Top Softball Teams Make Early Exits

The difficulty of winning a Southern Section softball championship was driven home Thursday when five seeded teams, and one of the Southland’s top-ranked teams, fell in the quarterfinals.

Diamond Bar (24-5), ranked sixth by The Times at the end of the regular season but not a seeded team in Division II, was eliminated by No. 22 Orange El Modena, 2-1, after the host Vanguards (22-10) scored twice in the bottom of the seventh inning on three hits, the last a run-scoring single by Natasha Madjd.

El Modena had managed only three hits against Brittany La Rosa through the first six innings.

Fullerton Rosary (23-9), ranked ninth and the second-seeded team in Division I, fell to freshman pitcher Lindsey Dean (12-1), who threw a three-hitter to lift No. 24 Camarillo (23-7) into the Tuesday semifinals with a 1-0 victory. The Scorpions scored in the bottom of the fifth inning on Cambria Miranda’s single.

The upsets weren’t confined to the top two divisions. La Habra Sonora upset fourth-seeded Riverside King, 1-0, in Division III; Rancho Santa Margarita Tesoro defeated second-seeded Goleta Dos Pueblos, 1-0, in Division IV; and second-seeded L.A. Baptist and third-seeded La Salle were beaten in Division V.

Martin Henderson

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Boys’ Tennis

Los Angeles Loyola has gone from Mission League runner-up to no worse than a second place in the Southern Section Division I tournament.

The Cubs (20-3) advanced to Wednesday’s championship match by defeating fourth-seeded Irvine Woodbridge, 11-7, at Rancho Park. As it did Tuesday in an 11-7 victory over top-seeded Corona del Mar, Loyola took seven of nine doubles sets. Bryan Ross got two key victories for the Cubs in No. 1 singles.

Loyola is in the championship match for the first time since 1997. The Cubs face Mission League champion North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake (21-0), which defeated third-seeded Santa Barbara, 9-9 (84-79 games).

Two Liberty League teams will face off in the Division V championship match. Second-seeded Viewpoint (21-2) advanced to the final round by defeating Carpinteria Cate, 11-7. Los Angeles Milken, the league runner-up, faces North Hollywood Oakwood, the third-place team, today at 2 p.m.

-- Elia Powers