Granada Hills Junior Wins City Golf Title

Andrew Ok predicted he would need to shoot par to maintain his lead in Tuesday’s final round of the City Section golf tournament.

The Granada Hills junior came within one shot of his goal, but in the end his one-over-par 73 at Griffith Park’s Wilson Golf Course was more than sufficient to earn him the individual title by a comfortable seven strokes.

After shooting a two-under 70 on the shorter Harding Course on Monday, Ok finished one under for the tournament with a two-day total of 143.

“It was windy and the conditions were much tougher today. The irons were hard to judge on my approach shots,” said Ok, who equaled his personal best at Wilson. “I missed a five-foot birdie putt on 18 that would have given me par. Still, I’m pretty happy.”

Sophomore Ben Seelig of Palisades also shot a final-round 73 and finished second with a two-day score of 150. Senior teammate Alex Podell and Venice senior Micah Burke tied for third at 151.

Defending champion Granada Hills won its 10th team title and third in the last four years with a two-day total of 793. The Highlanders entered the final round with a 13-stroke lead.

“My kids started out badly today but came back strong,” said Coach Joe White, in his 38th season at Granada Hills. “That’s all you can ask. We went unbeaten in our section.”

Venice and Palisades finished tied for second with scores of 805, but Venice won the card-off by virtue of lower back-nine scores and will join Granada Hills at the CIF-SCGA championships on June 3 at the SCGA Members Club in Murrieta.

-- Steve Galluzzo

Softball

Top-seeded San Pedro and second-seeded Carson took another step toward meeting for the City Section Championship division title for the fourth consecutive season with victories in the quarterfinals.

San Pedro’s Ashley Esparza pitched a two-hitter and scored the winning run on Nicole Serato’s third-inning sacrifice fly in a 2-1 victory over Granada Hills.

Danira Iolamo pitched a one-hitter and struck out 16 and Liz Vasquez had a three-run triple as Carson defeated Los Angeles Westchester, 6-0.

In the semifinals Thursday at South Gate Park, San Pedro will play fourth-seeded Woodland Hills El Camino Real, a 1-0 winner over Lake Balboa Birmingham, and Carson will play fourth-seeded Sylmar, a 3-1 winner over Wilmington Banning.

-- Martin Henderson

Boys’ Volleyball

It was two rounds and out for top-seeded Manhattan Beach Mira Costa, which was upset in the second round of the Southern Section Division I playoffs by visiting Santa Margarita, 25-23, 25-19, 25-20.

Senior middle blocker Jeff English had 11 kills and senior outside hitter Michael Runkle had eight kills for the Eagles (21-21).

Mira Costa, which shared the Bay League title with Redondo, finished 23-4.

-- Amelia Neufeld

Long Beach Wilson took advantage of several unforced errors and used its superior athleticism to turn back Newport Harbor, 27-25, 21-25, 25-18, 25-20, in another Division I second-round match.

Gavin Christensen had 13 kills and Jordan Van Rijsbergen had 12 kills and five blocks for Wilson (29-5), which will play Los Angeles Loyola in a quarterfinal on Friday. Morgan Govaars had 15 kills for the host Sailors (23-8).

-- Paul McLeod

Swimming

Palisades senior Cara Davidoff, the City Section’s three-time champion in the 50-yard freestyle, will not attempt a career sweep of the event today at the preliminaries at Los Angeles Memorial Pool.

Davidoff, who has helped the Dolphin girls’ team win the last three City team titles, will instead compete in the 100 butterfly and the 200 freestyle. She is the top-seeded swimmer in the fly and third-seeded in the 200 behind Granada Hills Kennedy junior Hanna Kim and Granada Hills sophomore Lindsay Elam.

Without Davidoff in the race, Woodland Hills El Camino Real junior Jessica Chen is seeded first in the 50 freestyle. Deborah Hefter of Woodland Hills Taft is seeded first in the 100 freestyle, which Davidoff won last season and as a freshman in 2001.

San Pedro senior Jeff Hart is seeded first in the boys’ 50 freestyle, with junior David Nonberg of defending champion Palisades, is seeded second. San Pedro senior Ivan Perhat is the top qualifier in the 100 freestyle, ahead of second-seeded Justin Varma of Canoga Park.

-- Lauren Peterson

Boys’ Tennis

Top-seeded Corona del Mar (19-1), one of the Southland’s best team, plays host to Marmonte League runner-up Thousand Oaks (16-4), which has one of the region’s top players in Sam Querrey, in a Southern Section Division I second-round match Thursday.

Querrey, a sophomore, won the CIF boys’ singles division at the Ojai Valley tennis tournament last month, only a few weeks after winning the Easter Bowl National Championship boys’ 16 division in Palm Springs.

A sweep by Querrey at No. 1 singles would get Thousand Oaks only one-third of the way to a possible victory, and the defending section champion Sea Kings’ depth should be enough to prevail.

Still, Querrey will be a formidable challenge to Corona del Mar’s top two singles players, Carsten Ball and Wesley Miller.

Corona del Mar, ranked No. 2 by The Times, had a first-round bye Tuesday, while visiting Thousand Oaks beat Channel League runner-up Dos Pueblos, 12-6.

Marmonte League champion Calabasas (19-3) has an equally tough test Thursday when it plays at second-seeded North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake (18-0). The Coyotes beat Lake Forest El Toro, 14-4, in a first-round match, while Harvard-Westlake had a bye.

Second round matches begin at 2 p.m.

-- Elia Powers