Wolverines Seeded No. 1 in Return to Tournament

North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake, the defending Southern Section Division I boys’ tennis champion, is the top-seeded team in the sixth Corona del Mar/National High School All-American Invitational tennis tournament.

The tournament begins today and concludes with the championship match at 3 p.m. Saturday at Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach.

The Wolverines (7-0) are returning after a one-year absence. They finished fifth in 2002 and 2003 and placed third in the inaugural tournament in 2000.

“Hopefully, we’ll be lucky and we’ll try and win this thing,” Coach Chris Simpson said. “We want to get as much top-level competition for our guys as possible.”

That shouldn’t be a problem.

Harvard-Westlake, second-seeded Santa Barbara (8-0), fourth-seeded Irvine Woodbridge (8-0) and third-seeded Corona del Mar (6-0), the tournament’s defending champion, are the top four teams in the Southern Section Division I coaches’ poll.

Los Angeles Brentwood, ranked No. 1 in Division IV, is also competing, along with six out-of-state teams and one from Canada.

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-- Lauren Peterson

Baseball

El Camino Real rallied for an early five-run deficit, but came up short in an 8-6 loss to Miami Pace in the championship game of the Mizuno Classic at Pace High.

Pace (17-0), ranked No. 1 in the nation by Baseball America, took an 8-3 lead after three innings, but El Camino Real relievers Shaun Kort and Garrett Claypool held Pace hitless over the final four innings.

Casey Greene went three for three with two runs batted in for the Conquistadores (9-2) and Kort had a two-run double.

Wrestling

Covina Northview freshman Tatiana Padilla won the 114-pound title at the U.S. Girls’ Wrestling Assn. National Championships Saturday in Lake Orion, Mich.

Padilla defeated Catlyn Chase, a junior from Glenbard North High in Illinois, 8-2.

Softball

Top-ranked Garden Grove Pacifica will be on the agenda Saturday for Murrieta Valley, which hopes to end the week the way it began. Murrieta Valley upset No. 4 Santa Ana Mater Dei, 2-1, in a semifinal of the Anaheim Canyon Michelle Carew Classic on Monday on the strength of Kristin Antista’s two-out, two-run double in the bottom of the seventh.

Murrieta Valley plays Pacifica, ranked No. 1 in the Southland by The Times, at 11 a.m. at Hewes Middle School in the first round of the Santa Ana Foothill Roundtable Invitational. The eight-team tournament begins at 9 a.m. and includes Whittier California, Carson, and Anaheim Esperanza and Foothill in one pool, Orange Lutheran and Rancho Santa Margarita Tesoro, Pacifica and Murrieta Valley in the other.

Murrieta Valley still doesn’t know its opponent for the Carew Classic title game as the semifinal between No. 6 Lake Forest El Toro and No. 9 Placentia El Dorado was rained out Thursday, and will be made up at a later date. The championship is scheduled for April 23.

-- Martin Henderson

Miscellany

Santa Ana Mater Dei is replacing boys’ athletic director Gary McKnight and girls’ athletic director Geri Campeau with Martin Stringer, assistant principal and boys’ soccer coach.

McKnight and Campeau will remain as boys’ and girls’ basketball coaches, respectively.

The moves are part of a major renovation plan involving the parochial school’s athletic facilities. The school recently renovated its baseball field and has plans to add two new gymnasiums and an aquatic complex, among other things, on campus.

Stringer’s new title will be director of athletics and athletic venue management.

“I couldn’t be happier,” said McKnight, who has coached the boys’ basketball team for 23 years. “I’m just going to coach basketball and teach [physical eduction] and have no worries.”

-- Dan Arritt