Rosary Plows Ahead in Beating Mater Dei

With its best perimeter player out for the season because of a torn knee ligament and its best interior player out with a dislocated shoulder, Santa Ana Mater Dei was typically snakebit on Thursday in a Serra League girls’ basketball game with Fullerton Rosary.

The battle lasted little more than the first eight minutes because the second eight minutes was no contest as fourth-ranked Rosary fired the first volley toward a league title with a 41-28 victory over No. 12 Mater Dei.

For eight agonizing minutes, Mater Dei (11-4) missed 10 shots, committed two technical fouls and saw a two-point edge become a 12-point deficit.

Rosary (13-2), the defending league champion, trailed, 13-9, in the first quarter but got an inside basket from Amy Richard with two seconds left, then outscored Mater Dei, 14-0, in the second for a 25-13 lead in front of Rosary’s standing-room only crowd.

Three-point baskets by Karina Figueroa and Teresa Karcher, a Figueroa free throw on the first technical -- against Chanel Foster -- and Karcher’s score on a fastbreak, all within the first 90 seconds of the quarter, seemed more than enough against a team that has struggled since Cristina Lopez joined Jen Rogers on the disabled list nine games ago.

Sharp-shooting Rogers averaged 16 points last season, and Lopez 17.

“We went from a team that scores 60 points a game to a team that struggles to score 40,” Mater Dei Coach Geri Campeau said.

Figueroa scored 14 points, Karcher 13 and Erin Noonan had six points, 10 rebounds and five steals for Rosary.

--Martin Henderson

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Girls’ Soccer

In a rematch of the Southern Section Division I title game from last season, San Clemente and Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley played to another tie, this one a 1-1 South Coast League game at San Clemente.

Junior Kari Moore had given No. 1 San Clemente a 1-0 lead midway through the second half, but Capistrano Valley tied the score with eight minutes left. The teams tied, 0-0, in the 2004 Division I title game.

Girls’ Volleyball

Cynthia Barboza, an alternate for the U.S. Olympic team last summer and the only high school player on the national team, has been selected Gatorade’s 2004 state girls’ volleyball player of the year.

Barboza, a 6-foot outside hitter for Long Beach Wilson who has signed with Stanford, was The Times’ player of the year and the co-most valuable player of Southern Section Division I.

Barboza was the 2003 Gatorade national player of the year.