Riverside Poly

Coach Michael Sage and his Riverside Poly High team can still taste the disappointment from last year, but they still have this season to make up for it. And next. The Bears shot a team score of four-over-par 364 last year in the Southern Section Eastern Divisional tournament. They finished third behind Palm Desert and La Quinta and did not advance to the section finals.

Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley (24-6) vs. Riverside Poly (20-10-1), 4; Santa Ana Mater Dei (24-5) vs. Huntington Beach Edison (22-5), 7, today at Blair Field. Why it matters: It's a Southern Section Division I semifinal doubleheader, with Riverside Poly trying to prevent an all-Orange County final. The Bears face a formidable task: No. 3-seeded Capistrano Valley and pitcher Tyler Matzek, who is 11-1 and hasn't allowed a run in 10 innings of the playoffs. Poly upset No.

Josh Wooding came to the Southern Section Individual golf championships looking only to survive the cut. He left hauling the hardware of a champion. Wooding, a junior from Riverside Poly, birdied his last three holes in the shotgun tournament Monday at Canyon Country Club in Palm Springs, and shot four-under-par 68 to win by two shots. Henry Liaw of Hacienda Heights Los Altos, Kyle Dowden of Camarillo and Jay Choi of Cerritos Gahr each shot 70.

Billy Blanton passed for two touchdowns and ran for another as undefeated Mater Dei defeated Riverside Poly, 27-14, Friday night in a nonleague game at UC Riverside. Blanton threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to running back Chris Ruperto in the second quarter to give Mater Dei (5-0) a 7-0 lead. In the fourth quarter, Blanton connected with David Knuff on a 15-yard scoring pass to make it 27-7.

Mater Dei split a baseball doubleheader with Riverside Poly Tuesday night at Cal State Fullerton. The Monarchs (3-3) won the first game, 8-5. Josh Hansen hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning and Sergio Santos had three hits. Riverside Poly (4-2) won the second game, 9-3. Mater Dei's Jason Murray hit a two-run home run. In other nonleague games: No.

If Riverside Poly were to beat Fontana in the Citrus Belt League showdown, Poly Coach Mike Churchill was saying earlier in the week, it wouldn't be because of muscle. "Compared to them, we're not very big," Churchill said of his Bears. "Our biggest lineman is Roger Haegg, and he's only 5-11 and 175 or 180 pounds. They (Fontana) have one side of the line that blots out the sun."

It was humiliating, embarrassing and disappointing. But a 6-1 loss to Irvine Woodbridge on Dec. 11 was far from devastating to the Riverside Poly boys' soccer team. The loss marked a turning point for a Poly team that finished the regular season with a 22-3-1 record after a 1-0 victory over Moreno Valley Valley View on Wednesday. "I took it very personally," Coach Tom Tilson said of the whipping by Woodbridge. "I was in a depression for a couple of days....

Defending Big Five Conference champion Riverside Poly defeated Riverside North, 35-0, Friday night in a nonleague game at UC Riverside to increase its winning streak to 15. The Bears (2-0) got an outstanding game from senior quarterback Bruce Campbell who scored on runs of 56 and 7 yards, and threw touchdown passes of 29 and 47 yards to wide receiver Todd Burden. Riverside Poly's defense limited North (0-2) to 118 yards in total offense.

Third-ranked and undefeated Riverside Poly will play No. 6 Fontana Friday night in a Citrus Belt League game at Fontana in what may be the biggest of the big games in the final week of the regular season. It's a rematch of last December's Big Five Conference title game, won by Poly, and Fontana Coach Dick Bruich said the Bears (9-0) should be favored again. But Poly Coach Mike Churchill said the only advantage he can find was the size of his line.

BOYS' WATER POLO * Christian Cardey, Riverside Poly: Had five goals to lead the host Bears (4-0), ranked No. 1 in Division V, to an 18-5 victory over La Verne Bonita (2-2), No. 1 in Division VI, in the quarterfinals of the Riverside Invitational. * For more scores and highlights: www.latimes.com/preps

Combining his bulldog mentality with an unhittable slider, junior pitcher Hector Rabago saved top-seeded Riverside Poly from playoff elimination Friday, throwing seven innings of shutout relief to enable the Bears to pull out a 4-3, eight-inning victory over Newhall Hart in a Southern Section Division I quarterfinal baseball game. Poly (25-3) pushed across the winning run in the top of the eighth inning on Mike O'Neill's sacrifice fly that scored Sharif Othman.

Somehow, in Riverside Poly's celebration of winning its first Southern Section Division I softball title, Mindy Cowles got squeezed to the outside, which hardly seemed fair. She is, after all, the core of this team. But Cowles didn't mind because she had what she so desperately wanted in her senior season -- a title. And it was another player, junior Lindsey Ubrun, who had delivered it with one swing of her bat.

There was a moment four years ago that seemed to catch everyone off guard. On a Riverside Poly softball team that featured power-hitting catcher Elizabeth "Binky" Peterson, who had just been walked intentionally to load the bases, a wisp of a girl strode to the plate against Moreno Valley Valley View and slugged the ball over Poly's left-field fence. The ball sailed even beyond the baseball team's bullpen and into its outfield.

In basketball, free throws can make the difference in a game. In hockey, the power play provides the perfect chance for a team to attack an opponent's goal. Similarly, the water polo teams that take advantage of their six-on-five opportunities tend to enjoy the most success. Consider Chino Hills Ayala, which recently beat La Canada, 11-1, in a girls' playoff game. The Bulldogs scored six times in eight man-advantage chances and limited their opponent to one goal in 13 similar situations.

HIGHLIGHTS Fullerton Rosary Coach Tom Tice got his 200th victory in memorable fashion. Senior shortstop Lizzie Hagen hit for the cycle, in order -- single, double, triple, home run -- and had four runs batted in for the Royals in their 10-0 Serra League victory over Santa Margarita. In addition, senior first baseman Caitlin Carroll had five RBIs on two doubles. Tice is 201-88 in 10 seasons. Crescenta Valley's 55-game Pacific League winning steak was ended when Glendale scored a 2-1 victory on Thursday.

Ocean View High School defeated Riverside Poly, 9-3, Sunday to win the baseball championship of the Los Angeles Games held at El Camino College in Torrance. The teams are made up of high school players who will return next season. Ocean View scored two runs in the first inning and two more in the third to take a 4-0 lead. Riverside Poly scored three runs in the third to cut the lead to 4-3, but Ocean View added a run in the fifth to take a 5-3 lead.

There was no spirited chorus being sung to a military cadence as Yessenia Reyes and her Riverside Poly teammates were put through their paces during preseason workouts, unless you counted a collective refrain of nervous giggling, grumbling and grousing.