2001 sports year in review

· Nordhoff High School's girls' varsity soccer team kept its three-year Frontier League unbeaten streak alive Wednesday evening at Ojai Valley Community Stadium where they soundly defeated the visitors from Santa Paula High School, 9-0.
· For the second time this season, the Thacher School and Cate School girls' varsity soccer teams played to a scoreless tie. Battling to defend their Condor League championship, the Lady Toads were unable to score on the Rams Saturday in Carpinteria.

· Four Ojai Police Activities League wrestlers traveled to San Jose for a Folkstyle Tournament at Overfelt High School Saturday. Two came home with gold medals and another with a silver.
Ojai's Adam Oehmke took fourth in the 90-pound Schoolboy Division. Schoolboy Heavyweight Ricky Beltran earned a silver medal with the first pin of his career; 65-pounder Shaun Hastie earned a gold. Ben Foley enjoyed a 14-1 win in the gold medal match.

· The boys' golf team from Nordhoff recorded an important victory this week.
Nordhoff High's highly touted team served notice that they are indeed for real, defeating perennial state contender Hart High School, 382-383, in a nonleague match at Soule Park Tuesday.
· First year head coaches John Jenks and Denise Brenneke learned that lesson the hard way Friday when their Lady Ranger diamond squad - which has been none-too-shy about telling people that "this is their year" -lost to visiting Santa Paula High School 7-1 Friday.
· Ryan Fiore went three-for-four, drove in two runs and scored twice, and starting pitcher David Valencia worked five innings, allowing just four hits and no earned runs, as the Nordhoff High School varsity baseball team defeated the visitors from Malibu High School on the last day before Spring Break Friday in Ojai.
· The sun broke through the clouds just in time Saturday afternoon to smile down upon Lori Stern as she became the first Ojai native in the 101-year history of the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament to win the prestigious Girls' 16-and-Under Division title. Approximately 2,500 tennis fans crowded around the court in Libbey Park to watch Stern vie for her first Ojai title.
· Jason Burt and his Villanova Wildcats will hang another Condor League championship banner for boys' varsity volleyball, their seventh in the last nine years, after finishing the season undefeated in league, at 8-0.
· Graduating Nordhoff High School seniors Dan Parziale and Lacey Albrent received the highest athletic accolades extended by NHS Wednesday night. Parziale was named this year's Mike Mikos Award winner, and Albrent was named the Rudy Drewes Award winner.
· Ojai produced three excellent athletes, all earning top California Interscholastic Federation honors. Nordhoff softball team's senior shortstop Lacey Albrent earned All-CIF SS Division IV first team honors. Thacher baseball team's senior pitcher Matt Wilson earned All-CIF-SS Division VI first team accolades. And Nordhoff baseball team's junior pitcher Travis Flowers was named to the All-CIF-SS Division IV second team.

· Just Us Again secured its spot as the last undefeated team in the Ojai Valley Women's Softball Association's 2001 summer league, defeating previously undefeated Professional Auto, 8-6, last week.
· Noah Lowry knows all about staying in the present and accepting one challenge at a time. The son of Laurie and Stephen Lowry of Meiners Oaks, Lowry fulfilled that prophesy Tuesday, making his first professional start in Salem, Ore., where he is playing for the San Francisco Giants' Class A Affiliate, the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes.

· Everything went right -literally - for Rick Dowden Tuesday. He sprayed balls into the rough to the right of the green on holes one, two, four and five, seven and eight but aptly scrambled for a par or bird each time. He scored four points with an exciting birdie on seven, chipping in from 10 feet off of the right of the green, judging speed and playing a big right-to-left break perfectly, leaving the ball to dribble 20 feet before making one last turn to drop gently into the cup.

· The Ojai Recreation Department crowned its Adult Coed Softball League champions for the summer last week.
· Player-coach Doug Colbern directed the Boccali's/Brue's Body Shop team to the Upper C Division title, finishing the season a perfect 5-0.

· After dominating Lighthouse on the ground last week, Villanova Preparatory School resurrected its passing attack Saturday in Ojai and thumped Peace in the Valley High School of Fontana 31-8. Senior quarterback Cole Gibson led the Wildcats' attack, completing 18 of 31 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns, also finishing as the team's leading ground-gainer with 20 yards and two touchdowns in five carries.
· Ken Reeves, Nordhoff High School's head boys' and girls' cross country coach of 20 years, will resign at the end of the 2001 season. Current members of the team preparing to try to reclaim CIF and state titles this month expressed "disappointment." Colleagues and fellow members of the coaching fraternity expressed "shock."
· As predicted by coaches and players alike, Nordhoff's varsity football team won 21-18 against the Calabasas Coyotes Friday night. Nick Kaiser and Ian Campbell led the Rangers again with the most yards, Campbell (74 yards) scoring two touchdowns and Kaiser (121 yards) getting one.
· Nordhoff's 26th annual Girl's Varsity Basketball Tournament turned out as many had predicted -- Saugus retained their first-place title by beating out Channel Islands, 58-44, in the final championship game.
Ojai squads Nordhoff, Thacher and Villanova placed eighth, 15th and 16th, respectively. Both Thacher and Villanova were knocked out of the first-round games.
· Tuesday marked a fortuitous win for Nordhoff's Lady Ranger soccer squad, as they prevailed over the Rio Mesa Spartans, 3-2.
Nordhoff took charge of the game in the opening minutes, with a goal by junior midfielder Jill Taylor. Joey Vega and Monica Kenton scored a goal each, securing the win against the Spartans. Senior goalkeeper Maureen Stovall was injured in the first half and replaced by Taylor.

© 2002 The Ojai Valley News

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