Jenny Gonzalez

While her next victim patiently stands on Court 1, Jenny Gonzalez sits and chats with a reporter, not knowing that she is holding up her opponent and team competition. The first set for Gonzalez, a junior at Valencia High, ended with a familiar result: 6-0, in less than 15 minutes over a bewildered La Quinta player. In 30 sets, Gonzalez's closest brush with defeat has been 6-2. In one set last week against Magnolia's No. 1 player, Gonzalez did not drop a point.

While her next victim patiently stands on Court 1, Jenny Gonzalez sits and chats with a reporter, not knowing that she is holding up her opponent and team competition. The first set for Gonzalez, a junior at Valencia High, ended with a familiar result: 6-0, in less than 15 minutes over a bewildered La Quinta player. In 30 sets, Gonzalez's closest brush with defeat has been 6-2. In one set last week against Magnolia's No. 1 player, Gonzalez did not drop a point.

The number of civilians killed by the Colombian armed forces has soared, activist groups allege, with many of the abuses committed by army units that had been vetted by the State Department. There were 329 so-called extrajudicial killings by the Colombian military and police last year, a coalition of Colombian rights groups asserts in a report, a 48% increase from the 223 reported in 2006. The Colombian Commission of Jurists, a Bogota-based civil society group that is responsible for verifying many of the deaths, said last week that a significant number of killings of civilians by the armed forces had been reported so far in 2008 in five Colombian states, but provided no precise numbers.

In other South Coast tournament games: Foothill 10, Riverside Poly 6--Foothill, which lost to El Toro, 9-5, in the semifinals, improved to 5-2 with the victory over Riverside Poly (7-2) in the third-place game. Los Alamitos 10-7, Granite Hills 6 and Mission Viejo 6--Tim Sylvester had eight goals in two games, and Mike Aaronson made 19 saves for Los Alamitos (7-4). Costa Mesa 14, Tustin 8--Sam Grayel scored six goals for Costa Mesa and Marshall Bauerfiend had three for Tustin.

Los Alamitos, Jr. Volleyball / Middle blocker Los Alamitos advanced to its first Southern Section girls' volleyball title match and won largely because of clutch play by Laitsch. She had 20 kills in a five-game victory over Long Beach Millikan in the Division II quarterfinals and 21 as the Griffins rallied from two games down to defeat Huntington Beach in the semifinals.

Brea-Olinda tied Savanna, 9-9, in sets but won on games, 77-75, in the Orange League girls' tennis opener for both teams Tuesday at Brea. Rachel Buenviaje swept, 6-3, 6-1, 6-0, at No. 1 singles and Elizabeth Kozma and Beth St. Clair swept in doubles, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2, for Brea-Olinda (7-3, 1-0). In another Orange League match: Valencia 13, Western 5--Jenny Gonzalez won, 6-1, 6-0, 6-0, for visiting Valencia (7-2, 1-0).

For the second consecutive year, the top-ranked senior boys' tennis player in Orange County will not be participating in the Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, which begins Thursday at various sites in Ojai. Ocean View's Jakub Pietrowski, who lost in the semifinals of last year's Southern Section individual tournament and would have been seeded first or second in this year's boys' interscholastic singles draw at Ojai, will not play because of obligations he made to his school.

In another Division II match: Edison 11, Marina 7--Tami Demaree and Michelle Turner swept their sets, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0, to lead Edison, the No. 3 seed, to the quarterfinal victory over Sunset League opponent Marina. The victory was the third of the season over Marina.

Before every Valencia match, scorekeeper Sandra Cardona highlights her friend Jenny Gonzalez's three singles victories in yellow ink. Cardona hasn't been wrong yet. But Tuesday, Cardona hesitated to highlight Gonzalez's scores before the match. "I was nervous," she said. "The team said, 'You better not highlight it, these guys are pretty good.'

Palos Verdes Peninsula, the top-seeded team in the Southern Section Division I girls' tennis playoffs, meets second-seeded Newport Harbor for the second time this season at 9 a.m. today in the finals at the Claremont Club. Peninsula (23-0) defeated Newport Harbor, 17-1, this season without Amber Basica, the top-ranked 16-year old in the nation.

Thanks in part to dramatically improved security in recent years, Colombia has vaulted into the major leagues of global crude producers. Ironically, that same success may be driving a surge in violent crime against oil workers flooding into areas formerly considered off-limits to outsiders. About 130 companies are now looking for oil in the Colombian countryside, compared with a number that could have been counted on "the fingers of both hands" a few years ago, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said this month.