SPORTS YEAR IN REVIEW:

Another prep sports year has come and gone.

But it didn’t fade into the past without plenty of fanfare and accomplishment from local high school sports teams and individuals. Titles were won, playoff berths secured, records set and sheer personal satisfaction was achieved in various athletic endeavors

Here are some of the key prep highlights that were reported to the Independent during the past year:

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January-June

It was a record-setting start to the New Year on the basketball court.

Huntington Beach senior guard Nick Becker became the Oilers’ boys’ basketball career scoring leader when he scored 16 points during a Jan. 25 win at Trabuco Hills. Becker surpassed the previous school mark established in 1994 by nine-time NFL Pro Bowl tight end Tony Gonzalez of the Kansas City Chiefs.

At Edison, Eric Ferraro became the career assists leader for the boys’ basketball program during a Jan. 30 game against Newport Harbor. Another Charger, Kyle Boswell, had set the single-season scoring record for the boys’ program earlier in the season.

In the spring, Marina’s boys’ tennis team turned in the program’s best finish in 13 years. The Vikings (19-3) won their first Sunset League title during that span and reached the second round of the CIF-SS Division I playoffs, where they were eliminated by No. 2-seed Santa Barbara.

Three Edison athletes captured CIF Southern Section individual titles and set records in the process at the Division I swimming finals in May at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach. Junior Tom Shields broke his own Division I record in the 100-yard breaststroke and also won the 200-yard freestyle. Sophomore Cindy Tran won the girls’ 100-yard backstroke with a personal-best time and senior Yasi Jahanshahi won the girls’ 100-yard butterfly.

Edison’s foursome of Tran, freshman Sarah Moss, Jahanshahi and junior Monique Wilson, won the girls’ 200-yard medley relay, and the Edison team of freshman Alli Gillespie, junior Kiersten Colesen, Jahanshahi and Tran, won the 400-yard free relay. Edison’s girls’ team finished second in the team standings to Mission Viejo, which won its 16th straight CIF-SS title.

Several local athletes advanced to the CIF-SS track and field division finals in May at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut. Among the key finishes by local athletes in Division II, Huntington Beach junior Allison Koressel finished in a four-way tie for first place in the girls’ pole vault, Edison’s Hillary Hayes won the girls’ 1,600 and was third in the 3,200, Edison’s Meghan Foley was second in the girls’ 800 meters and Edison senior Ryan Simioni finished in a tie for first place in the boys’ pole vault. In Division III, Ocean View’s Clarissa Holz finished seventh in the girls’ 300-meter hurdles.

Eric Snyder, a freshman who was Edison’s lead-off batter, set the school’s single-season mark for hits when he came up with two during an April 25 Sunset League baseball game against Los Alamitos. Snyder would go on to set the school record for hits in a season at 53 and most at-bats (106). He also tied a school record held by Jeff Kent for the best single-season batting average (.500). Now a sophomore, Snyder last month gave a verbal commitment to UCLA.

Rocky Ciarelli reached the 500-victory plateau on the volleyball court when the Huntington Beach boys’ team swept visiting Woodbridge in April.

“It just shows I’ve been around a long time,” said Ciarelli, who retired from the court after 24 years of a storied coaching career with the boys’ and girls’ programs at his alma mater. “Actually, it’s a pretty neat thing to accomplish.”

Ciarelli coached the Edison boys’ varsity for three years before taking over at Huntington in 1985. At Huntington, he won three Southern Section championships (boys’ in 1993 and ‘94, girls’ in ‘96) and a girls’ state title in 1996. He co-coached the girls’ team with wife, Cami, from 1992-2001.

At the 90th annual CIF State Track and Field Championships on May 17, several locals turned in top finishes at Cerritos College in Norwalk. Edison’s Meghan Foley, Hillary Hayes and Ryan Simioni, along with Marina’s Leon Roach, all competed at the event. Foley finished third in the girls’ 800-meter race, Hayes finished eighth in the girls’ 1,600, Simioni, who the week prior had won the CIF Masters Meet title in the boys’ pole vault, finished sixth in the State finals and Roach’s run ended in the State boys’ pole vault ended in the prelims round.

“I was extremely happy with my race,” Foley said. “I stayed within my game plan. It came down to the final kick and I kicked hard and came up with a good finish.”

Ocean View High senior Clarissa Holz was named the Female Athlete of the Year in the Golden West League for 2007-08. Holz participated in three sports at Ocean View — volleyball, basketball and track and field — and was a member of the varsity team in the three sports for all four years. She was first-team all-league in volleyball and basketball — and the school’s 2007 homecoming queen, too. “She’s always been a terrific athlete and runner, someone who can do anything, do it tirelessly, too, and smile all the way through,” Ocean View basketball coach Jim Harris said.

