Beard Plans to Swim for Arizona

Amanda Beard of Irvine, a triple medalist at the 1996 Olympics, will swim in college for Arizona, Irvine Novaquatics Coach David Salo announced Tuesday.

Salo also said another Novaquatics swimmer, Staciana Stitts, will sign with California.

Beard, a senior at Irvine High, won silver medals in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke and was a member of the gold-medal winning 400-meter medley relay team in Atlanta. She is the American record holder in the 100.

Stitts, who attends Carlsbad High, is a member of the U.S. Pan American Games team that will compete in Canada next summer.

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Sonora softball player Jennifer Link made an oral commitment to Ohio State and volleyball player Worthy Lien orally committed to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Sonora Athletic Director John Link said.

Link, an infielder, earned All-Southern Section honors as a sophomore and a junior. Lien is a three-time All-Freeway League selection and earned All-Southern Section Division II honors last season.

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Jenny Topping, three-time Times All-Orange County catcher, heads a list of four Orange County softball players selected to the 17-member junior national team that will represent the United States June 17-26 at the 1999 Junior Girls World Championship in Taipei, Taiwan.

They were chosen from among 42 invitees, 10 of whom were from Orange County.

Topping, a catcher from La Habra now at Washington, will be joined by Fresno State infielder Lovieanne Jung of Fountain Valley, as well as Foothill shortstop Jaime Clark and Pacifica catcher Toria Auelua. Clark will sign today with Washington and Auelua with UCLA.

The team, announced by the Amateur Softball Assn./USA Softball, also will compete in the 1999 USA Softball Women’s National Team Festival in Fresno.

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Derek Gilchrist of Elk Grove, Calif., shot a five-under-par 66 to take the lead Tuesday after the first round of the TearDrop Tour West Coast Championship at Cypress Golf Club.

Two players were two shots back and four others were tied for fourth at 69. Ben Garner of Newport Beach was tied for 16th after shooting 72 on the 6,510-yard course.

The three-round tournament concludes Thursday.

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Two Orange County golfers were named to the Scholastic Junior All-America Golf team.

Ronald Won of University High and Angela Rho of Sonora were among the 10 boys and 10 girls named to the team. Won, a senior, has at 4.23 grade-point average. Rho, a junior, has a 4.33 grade-point average. The players will be honored at an awards banquet Nov. 23 at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

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Dorsey and Audra Adams of Newport Beach won the USTA National Mother and Daughter Hardcourt Championships Sunday in Montgomery, Texas.

Dorsey, 41, and Audra, 16, held off two match points in the second set to defeat Jean and Krista Lee, 17, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., 0-6, 7-6, 6-2.

“I’m still stunned at coming back and winning,” Dorsey said, “but I think those things they teach us when we’re children--never give up--really pay off. I have to give my daughter Audra credit.”

Audra, a junior tennis player at Newport Harbor High, had played softball for 11 years but is now concentrating on tennis. She won the national 16s girls’ hardcourt championships last summer at Alamo, Calif. She has played mother-daughter tournaments with her mother for about three years. In June, the pair made it to the finals of the USTA Mother and Daughter Indoor Championships in Lake Oswego, Ore., but lost to Janet and Jolene Watanabe of La Puente.

In 1997, the Adamses were ranked No. 7 nationally among mother-daughter teams but were unranked in the three-day tournament last weekend.

“I taught my daughter how to play doubles, the strategies and so on,” Dorsey said. “She has now become a better player then me. She’s faster and stronger, and has the brain of an older player, because I’ve given her my knowledge.”