Garden Grove

BOYS' BASKETBALL Costa Mesa 60, Los Amigos 37 Seniors Daniel Azurin scored 16 points and Kyle Hefner added 14 points to help lead the Mustangs to the Garden Grove tournament title Monday. Azurin, who grabbed eight rebounds, and Hefner earned all-tournament team honors. Sophomore Mason Tufuga contributed 12 points and nine rebounds for Costa Mesa. — BOYS' SOCCER Corona del Mar 6, JSerra 0 SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — John O'Connor and Max Premer scored two goals each for the Sea Kings in the nonleague game Monday.

Just like last year, Corona del Mar High got off to a fast start against Garden Grove. The Sea Kings opened the CIF Southern Section Southern Division championship with a 14-0 lead at Orange Coast College on Friday night. A blocked punt by linebacker Hugh Crance and an interception by his twin brother, linebacker Hoyt Crance, set CdM up in Argonaut territory early. The Sea Kings took advantage, as tailback Anthony Battista rushed for a 20-yard touchdown and Cole Martin a 15-yard touchdown.

COSTA MESA - Estancia High's Eagles were 8-4 winners in nonleague water polo over visiting Garden Grove Wednesday, improving to 6-9 overall. Brett Hellmich and Phil Westfall did the majority of the damage for the hosts, scoring four and three goals, respectively. D.J. Glacy was credited with a dozen saves. NONLEAGUE Estancia 8, Garden Grove 4 Garden Grove 0 2 1 1 - 4 Estancia 3 4 0 1 - 8 Garden Grove - Reeves 1, Weekes 1, Mack 1, Clark 1. Saves: Greenert, 3. Estancia - Hellmich 4, Westfall 3, Collier 1. Saves: D.J. Glacy, 12.

GARDEN GROVE - After a shorthanded first half, the Newport-Mesa Junior All-American Football Midget Seahawks lost to the Garden Grove Panthers, 31-6, in the AFL Championship Saturday. With the Seahawks' head coach and three key players stranded on the freeway with a disabled vehicle, Garden Grove took advantage and scored 24 first-half points. In the second half, with a full squad, the Seahawks limited the Panthers to seven points, while scoring their lone touchdown of the game.

NEWPORT BEACH — Three victims were hospitalized in serious condition and one man is in custody after a Friday morning stabbing, police said. Vi Nguyen Le, 19, of Garden Grove, is being held at Newport Beach jail in lieu of $250,000 bail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. One of the victims, a 17-year-old from Westminster, is at Western Medical Center with a stab wound to the back. The other, 21-year-old Thomas Hoang of Garden Grove, is at UCI Medical Center with wounds to the left arm and stomach.

The Newport Harbor Baseball Assn. Mustang under-9 All-Stars went into their Sunday afternoon game against Garden Grove with plenty on the line. In Sunday's sectional final played at Bob Henry Park in Newport Beach, a win would advance them through to the following week's regional tournament. A loss would mean the end of their season. Standing in their way was the Garden Grove squad that had handily beat Newport just three days earlier, 10-4. But this time, NHBA turned the tables for a 11-5 to advance to the regional tournament.

ANAHEIM - When Corona del Mar High wins CIF Southern Section football titles, the school does so in consecutive years. The top-seeded Sea Kings completed their back-to-back Southern Division championship run with a convincing 35-10 victory against No. 3 Garden Grove on Saturday at Angel Stadium. Under Coach Scott Meyer, the Sea Kings finished 12-2 overall for the second straight year. The previous time CdM won two straight section championships was in 1988-89. The Sea Kings opened the scoring on Garden Grove's first pass attempt, as Alex Moore took back an interception 30 yards for the touchdown, just 12 seconds into the game.

Five months ago, Corona del Mar High Coach Scott Meyer ran into Garden Grove Coach Willy Puga at a passing tournament. They exchanged hellos and talked for a minute. Before they went their separate ways, Puga scheduled a meeting with Meyer for December. "I expect to see you guys in the finals again," Meyer said Puga told him. That time has come as the Sea Kings square off against the Argonauts in the CIF Southern Section Southern Division finale for the second straight season.

CORONA DEL MAR - In the recent past, the Corona del Mar High girls' basketball team has won games with gritty play. In the immediate future, the Sea Kings will be able to win some games with their size. Two 6-foot-1 freshman post players, Natalia Bruening and Krista Anderson, have entered the program. They introduced themselves to Garden Grove in the first round of the CdM Tip-Off Classic on Monday night. Bruening and Anderson combined to score more than the visiting Argonauts, as CdM won going away, 49-22, in the season opener for both schools.

Drawing blood from his own arm, the father resolved to save his children from starvation and dehydration at sea. He dribbled it into their mouths, all to deliver them from a bleak promise of poverty and repression. That's how Phu Nguyen describes his and his sister's escape from Vietnam. It was 1981, and Nguyen, only 3 at the time, had set sail with his family. After one month at sea, the death of nine children aboard their boat, and eight months in a Hong Kong refugee camp, the Nguyens finally arrived in America.