On June 6, Edison catcher Kyle Higashioka and Huntington Beach pitcher Calvin Drummond were selected in the Major League Baseball First-year Player Draft. Higashioka was taken in the seventh-round by the New York Yankees and Drummond in the 34th-round by the Milwaukee Brewers.

No local prep team had won a CIF-SS title for the first eight-plus months of the 2007-08 school year until Ocean View did the honors on the softball field. On the final day of May, the Seahawks capped a stellar 29-1 season by defeating Bishop Amat 8-3 to capture the Division IV crown. A grand slam by Brandice Cutspec highlighted an eight-run sixth-inning that wiped out a 2-0 deficit and gave Ocean View its first title in the sport since 1985.

“To be honest, I really thought I hit a pop up because I dropped my hands on my swing,” Cutspec said. “Then I heard loud cheering and began to notice my teammates jumping up and down and then I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I just hit a grand slam! I never thought I’d hit a home run in a CIF game, let alone a grand slam. I can’t describe the feeling, really, other than I’m just really happy.”

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September-December

For the first time in its history, the Sunset League football race ended in a five-way tie for the title. But uneasy lay the (five-way) crown: Only three teams were guaranteed a berth in the CIF Pac-5 Division playoffs.

Edison, Esperanza, Fountain Valley, Los Alamitos and Newport Harbor shared the top spot (3-2 records) in a wacky race that was finally settled on the final night of the regular season on Nov. 14.

That’s when Esperanza scored a 16-3 upset of a banged-up Edison team to turn the race on its head, a race that only excluded a sixth league member, Marina, from sharing the title. A drawing was held after the Edison-Esperanza game to determine the three schools that would get the league’s three automatic playoff berths.

It came down to the luck of the draw.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Fountain Valley athletic director, Mike Hollinden, to no one in particular, as the first name was about to be drawn out of a bucket. Hollinden had his fears alleviated moments later when Fountain Valley secured the league’s No. 2 seed. It’s the same seeding the Barons would have had, had Edison not lost to Esperanza.

Speaking of Esperanza, their win over Edison vaulted the Aztecs who went from the outside looking in — a loss to Edison would have ended their season — to getting the league’s No. 1 seed in the drawing. Los Alamitos got the No. 3 seed.

The result of the drawing left Edison and Newport Harbor out of the mix. But Edison, which would have won the Sunset title outright and had the No. 1 playoff seed in hand, had it defeated Esperanza, beat Newport Harbor during the season and could petition for an at-large berth in the playoffs. The Chargers didn’t get in. Newport, which would have had the league’s third playoff berth had Edison defeated Esperanza, was going nowhere.

“This is worse than kissing your sister,” Edison Coach Dave White said moments after Edison lost to Esperanza, in regards to the five-way tie for the title.

Huntington Beach returned to the CIF football playoffs for the first time since 2005 by finishing third in the Sea View League.

The Oilers dropped a first-round Southwest Division game to two-time defending champion El Dorado.

Huntington Beach repeated as Sunset League field hockey champion but the Oilers bid to win a second-straight Southern California field hockey championship was denied by Newport Harbor which took a 2-1 victory on Nov. 6. The Oilers ended the year 19-4-5 overall.

Edison High senior Hillary Hayes and junior Matt McElroy ran at the prestigious NIKE Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, in December. Hayes placed 42nd in the girls’ championship race with a time of 18 minutes 39.5 seconds. McElroy was 43rd in the boys’ race at 16:00.0. It was the first appearance at the national event for both Chargers.

“It was a goal of mine to make this event,” Hayes said. “It was also my goals to win league and do better at (CIF) State than what I did last year.”

Hayes won the Sunset League varsity girls’ title in November by running a new league record time of 17:19. She eclipsed the previous league mark of 17:23 set in 2006 by Elizabeth Coe of Fountain Valley. At the CIF State meet in Fresno Nov. 29, Hayes finished second with a time of 17:37 in the girls’ Division II race and was fifth among all runners from all divisions, overall. Jeannie Formosa, Hayes’ coach, said that Hayes’ time was second fastest for an Edison female runner at a CIF State meet. Prior to competing in Portland, McElroy ran a personal record time (15:13) to take fifth place in the boys’ Division II race and ninth, overall, among runners from all divisions at the CIF State meet.

Another Edison runner, Melisa Olgun, competed that same December weekend at the Footlocker West Regional at Mt. SAC in Walnut. The senior finished in 67th-place with a time of 20:42.

Edison knocked Huntington Beach off its accustomed top perch in Sunset League surfing circles on Dec. 4, when the Chargers defeated the Oilers, 89-79, at the Santa Ana River Jetties in Newport Beach. The result gave Edison the league title and Chargers Coach Zoran Forgiarini said it “might be” the first time the program has won the league title. “Leadership was key,” Forgiarini said of the title run.”