Laguna Beach Streak Ends With JV Loss

There was a good reason Laguna Beach, the second-ranked boys’ volleyball team in Orange County, lost to Laguna Hills in four games last week in a Pacific Coast League match.

Friday, Laguna Hills defeated the Artists’ junior varsity squad. The Laguna Beach varsity was in Manhattan Beach playing in a two-day tournament, which it won for the first time in 16 years.

“For three months, I was trying to reschedule the Laguna Hills match,” Laguna Beach Coach Shawn Patchell said. “We’ve played in [the Manhattan Beach] tournament nearly every year.

Patchell said the tournament would better help the Artists prepare for the Southern Section playoffs, which begin next week.

Laguna Beach (12-2, 7-1 in league), which has won nine consecutive league titles, had its on-court league winning streak end at 86.

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Geney Orris hit her 29th career home run Wednesday, a grand slam, to break the official Southern Section softball record as Brea Olinda defeated Anaheim, 24-0, in a five-inning Orange League game ended by the mercy rule.

Orris surpassed Glendora St. Lucy’s Jenny Dalton (1992) for the career mark, but Orris may not have the record to herself.

The section office has not received the appropriate paperwork from Montclair Prep, whose Tamra Freedman, now a freshman at Texas, hit her 28th and 29th home runs last season in a 24-0 victory over Riverside La Sierra Academy.

“According to our paperwork, Jenny Dalton is the career record-holder,” section spokesperson Thom Simmons said. “It’s the school’s responsibility to submit the paperwork to make a record recognized.”

It was Orris’ fifth home run of the season.

“I wish we didn’t have 20 runs, that it would have happened in a closer game,” said Orris, a senior who will pitch next year at Nevada Las Vegas.

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Villa Park freshman Shelly Raworth didn’t even know for sure if she would compete at the Southern Section girls’ individual golf finals last week at Mission Lakes in Desert Hot Springs.

But she got to play as a last-minute replacement, shot 79, and qualified for the Southern California Golf Assn. finals June 2 at The Members Club in Murietta.

“She’s the first girl to play for the golf team at Villa Park,” Villa Park girls’ Athletic Director Sue Gardiner said. “It was an oversight that she didn’t get entered in the first place.

Raworth played and was one of only seven county players to break 80 on the par-72 course.

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Joni Easterly said Monday she has resigned as girls’ basketball coach at Irvine.

Easterly coached one season. The Vaqueros were 16-9 and finished second in the Sea View League. She previously coached at Katella and Fullerton College.

“I want to start my own club and continue giving private lessons,” Easterly said. “Eventually, I want to start my own basketball school in a self-contained facility.

“There are too many things I want to do out there and high school coaching [restrictions] limits you.”

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Fullerton’s badminton team won its first Freeway League title last week, finishing the league season at 6-2.

“The last two years have been the best two years in school history,” said former head coach and now assistant Doug Murray. “The Freeway League has been dominated by Buena Park. Everybody but us has won at least a co-championship. I’m really happy for these kids.”

Murray stepped down as head coach this year to spend more time with his young children, but helps out new coach Huynh Nguyen, a 1997 Fullerton graduate and former member of the badminton team.

Under Murray the past four years, the Indians went from a 1-15 record to 14-2 this season and a No. 4 ranking in the county. They are led by the boys’ doubles team of junior Wen Mai and Ahn Nguyen, who went 19-1 in league and are top-seeded for the league finals.

Melanie Neff and Times staff writer Martin Henderson contributed to this report.