Gov. Jerry Brown recently reappointed Costa Mesa resident Douglas La Belle to the board that governs the Orange County Fairgrounds. La Belle, 70, was first appointed to the nine-member Fair Board in 2010. He will serve another four years in the unpaid position. La Belle is the former city manager of Chino Hills, where he worked from 1995 to 2009. He has also worked for Signal Hill, Huntington Beach, Cerritos and Garden Grove in a long public-sector career that began in the 1960s.

A man who fired a handgun 54 times at Fashion Island because it reportedly made him "feel better" was sentenced Friday to 12 years in state prison. Marcos Gurrola, 42, of Garden Grove pleaded guilty to 54 counts of shooting at an occupied building and two felony counts of aggravated assault. In December 2012, Gurrola drove to Newport Beach, pulled into Fashion Island's parking lot and began firing a .40-caliber Glock toward Macy's. No one was hit, but in the ensuing panic, a woman and her 4-year-old daughter were hurt while trying to run away, leading to the assault charges.

Confronted with nearly 600 protesters upset over a proposal to join Irvine in "friendship" with city of Nha Trang in Vietnam, Irvine City Council members Tuesday night voted to revise their rules for choosing cities to be friends with. After more than five hours of debate, the council voted 3 to 2 to draw up new criteria  for forming "friendship city" ties. The new rules would exclude municipalities in countries that do not respect human rights or democratic values. They also chose not to enter into "friendship city" relationships with Karachi, Pakistan, or Baoji, China.

Brian Ford, a 2011 Corona del Mar High graduate, has been named UC Davis' Big West Conference Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Ford, a junior on the UC Davis men's soccer team, will be honored at a breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Garden Grove on Thursday at 9 a.m. The event is being held during the Big West Conference basketball tournament at the Honda Center. Ford helped the Aggies in 2012 reach the Big West Conference finale for the first time. Ford, a defender, made the National Soccer Coaches Assn.

Estancia High senior Abarham Cortez has been stepping up lately for the Eagles boys' soccer team. In three CIF Southern Section Division 5 playoff games, Cortez has three goals. On Tuesday evening at Jim Scott Stadium, he also had an 18th birthday that he won't soon forget. It featured a cold ice water bath courtesy of his teammates, but Cortez didn't mind. Cortez scored the game-winning goal in the 64th minute as the Eagles upset No. 3-seeded Apple Valley Granite Hills, 2-1, in a Division 5 second-round match.

GIRLS' WATER POLO Corona del Mar 13, Irvine 5 Junior Eliza Britt had three goals for the Sea Kings in their Pacific Coast League opener Thursday at home. Marina Coskinas scored twice for CdM (6-2), while Shannon Frome, Grace Morgan, Kampbell Gritsch, Maddie Musselman, Sarah Lawson, and Jaleh Moadelli each added a goal. Heidi Ritner had six saves for CdM, which plays at Woodbridge on Tuesday. — GIRLS' SOCCER Corona del Mar 3, Irvine 0 Junior midfielder Berkeley Sigband finished with two first-half goals for the host Sea Kings in a Pacific Coast League opener on Thursday.

GIRLS' SOCCER Sage Hill 1, Oxford Academy 0 CYPRESS — Meg Crade scored in the 70th minute, assisted by Juliette Singarella, to lift the Lightning in their Academy League opener on the road Tuesday. Kekai Whitford made five saves for Sage Hill (5-4-2). — BOYS' BASKETBALL Newport Harbor 88, University 65 IRVINE — Junior Garrett Davis had 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead the visiting Sailors in the nonleague game Tuesday. Senior Adrian Balcazar had 14 points and junior Chase Davis chipped in 12 for Newport Harbor (9-7)

BOYS' BASKETBALL Costa Mesa 60, Los Amigos 37 Seniors Daniel Azurin scored 16 points and Kyle Hefner added 14 points to help lead the Mustangs to the Garden Grove tournament title Monday. Azurin, who grabbed eight rebounds, and Hefner earned all-tournament team honors. Sophomore Mason Tufuga contributed 12 points and nine rebounds for Costa Mesa. — BOYS' SOCCER Corona del Mar 6, JSerra 0 SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — John O'Connor and Max Premer scored two goals each for the Sea Kings in the nonleague game Monday.

GIRLS' BASKETBALL Estancia 53, Ocean View 45 Senior Celia Duran led a balanced scoring attack with 20 points for the Eagles in a nonleague battle of ranked teams on Thursday. Estancia (7-2) is ranked No. 7 in CIF Southern Section Division 3A and Ocean View is ranked No. 8 in the same division. Sophomore Maya Van Den Heever had 10 points and five assists for the winners, who also received 10 points from senior Michelle Simmons and eight points from junior Slade Garnett.

As a sophomore, Parker Chase stood out on the field so much that a starting job at defensive end seemed realistic. Seven sophomores wound up starting on defense for the Corona del Mar High football team last year. Chase wasn't one of the lucky seven to get so much playing time as a young player. At the start of last year's fall training camp, Chase broke his left hand. He says his hand struck the metal part of a sled and then a helmet. The next day, the top of his hand looked like a baseball.