Laguna Beach Takes Girls’ Tennis Title

Laguna Beach dominated singles play and picked up just enough doubles sets to defeat top-seeded Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula, 10-8, and give its departing coach a victory in his last match Monday during the Southern Section girls’ tennis championships at The Claremont Club.

“It couldn’t have ended any better than this,” said Coach Greg Weiss, who announced two weeks ago that he would resign at the end of the season.

The unseeded Breakers (22-1), who won four Division V championships from 1998-2001, claimed their first Division I title. Peninsula (27-2), the division runner-up for the second year in a row, made its 14th appearance in the Division I final in 15 years, in which it has won 11 titles.

“I think we’re on their level. It was a great win,” said Claire Rietsch, who defeated Peninsula’s Tania Mahtani, Sara Chang and Cze-ja Tam by commanding 6-2, 6-1, 6-0 scores, respectively, at No. 1 singles.

Laguna Beach took a 4-2 lead after the first round of the round-robin competition and held off a late surge by the Panthers, who won six of nine doubles sets.

The Breakers also beat Peninsula, 11-7, in a nonleague match Oct. 26.

In other title matches: Top-seeded Fullerton Troy (21-3) won eight of nine singles points, seven by 6-0 scores, en route to an 11-7 victory over second-seeded La Quinta (21-2) in Division II.... Sisters Logan and Austin Hansen each won three sets as top-seeded Los Angeles Brentwood (17-4) beat second-seeded Valencia, 10-8, in Division III.... Top-seeded Beverly Hills (19-6) won all nine singles points and each doubles team won a point in a 12-6 victory over third-seeded Ojai Villanova (19-1), defending its Division IV title and winning its fourth section title in six years.... Ashley Adams, Sarah Geocaris and Stephanie Langer combined to surrender only one game in sweeping nine singles sets as top-seeded Newport Coast Sage Hill (22-3) scored a 10-8 victory over San Bernardino Aquinas (22-3) in Division V.

Peter Yoon and Lauren Peterson

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Boys’ Water Polo

Anaheim Servite beat Los Alamitos, 7-4, to win the Southern Section Division II championship Monday night at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach and give Coach Jim Sprague, 70, the sixth section title of his career.

In the Division III final, La Canada beat two-time defending champion Montebello, 14-11, to win the fourth section title for Coach Larry Naeve, who won his first at the school in 1979 and his latest in 1999.

Top-seeded La Canada (26-7) scored the last two goals of the first half for a three-goal lead and the final three of the game to pull away after second-seeded Montebello (22-7) had cut its deficit to 11-9 with 3 minutes 51 seconds left to play.

Top-seeded Servite (27-5) outscored second-seeded Los Alamitos, 3-1, in the second half.

Three title matches take place today at Belmont Plaza, capped by Long Beach Wilson against Newport Harbor in Division I at 8:15 p.m.

-- Dan Arritt