Longtime Foothill Coach Resigns

Jerry Whitaker has resigned as track and field coach at Foothill High.

Whitaker, who has been head coach or an assistant with Foothill’s track program for 32 years, will remain the associate athletic director.

“I’ve been trying to retire for about three years,” Whitaker said. “But that seems to be going backwards.”

Foothill won Century League titles in boys’ and girls’ track last season.

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UC Irvine’s Nicole Bucciarelli was named player of the week in soccer in the Big West Conference.

Bucciarelli scored two goals in a three-minute span in the Anteaters’ 5-0 victory over UC Santa Barbara Friday. She then scored 1 minute 42 seconds into the match against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Sunday. Irvine won, 2-1.

Bucciarelli has nine goals and five assists in 11 games this season. She is Irvine’s all-time career leader in scoring with 86 points.

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Ryan Moore, a senior at Servite, has been selected to train with some of the top junior tennis players in the world at the Bollettieri Sports Academy in Florida from Dec. 15-20. The camp will be held the week between the Eddie Herr and Easter Bowl international tournaments.

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The O’Keiki Panthers, a 12-and-under traveling baseball team from La Habra, has been selected to represent California in the “Boys of Summer” invitational tournament, July 4-9, in Cooperstown, N.Y.

The Panthers, who are managed by Mike Roper, represented Western U.S. Region in the 1996 American Amateur Baseball Congress World Series in Tennessee, where they finished second.