of both worlds,” Evans said.

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Quick Kicks: Two of the area’s best girls’ snipers square off for the third time this season when Oak Park plays host to La Reina in a Division IV game. Senior midfielder Aimee Thompson has scored 32 goals for La Reina (16-5) and junior forward Rebecca Carroll has 27 goals and 22 assists for Oak Park (11-8-2). . . . La Canada was the only one of the 16 seeded Southern Section girls’ teams to lose in the first round. The Spartans, Rio Hondo League champions and seeded third in Division III, were upset by Mayfair. . . . The Thousand Oaks boys are making their first playoff appearance since the 1992-93 season. The Lancers have 11 seniors--including seven starters.