Six on youth national team

The Back Bay high schools will be well represented on the USA water

polo women’s national youth team, as six girls from Corona del Mar

and Newport Harbor high schools earned spots on the two squads.

Corona del Mar’s Brittany Fullen and Camille Hewko, along with

Newport Harbor’s Anne Belden and Melissa Wheeler will be on the

national youth A team. Jordan Anae of CdM and Ashling Taylor of

Newport Harbor are on the B team.

The six girls qualified for the team by showcasing their talents

at a tryout in La Jolla over Memorial Day weekend. Fullen, Hewko,

Belden and Wheeler will be leaving June 29 for New Zealand, where

they will compete against various teams. They will also play in

Sydney, Australia, July 8-15.

Fullen, a goalie who will be a senior at CdM next year, and Hewko,

a versatile player who will be a junior in the fall, helped lead the

Sea Kings to the CIF Southern Section Division II championship.

Fullen and Hewko shared MVP honors in the Pacific Coast League. The

6-foot-1 Fullen, who recorded 280 saves, was named CIF Division II

Player of the Year. Anae, one of the Sea Kings’ top two-meter

players, will also be a senior in the fall.

Belden, a skilled left-handed driver who will be a senior next

year, and senior-to-be Wheeler, known for her speed, helped lead the

Sailors to the CIF Division I title. Belden is the only lefty on the

A team. Taylor, who can play with her right or left hand, will also

be a senior.

Contest beckons youth

* SPORTSWRITER SUMMER CAMP: An open-entry contest for any budding

youth sportswriter has been launched for the summer by the Daily

Pilot sports staff with three divisions for boys and girls: Third-

and fourth-graders (in September); fifth- and sixth-graders; and

seventh- and eighth-graders.

Participants must simply write a sports story on any subject with

a 1,000-word maximum and submit it to Daily Pilot Sports Editor

Richard Dunn at Richard.Dunn@latimes.com or fax the sports desk at

(949) 650-0170. The mailing address is 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa,

92627.

All entries must include name, address, phone number and e-mail

(if possible). Also include your grade in September and school you

attend.

Entries will be accepted throughout the summer of 2004 for the

future sportswriters of the 21st century. Each suitable entry will be

published in the Daily Pilot sports section and judged

unsympathetically by all five members of the sports staff. The last

one standing in each of the three divisions at the end of the summer

will win an opportunity to cover a major event regularly chronicled

by the Daily Pilot while shadowing a staffer.

Only one sports story is allowed per student, but there are no

restrictions on the topic as long as it’s suitable for a family

newspaper.

‘Tennis Tickler’ signing

* TENNIS: Louisa Arnold will be signing copies of her book,

“Tennis Ticklers,” today and Sunday at the Balboa Bay Club Racquet

Club from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the final weekend of the 2004 Roy

Emerson Adoption Guild tennis tournament.

The book, now in its third edition, is a collection poems Arnold

has written over the past 20 years. The first edition was published

in 1994, and Arnold was invited to the International Tennis Hall of

Fame in Newport, R.I., for book signings.

“It is certainly not an instructional book,” Arnold said. “It’s

funny poems about things that have happened to me on the court

through the years.”