Road to Tournament Uphill for Vaughan

Corona del Mar senior Nina Vaughan has faced pressure all season to uphold her No. 1 singles status and to prove she’s worthy of her scholarship to Notre Dame. But the pressure will intensify this week as Vaughan tries to qualify for the Southern Section individual tournament against a player who has already defeated her twice--Woodbridge freshman Susanna Lingman.

Vaughan has reached the section individual singles semifinals the past two seasons after advancing to the quarterfinals as a freshman. But unless she beats Lingman in Thursday’s Sea View League semifinals at the Balboa Bay Club, she will be watching this year’s tournament from the sideline. The top two players from each league qualify for the section individual tournament.

Vaughan’s road to the individual preliminaries--Saturday, Nov. 22 at Huntington Beach High--would be much smoother if her team weren’t so talented. Corona del Mar’s Caylan Leslie (24-0 in league) is seeded first in the league tournament, Vaughan (22-2) is seeded third and her sister, Nadia (21-3), is fourth. Lingman (three league losses) is seeded second.

The Sea View League is traditionally the county’s strongest. But typically one of the league’s top four singles players will opt to play doubles, giving themselves an easier route to the section individual playoffs. This year, no one wanted to play doubles.

“We thought Susanna might play doubles this year because she is a freshman and she doesn’t have much chance of winning the CIF [Southern Section] title, but she didn’t help us out,” Corona del Mar Coach Tim Mang said Monday.

The tournament begins Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. with the round of 16 in singles and doubles. The semifinals will be Thursday at 12:30; the finals are scheduled to start at about 2:30.

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Loara football players wore the letter “H” on their helmet Thursday in memory of Henry deFries, younger brother of Coach John deFries. Henry died Oct. 25 of an aortic aneurysm, and the deFries family left Friday for Honolulu to attend the funeral. He was 46.

The Saxons came up short in their Empire League game, losing to Kennedy, 25-15.

“I think they worked harder in practice this week,” John deFries said before kickoff.

Henry deFries played center at Santa Ana College in the 1970s and then Utah State. Santa Ana hands out helmet decals with a gorilla on it for the big hit of the week, and deFries, when he played there, won it so often it is still known as the “Bad Henry Award.”

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St. Margaret’s topped two-time Times all-sports award winner Santa Margarita, its Saddleback Valley neighbor that is six times its size, in the Interscholastic Equestrian League season opener Oct. 18-19, posting a final score of 295 points, seven better than the Eagles. The rematch is Dec. 6-7 at the Orange County Fairgrounds where La Habra (198 points), Marina (147) and Newport Harbor (116) are all expected to be in the hunt.

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The El Modena girls’ cross-country team won its fourth consecutive Century League title Saturday with a league finals record of 18 points. It was the Vanguards’ sixth league championship in seven years and Coach Tom Weber’s 15th league title in 23 years at the school.

“I’ve been pretty fortunate,” Weber said. “We’ve had five girls run varsity since their freshman year, so we’ve spent a lot of time together. They’ve worked awfully hard, so it’s fun to watch them succeed.”

Senior Jessica Dahlberg won the race in 18 minutes 40 seconds, clinching her second consecutive individual title. The Vanguards placed all seven runners in the top 10. Senior Leslie Burton (18:57) finished second, senior Alyssa Wittenberg (19:20) was fourth, sophomore Christine Eckstaedt (19:21) was fifth and junior Laurie Burns (19:37) was sixth. Senior Caren Booth was eighth and senior Kim Lacher was tenth.

Correspondent Paul Halpin and staff writers Martin Henderson and Paul McLeod contributed to this notebook.