A year of highs and lows

Another year on the high school sports scene has come and gone, but not without local athletes again turning in outstanding performances.

Below are some of the highlights from the 2011 calendar that were reported to the Independent.

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January-June

The only CIF Southern Section championship won by a local school during the 2010-11 school year came in girls' basketball. It happened during late-winter and was captured by Edison. Senior Bonnie Samuelson stole an inbounds pass in the closing seconds and hit the winning shot before the clock expired to give the top-ranked Chargers an exhilarating 45-44 victory over No. 2 Troy in the Division 1A final March 3 at Anaheim Arena. Dan Wiley took Edison to a Southern Section final in his third year as head coach. Edison, which went 10-0 to win the Sunset League, won its first section title since 1987 and second overall.

"It happened so fast, that I wasn't sure if it was real," said Samuelson, who is now at Stanford. She went on to be named the division's Player of the Year and Wiley was Coach of the Year.

In boys' basketball, Edison shared the Sunset League title with Los Alamitos and Ocean View was in a three-way tie with Segerstrom and Loara for the Golden West League championship. The Chargers and Seahawks, along with Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and Brethren Christian, all advanced to the CIF playoffs. Edison point guard Dylan Garrity, who ended his four-year varsity career as the program leader in four categories became the first player in the 42-year history of the Edison program to have his jersey (No. 5) retired.

Four wrestlers from the Sunset League won individual titles at the CIF Southern Section Individual (Inland Division) Championships at Roosevelt High in Corona. The champions were Dean O'Bourke (119-pounds) of Fountain Valley, Alex Anunciation (130) and Colin Navickas (140) of Marina and Brenton Visnoski (145) of Edison. Edison qualified four athletes and Marina and Fountain Valley one each to the CIF State Wrestling Championships in Bakersfield. Advancing to State from Edison were Visnoski (sixth place, 145), Erick Zumwalt (140), Cameron Bustos (152) and Greg Meline (160), Anunciation (fifth place, 130) of Marina and O'Bourke of Fountain Valley.

Edison, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Ocean View all reached the boys' volleyball playoffs, but each fell in their opening matches.