Many Titles Undecided in Baseball

There are plenty of league baseball titles up for grabs in the final week of the regular season.

Canyon and Foothill, separated by a game in the Century League, play each other twice. Esperanza and Fountain Valley do the same in the Sunset. El Dorado and Cypress are a game apart in the Empire, but do not go head to head. Servite needs a victory to claim the Golden West title.

University pulled into a second-place tie with Aliso Niguel in the Pacific Coast League by knocking the Wolverines out of first. Both are a half game behind Laguna Hills. Aliso and Laguna Hills play each other twice this week. University has two meetings with Estancia.

Santa Margarita looked like a lock in the Sea View two weeks ago, but a four-game losing streak sent the Eagles tumbling from first to third, a half game behind El Toro and a game behind Irvine. The Vaqueros and Chargers play twice. Santa Margarita has a pair against Corona del Mar.

With two games to go, La Quinta has a 1 1/2-game edge on Pacifica in the Garden Grove. They do not face each other.

Calvary Chapel leads Brethren Christian by a game in the Olympic. They do not face each other again.

Sonora (Freeway), Magnolia (Orange) and Mater Dei (South Coast) have clinched league titles outright.

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Marina Principal Carol Osbrink appears to have a case if she asks the CIF State Federated Council to void a controversial Orange County league realignment plan slated to take effect in fall 1998.

State guidelines say that realigning leagues should be based on only three criteria--geography, competitive equity and enrollment. Marina, a Division I school, would leave the Sunset League for the Pacific Coast, where it would be three times as large as most opponents, face longer commutes and compete against teams ranging from Division IV to VIII.

A solution that would avoid a state firefight appears to be gaining support: Marina could remain in the Sunset, making it a seven-team league. The PCL could live with five teams, Laguna Beach Principal Barbara Callard said.

Last week, Osbrink angrily dismissed that compromise as “taking the easy way out and not listening to the criteria.”

Maybe so, but some Osbrink supporters, such as Mater Dei Principal Patrick Murphy, have indicated a willingness to review such a deal, if Marina will.

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Tennli Ulicny of Brea Olinda was the all-around champion and the Wildcats were team champions at the South Coast League gymnastics finals last week.

Ulicny scored 36.2 points to edge teammate Genna Chapluk (35.1), Aliso Niguel’s Alexa Zanolli (35.1) and Brea’s Kristin Morrison (34.6).

Zanolli took first in the vault and floor exercises, Chapluk and Ulicny tied for first on bars, and Morrison had high score on the beam.

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Many people left the South Coast League track finals late Friday night at Trabuco Hills thinking Dana Hills had raced by Mission Viejo to win the boys’title. But, according to Mission Viejo Athletic Director Steve Carnes, after point totals were adjusted for scratches, the meet ended in a dead heat, 142-142.

Carnes said that league rules penalize teams for scratching athletes while the meet is in progress. All track coaches were aware of the stipulation, he said.

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Third-ranked Woodbridge’s 22-game winning streak in softball is twice that of the next-best current streak. No. 1 Pacifica (24-1-1, 10 straight) and No. 2 Foothill (23-2-1, eight straight) fall short to No. 7 Los Alamitos (18-5), which has won 11 in a row.

Times staff writers Martin Henderson and Paul McLeod and correspondent Melanie Neff contributed to this story.