San Clemente

One is going to Stanford, one to UCLA, one to Cal and one to UC Santa Barbara. Call them a Division I water polo-playing quartet. They signed letters of intent in the fall, just before the high school girls? water polo season got underway. On Saturday afternoon, however, playing in college was the furthest thing from the minds of four Laguna Beach High seniors. Annika Dries, Natasha Schulman, Taylor Dodson and Sarah Zuziak were finally CIF champions. And all four ladies have been playing varsity for the Breakers long enough to know what that really means.

With the start of the new season just five days away, the Laguna Beach High boys? volleyball team enters the campaign with lofty expectations. So says the CIF Southern Section preseason Division II poll, which has the Breakers ranked second behind Valencia of Valencia. Valencia won the division title a year ago. During the course of the season, Laguna will take on teams that enter the season with lofty rankings: San Clemente (No. 3, Division I), Corona del Mar (No. 5, Division I)

The Laguna Beach High girls’ water polo made one of their major goals of the 2008-09 season come to fruition Wednesday at the William J. Woollett Jr. Aquatics Center in Irvine. The Breakers now have a bigger prize in mind. Laguna secured a spot in Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division II championship game by overpowering South Coast League champion San Clemente, 19-8. The win, their second of the year against the Tritons — they routed their rivals from down south, 15-3, on Dec. 23 — puts the Breakers up against Montebello in Saturday’s 3:45 p.m. final at the Woollett Center.

IRVINE — The Laguna Beach High girls’ water polo reached one of its major goals of the 2008-09 season Wednesday at Irvine High. The Breakers now have a bigger prize in mind. Laguna secured a spot in the CIF Southern Section Division II championship game by overpowering South Coast League champion San Clemente, 19-8. The win, the Breakers’ second of the year against the Tritons — they routed their rivals from down south, 15-3, on Dec. 23 — puts the Breakers up against Montebello in Saturday’s final scheduled for a 3:45 p.m. start at Irvine High.

French romantic comedy to premiere The Laguna Beach Film Society will premiere the French romantic comedy, ?I Do (How to Get Married and Stay Single),? at 7 p.m. Thursday at South Coast Cinemas. The film asks, ?What can the pampered, only son do when his sisters and mother decide that at 43 he should be married and living elsewhere? Maybe fake an engagement to a woman hired to leave him at the altar?? Tickets are $15 at the door, or $20 to participate in the pre-film wine and hors d?

Surfers and environmentalists should be delighted that the U.S. secretary of commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, on Dec. 18 rejected pleas by the Transportation Corridor Agency that an extension of the 241 Toll Road must be built on state park land near San Onofre?s famed Trestles surf break. A hearing on the toll road issue before the California Coastal Commission drew thousands of protesters to the Del Mar Fairgrounds in February, and a following appeal to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the Commerce Department, drew another record crowd in September.

Men in Black has punched its ticket to the Section 11 tournament next February. The Laguna Beach AYSO Region 86 boys? Under-12 regional championship team competed at the AYSO Area 11L playoffs last weekend at the San Juan Park Complex against other south county regional champions and emerged with the division championship. Men in Black went 5-0 and outscored the opposition, 23-4, to capture the Area 11 title Dec. 11 to earn a spot at the Section 11 tournament to be held President?

It was one of those rare victories for the Laguna Beach football team on Oct. 17. The bench was all but was cleared, the lights flickered rapidly as the numbers continually changed under the ?Home? heading on the Guyer Field scoreboard and the Breakers were in complete control of things from start to finish. A 61-6 Orange Coast League victory over Godinez, a first-year varsity program with a roster made up of underclassmen, afforded the Breakers many things, including an assault on the program?

A telling moment came for the Laguna Beach girls’ golf team prior to the start of one of its biggest matches of the season. Plenty was on the line when the Breakers took on Estancia on Oct. 1 in what was the key Golden West League match to date. The battle was between the top two teams from a year ago, when Laguna managed to twice defeat the Eagles en route to winning the school’s first league title in the program’s nine-year history. The winner of the Oct. 1 match would take the lead in the race for this year’s crown and if that wasn’t enough for the Breakers to contend with, they were challenged additionally.

Does anyone know where the sun has gone? After a blistering June it seems that July this year has become more like the June of past years. Clouds and drizzle. Perhaps August might once again bring us sunshine. On Wednesday the swell was increasing, as another “southern hemi” (southern hemishere) swell is forecasted with expected overhead surf on its way. I would like to think the swell might be big enough and last through the weekend so we can once again run the Brooks Street surfing classic.