Rancho Cucamonga Eyes a Bigger Prize

The Rancho Cucamonga boys’ cross-country team will put an impressive winning streak on the line today when the Baseline League finals are held at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.

Yet Rancho Cucamonga Coach Terry Tierney said he’s more concerned with a top-six finish in the Southern Section Division I finals on Nov. 22 than with a first-place finish in the league finals.

Rancho Cucamonga, ranked No. 5 in the Southland by The Times, could win its seventh consecutive league title with a victory against a field that includes No. 4 Upland.

“We would love to win league, and so would [Upland],” Tierney said. “But we would trade that [league winning] streak for a berth in the state championships anytime.”

-- John Ortega

Newport Harbor and defending champion North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake are the top-seeded teams in the Los Angeles Field Hockey Assn. postseason tournament, which begins today.

The Sailors (16-1), the Sunset League champions, handed Harvard-Westlake (13-1-2) its only loss of the season Sept. 11.

The LAFHA tournament is the season-culminating event for field hockey in the Southern Section, which doesn’t sanction playoffs in the sport.

-- Eric Maddy

The Southern Section has decided not to extend the football season in Division V by an extra week or relax rules allowing teams to practice on Sundays, after determining that only a handful of makeup games necessitated by last week’s Southland fires remain to be played.

Section spokesman Thom Simmons said the San Andreas League, which supported extending the season, could have played all three of its league games last week at alternate sites but chose not to.

Last week, Commissioner Jim Staunton told representatives of the five leagues that make up Division V to come up with alternate plans to determine playoff representatives if games cannot be made up.

-- Paul McLeod

Orange Lutheran linebacker Anthony Vernaglia, Los Alamitos defensive back Randy Estes and Ventura St. Bonaventure defensive back Terrail Lambert are expected to be named to the West squad for the U.S. Army All-American game, a spokesman for the all-star football game said. The game will be played Jan. 4 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.