Laguna off to strong start

Laguna Beach athletes fared well in Orange Coast League competition during the past week and two Breakers teams — boys' tennis and boys' volleyball — began CIF Southern Section playoff action on a positive note.

On Wednesday, the boys' tennis team slipped past Schurr of Montebello, 10-8, in a Division 4 first-round match at Laguna. The Breakers' top singles player, Teague Hamilton, swept his matches (6-1, 6-0, 6-0) and No. 2 Morgan Lebby won two of three (4-6, 6-4, 6-3). Austin Loomis and Oliver Nasiell, at No. 1 doubles, won two of three (5-7, 7-6, 6-1), as did the No. 2 team of Matt Meisberger/Jared Boetes (5-7, 7-5, 6-4).

The win advances the Breakers, the No. 2 seed in the division, to a 3 p.m. home match Friday against Mojave River League champion Oak Hills. The Bulldogs eliminated Victor Valley, 15-3, Wednesday.

The winner advances to Tuesday's quarterfinals.

Laguna, which went 8-0 during Orange Coast League play to repeat as league champion, also took top honors in singles play and finished second in doubles at the OCL finals May 3. The singles final pitted Laguna's top two players, Hamilton and Lebby, both juniors, against each other with Hamilton winning the title.

In doubles play, Casey Kimball and Andrew Koumas reached the final and finished runner-up to Costa Mesa's top team of Tam Le and Max Nguyen.

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Boys' Volleyball

In a first-round Division 2 boys' volleyball match Tuesday, host Laguna — the No. 3-seed in the division — swept Malibu, 25-18, 25-15, 25-16. Weston Barnes had 13 kills and six digs, Jack Winn six kills, eight digs and 22 assists, and Grifan Fair 14 assists for the Breakers.

Laguna played a second-round match Thursday against Santiago of Corona (Big VIII champion), but the score wasn't available at press time. The winner advances to Saturday's quarterfinal round. The division semifinals are Tuesday and finals May 19 at Cypress College.

The boys' volleyball program also held its 29th annual alumni match May 4 in a contest that ended in a draw. The alumni starting line-up of Leif Hanson, John Burns, Luke Morris, Lance Stewart, Chris Hoffman and Nick Aronoff took a 25-20 victory from the current Laguna varsity team in the opening set. The varsity team came back to win both the second and third sets (25-11, 29-27), but the alumni team scored a 15-8 win in the final set.