Familiar Foes Reach City Tennis Final

Two-time defending champion Woodland Hills El Camino Real High will play Granada Hills for the City Championship in boys’ tennis for the third consecutive season after each won semifinal matches Wednesday at Balboa Sports Complex in Encino.

The top-seeded Conquistadores (12-0) defeated No. 4 Eagle Rock (12-1), 271/2-2, and the third-seeded Highlanders (11-2) beat No. 7 Taft (10-4), 201/2-9. The final is set for 1 p.m. Friday at Balboa Sports Complex.

“It’s pretty hard to win it twice in a row, and three times would be quite an accomplishment,” said Marvin Jones, El Camino Real’s third-year coach.

The Conquistadores, who are 44-1 the last three years, took an insurmountable 15-0 lead in the round-robin format on No. 3 singles player Dustin Lang’s 6-2 victory over Jimmy Nguyen, Eagle Rock’s No. 2 player. The Conquistadores’ three doubles teams wound up sweeping all nine of their sets. Eagle Rock’s top player, T.J. Maarup, recorded the Eagles’ only victories--7-6 (6) over Lang and 7-5 over Troy Aiken.

Granada Hills (11-2), which hasn’t won a City title despite reaching six finals in the last seven years, lost 241/2-5 and 17-121/2 in the last two finals. El Camino Real defeated the Highlanders twice by 4-3 scores in head-to-head West Valley League play this year.

“Third time lucky, I hope,” said Granada Hills No. 1 player Nima Roshan, who dropped only one game while leading the Highlanders’ sweep of singles sets.

Lauren Peterson

In swimming:

Southern Section preliminaries--The Newport Harbor boys and the Irvine girls were the dominant Division I teams at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.

Anchored by world-record holder Aaron Peirsol, Newport Harbor was the top qualifier in the 200 freestyle (1:27.86) and 400 freestyle relays (3:13.15). Peirsol also had the fastest time in the 200 freestyle (1:41.85) and 100 backstroke (49.29). Teammate Andrew Cole was the top qualifier in the 100 freestyle (46.39) and second in the 100 backstroke (51.02), and Ryan Lean was the second qualifier in the 500 freestyle (4:34.44). Both also swam on the freestyle relays.

Irvine’s girls earned top qualifying honors in six of 11 events, setting the stage for their sixth consecutive Division I title. Courtney Cashion was the top qualifier in the 50 (23.73) and 100 freestyles (51,42) for the Vaqueros, Diana MacManus was the top qualifier in the 100 backstroke (55.11) and second qualifier in the 50 freestyle (24.09) and Flora Kong was fastest in the 100 butterfly (55.71).

In Division IV, Hesperia Sultana broke meet records in the 200 medley (1:51.77) and 400 freestyle relays (3:40.14) and Jenny Lewis set a meet record of 23.96 in the 50 freestyle. The Sultans also produced the top qualifying mark in three other events.

Dan Arritt

In baseball:

Santa Ana Mater Dei 7, Santa Margarita 6--Sergio Santos and J.J. Owen hit home runs in the seventh inning to tie the score for No. 7 Mater Dei (21-6, 10-2), which won on an unearned run in the eighth inning in the Serra League finale at Mater Dei.

Garrett Gipe had a two-run home run for Mater Dei. Mike Neilson had three hits and Brian Cox hit a two-run home run for Santa Margarita (13-10, 7-6).