Titans’ Saarloos Earns Spot on U.S. Team

Cal State Fullerton’s Kirk Saarloos and Long Beach State’s Bobby Crosby, a former La Quinta High standout, made the final cut for the U.S. national baseball team.

The team is the nation’s highest-ranked amateur team, but it won’t represent the United States in the Olympics. The Olympic team will be made up of professionals from the minor leagues.

Saarloos, one of two closers on the team, didn’t give up a hit in two innings during a four-game series with Mexico this week in Tucson.

Crosby, a shortstop, batted a team-high .778 in the four-game sweep of Mexico. He had seven hits, including three doubles and a home run, in nine at-bats.

Team USA will continue its summer tour Sunday and Tuesday in Honolulu against a collegiate all-star team from Japan. The teams will play at Dodger Stadium at 1 p.m. June 30, the only Southern California appearance on Team USA’s schedule.

Cal State Fullerton infielder Mike Rouse, who went two for eight in the four games, was one of 13 players at the tournament who didn’t make the 22-player team.

* Cypress High baseball Coach Mark Steinert and assistant Dave Lewis are trading places.

Lewis will become head coach next season, and Steinert will become his assistant so he “can have some time for other areas in my life.” Steinert went 102-75-2 in seven years as coach.

* Kent Carpenter of Esperanza High went four for four with three runs batted in Friday in California’s 10-4 victory over Texas in the Sunbelt Classic, a high school all-star tournament in Shawnee, Okla.

Carpenter, an all-county outfielder, had a hit and scored two runs in an 11-2 victory over Oklahoma, and a two-run home run in a 5-4 loss to Florida, also Friday. The California team, the defending champion, is 5-1 in the eight-state tournament.

BASKETBALL

Tyson Chandler and Jamal Sampson will participate tonight at the South Orange County Roundball Extravaganza at Santa Margarita High.

Among the players scheduled to appear in the AAU boys’ top 20 all-star game at 8:30 p.m. are Compton Dominguez’s Chandler, Mater Dei’s Sampson and Cedric Bozeman, Ocean View’s Torin Beeler and Marques Crane and El Toro’s Ashkan Nazeri. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for students, $3 for kids 12 and under.

The girls’ top 20 all-stars will tip off at 7:15; the game is scheduled to include El Toro’s Giuliana Mendiola, Brea Olinda’s Chelsea Trotter, Edison’s Michelle Zylstra, Troy’s Veronica Johns-Richardson and Foothill’s Kristen Mann.

There are six games, beginning with the ninth-grade boys’ all-star game at 2:15, girls’ all-stars at 3:30, sophomore boys at 4:45 and junior boys at 6 p.m.

VOLLEYBALL

John Hawks will succeed Eddie Rapp as boys’ and girls’ volleyball coach at Santa Margarita. Hawks was an assistant to Rapp last season. Rapp left to coach women’s volleyball at Fullerton College.