Waasdorp Makes Cal Commitment

Quartz Hill defensive lineman Jacob Waasdorp has made a commitment to California. A two-time All-Valley selection by The Times, the 6-foot-2 1/2, 235-pound nose guard was considered the best lineman in the region.

Waasdorp, who drew interest from several Pacific 10 Conference schools, chose the Bears over Washington despite last week’s coaching change.

“I found out what’s going on, and that kind of made it easier,” Waasdorp said. “I like the coaches and the defensive coordinator [Tom Holmoe] is the new head coach.”

Stepping down: Harvard-Westlake girls’ tennis Coach Rich Kinuya surprised his team members when he announced his resignation after four seasons.

Kinuya led the Wolverines to the 1993 and 1995 Mission League titles and the 1993 Southern Section Division III championship.

Top-rate: The Cal State Northridge softball team is ranked No. 5 in the country in a preseason poll by FastPitch World magazine.

The Matadors, 43-16 last season, play Loyola Marymount in their opener Feb. 1 at Northridge.

Back on track: Dimitri Lagos, boys’ cross-country and track coach at Alemany High from 1993-96, has been hired as an assistant track coach at L.A. City College.

Lagos guided Alemany to a third-place finish in the 1996 Southern Section Division III track championships. He was an assistant cross-country coach at Kennedy last year.

Qualified: The Valley White Sox, an under-13 baseball team, has qualified for the Amateur Athletic Union national championships in August after finishing fourth at a qualifying tournament in Moreno Valley.

Halls of Ivy: Former Campbell Hall guard C.J. Thompkins set a Levien Gym record at Columbia University with 37 points in a 77-72 victory over Army on Monday night.

The Ivy League’s leading scorer at 20.8 points a game, Thompkins moved into 16th place on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,012 points.

Mann among boys: Former Taft High tennis player Dylan Mann, a freshman at the University of Florida, won the boys’ 18-and-under singles division in the Fiesta Bowl, a national invitational tournament in Phoenix, Ariz.

Camarillo High senior Darian Chappell was sixth in the girls’ 18-and-under division at the Copper Bowl, a national invitational tournament in Tucson, Ariz.