Mater Dei, Simi Valley to Play at Ocean View

Southern Section finals highlight this week’s action, ending with basketball and soccer championship games Friday and Saturday and beginning with Tuesday’s girls’ water polo finals.

Also Tuesday, there are three basketball and 11 soccer semifinals involving county teams.

In boys’ basketball, Mater Dei will host Simi Valley in a Division I-A semifinal at 7:30 p.m. at Ocean View. In Division I-AA girls’ basketball, second-seeded El Toro plays unseeded Lynwood at Laguna Hills in a 7:30 p.m. semifinal and San Clemente will host Ventura Buena at Capistrano Valley at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday in a girls’ basketball Division I-A semifinal, Mater Dei will host Moreno Valley at a site and time to be determined.

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Orange County teams will start and finish the session of four Southern Section girls’ water polo championship games Tuesday at Belmont Plaza.

In the first game at 2 p.m., Rosary plays University in the Division IV final, a rematch of last season’s Division III final which Rosary won, 7-4. In Division I, Irvine plays Newport Harbor at 8:15 p.m.

Irvine girls’ water polo Coach Scott Hinman said he is going to enjoy his first trip to the title game.

A long-time swim and water polo coach, Hinman said he has learned to savor these moments, like Irvine’s 3-2 overtime victory over Long Beach Wilson in the quarterfinals last Tuesday.

Said Hinman: “I said to [Wilson Coach] Ricardo [Azevedo] during the overtime, ‘Hey, isn’t this great?’ He looked at me like I was crazy.

“I used to get all tense and nervous, but this is fun. I’ve been doing this for 20-something years, so I hope I have it figured out.”

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Costa Mesa had its two best performances of the season in the girls’ basketball playoffs. The Mustangs lost in the III-A semifinals to Inglewood Morningside, 38-34, but closed a 12-point deficit to 36-34 with 1 1/2 minutes remaining Saturday at Inglewood High.

The Mustangs had a similar effort at Ojai Nordhoff in the quarterfinals. Costa Mesa scored the final eight points of that game to win, 46-41.

“We peaked, and played two very good games at the end,” Coach Jim Weeks said. “Those were our two best efforts of the season overall, especially defensively.”

He had special praise for Jenny Earnest. “She held [Morningside’s] Acheve Barre scoreless in the second half, and only seven in the first half,” Weeks said. “She had been averaging 16, 18 points per game.”

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Marina guard Karyn Fierst broke her foot on Thursday during practice and it had a huge impact in the Vikings’ 54-39 loss to fourth-seeded Ventura Buena on Saturday.

The Vikings (25-4), the defending section champion, were held to their lowest scoring output of the season. Their leading scorer, 5-foot-10 center Chanda McLeod (15.3 points, 9.7 rebounds), was held to four points and seven rebounds. McLeod was locked in a battle with 6-foot-3 Kelly Greathouse, who scored eight points and had six rebounds.

Fierst, Marina’s best ball-handler, was leading Marina in assists. She is also the Vikings’ best perimeter defender, and Buena took advantage of her absence early, building a 33-15 lead largely on the strength of its outside shooting.

The Vikings scored fewer than 50 points only two other times, both losses to Edison.

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The State wrestling finals are Friday and Saturday at the University of Pacific in Stockton.

Santa Ana qualified seven wrestlers for the meet, including Southern Section and Masters champion Jose Najera (112 pounds), who finished second in state at the same weight class last season.

Calvary Chapel, which has won five of the last six state team titles, qualified six, including Southern Section and Masters champion Adam Bones (125), who was third in state at 112 pounds last season.

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The Orange County all-star girls’ water polo game will be at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at El Toro High. Newport Harbor’s Bill Barnett will coach the South and Esperanza’s Max Miyahara will coach the North.

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Staff writers Martin Henderson and Paul McLeod contributed to this report.