Moorpark Promotes Porto in Baseball

Assistant Mario Porto will replace Ken Wagner as Moorpark College baseball coach, Athletic Director John Keever announced Thursday.

Porto was an assistant at Moorpark for 11 years under Wagner, who retired. Porto was also Moorpark High coach for five seasons, as well as an assistant at Moorpark and Hueneme High.

Moorpark also appointed Annette Broersma as women’s tennis coach and Willard Thurston as men’s and women’s golf coach.

Broersma previously coached at Moorpark College and Thousand Oaks High. She was head tennis pro at Westlake Racquet Club for two years and was executive director of the Ventura County Junior Tennis Assn. for five years. She is director of community and youth programs for the Southern California Section of the U.S. Tennis Assn.

Thurston had been an assistant football coach and is an assistant track coach. Before joining Moorpark last year, he had been at Modesto Junior College for 18 years.

Other new coaches at Moorpark College are Curtis Goss, an assistant track and field coach, and Bob MacKay, an assistant football coach.

BASEBALL

* Jason Urquidez, a top pitcher at Chaminade for the last two years, said Thursday he will transfer to Royal, which is closer to his home in Simi Valley.

Urquidez was 3-2 with a 4.14 earned-run average last season as a junior. Two seasons ago, he was 7-4 with a 1.54 ERA.

* Kris Krise, a senior pitcher at Crescenta Valley High, has been selected to play in the Area Code games next month in Long Beach.

FOOTBALL

* Crescenta Valley High graduates Scott Vossmeyer, Bryan Henry, Wes Jones and Rusty Colburn, along with La Canada graduate Ian Hughes, will play for the West in the 21st annual National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame All-Star game at 7:30 tonight at Arroyo High.

The game, sponsored by the Pasadena-San Gabriel Valley chapter of the National Football Foundation, features graduated senior players from schools throughout those areas.

The West team will be headed by Crescenta Valley and Pasadena Muir coaches, the East by the Glendora High coaching staff.

SOCCER

* Erin Misaki, a sophomore at Portland from Hart High, has been selected to the U.S. Olympic Development program’s western regional travel team.

Misaki, a midfielder who led Hart to the Southern Section Division II co-championship and was The Times’ Valley-Ventura County girls’ player of the year in 1998-99, will compete in the Olympic Festival on July 30-Aug. 6 in Rhode Island, where selections will be made to the U.S. national team pool.

FENCING

* Derek Snyder of Chaminade High won the gold medal in the Division I-A Open Men’s Foil competition at the U.S. Fencing Assn.’s Summer National Championships Sunday in Austin, Texas.

Snyder’s title was his third in three years. He won the under-17 division last year and the under-15 division in 1998.

Snyder, who will be a senior in the fall, also placed sixth in the under-19 men’s foil competition and was part of a four-person Southern California team that placed third in the open men’s team foil division.

The championships also included the U.S. Olympic trials, in which Snyder placed ninth in the foil, failing to qualify for the Olympics.

Fabien Ricard of Chaminade placed 17th in the under-19 epee competition and teammate Matt Weiner was 18th in the under-14 epee division.

BASEBALL

* The Westhills PONY team, comprised of 14-year-olds, is 12-0 and has won championships at the district and section tournaments.

The team has been led by pitchers John Selb, Tony Bonelli and Sean Clemens, and outfielder Eric Boranian.

Most of the players will be students this fall at Chaminade or El Camino Real.

FYI

* The Moorpark College Volleyball Camp for girls and boys entering sixth grade and up is scheduled for 8 a.m.-noon July 17-21 and July 24-28 at Moorpark.

Cost is $95 per session or $175 for both sessions.

The camp will be directed by Steve Burkhart, Moorpark College women’s volleyball coach, and his staff.

Information: (805) 378-1400, Ext. 1711, or (805) 378-1457.