‘Eaters are all ‘Wright’

Aaron Wright, the 2010-11 Suburban League MVP from Cerritos High, has signed a national letter of intent with the UC Irvine men’s basketball program, Anteater head coach Russell Turner announced.

Wright, a 6-foot-2 guard, earned All-CIF Southern Section Division III-A honors after averaging 19.3 points, 6.6 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 2.4 steals for the Dons under Coach Jonathan Watanabe. Cerritos was 17-13 overall and finished second in the Suburban League with an 8-4 mark.

Wright recorded a triple-double with 20 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in a win over South Torrance in the first round of the CIF playoffs. He averaged 23.7 points, 7.7 assists, 6.7 rebounds and 3.0 steals in three playoff games and was named MaxPreps Player of the Week.

He had 15 games of 20 points or more during his senior season, scoring a high of 31 points each against Mayfair and West Ranch.

“I am excited to add Aaron Wright to our basketball family,” Turner said in a release. “Aaron has great character and tremendous basketball potential. He is blessed with an innate feel for the game and has the ability to impact games in many areas.

“It is an added bonus that Aaron is a local player who has great desire to play at UC Irvine,” Turner added.

Wright averaged 14.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists during his junior season with the Dons.

— From staff reports

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Clark, three UCI alums in the mix

UC Irvine junior opposite Carson Clark and three former Anteater All-Americans have been named to U.S. men’s national volleyball’s preliminary 25-man roster for the 2011 FIVB World League.

Clark, who leads the Anteaters and is ranked fourth in the country in kills (4.63 per set), joins setter Brian Thornton, outside hitter Jayson Jablonsky and middle blocker David Smith representing the Anteaters on the roster. Thornton, Jablonsky and Smith, were each first-team All-Americans during their UCI careers and led the Anteaters to the program’s first NCAA title in 2007.

The 25-man roster will be trimmed to 20 (including two liberos) by May 4. The team must submit a roster of 12 to 14 players taken from that 20-man pool prior to each World League weekend.

The FIVB World League is an elite men’s volleyball competition in which the world’s 16 best teams are divided into four pools and play an Intercontinental Round for six straight weekends from May 27 to July 3. Each team plays every other team in the pool for two matches at home and two matches away.

The four pool winners and the four second-place teams advance to the Final Round, which will be held July 6-10 in Gdansk, Poland. As the host country, Poland will automatically advance to the final round, so only the winner or second-place team from its pool will advance.

— From staff reports

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Tickets for UCI volleyball go on sale

Tickets for UC Irvine’s Mountain Pacific Sports Federation quarterfinal match will go on sale Monday at 10 a.m.

The Anteaters, seeded fourth, will play host to either Hawaii or UC Santa Barbara on April 23 at 7 p.m. in Crawford Court.

Tickets may be purchased at the Bren Events Center box office or by calling (949) 824-5000. Adult tickets are $10 and youth/student is $5. The Bren box office is open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

If available, tickets sales at Crawford Court will begin at 6 p.m. on match night.

— From staff reports

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Sapp shoots 67

HAYWARD — Former UC Irvine golfer Garrett Sapp shot a three-under-par 67 in the opening round of the Nationwide Tour’s Fresh Express Classic at TPC Stonebrae in Hayward, Calif., Thursday.

Sapp, who played at UCI for two seasons (2004-06), is tied for 10th place as Andrew Buckle’s 64 leads the field.

Sapp’s threesome included NFL great Jerry Rice, who shot an 80 Thursday.

Sapp was a two-time All-Big West Conference first-team selection. He competed individually at the 2005 NCAA West Regional.

— From staff reports