Fields Reduced at Easter Bowl Event

The 38th Easter Bowl National Spring Championships will feature 640 of the top junior tennis players in the country, beginning today and continuing through April 17 at Riviera Resort and Racquet Club in Palm Springs.

The tournament’s 64-player brackets mark a reduction in draw size from the 128-player fields of last year. Also bolstering competition is the fact that, for the first time, International Tennis Federation ranking points will be awarded.

Newport Beach resident Alexa Glatch, the top-seeded player in the girls’ 18 singles division, and Maggie Mello, a Mission Viejo sophomore and the 2004 Southern Section singles champion, are part of the top draw. Former Corona del Mar High standout Carsten Ball, who opted for independent study this year, is seeded No. 2 in boys’ 18 singles. He and Thousand Oaks junior Sam Querrey, who won the Easter Bowl boys’ 16 title last year and is seeded 10th in 18s, will lead the Southern California boys’ contingent.

Swimming and Diving

The 32nd TYR/Mission Viejo Swimming and Diving Invitational will feature a combined total of 22 boys’ and girls’ teams, including 2004 boys’ meet champion Moraga Campolindo and girls’ meet winner Concord Carondelet, in competition today at the Marguerite Aquatics Complex in Mission Viejo.

Preliminaries for about 700 swimmers and divers will start at 9 a.m., with the finals at 2:30 p.m.

Among the Southern California-based teams participating are host Mission Viejo, which finished second in the boys’ team competition and fourth in the girls’ meet at the 2004 Southern Section Division I championships, and Murrieta Valley, which won its third consecutive boys’ Division III title and its first girls’ title last season.

-- Lauren Peterson

Softball

The Irvine Woodbridge tournament, annually one of the best in the Southland, is loaded again.

Garden Grove Pacifica, ranked No. 1 by The Times, No. 2 Corona and seven other ranked teams will take the field today in first- and second-round games in the three-day tournament, which continues Monday and next Saturday at Barber Park in Irvine.

Pacifica (12-1-1), which opens against No. 21 Long Beach Millikan, and Corona (12-0) are in opposite brackets but have faced each other in the tournament in each of the last three years, with Pacifica winning twice. The Mariners beat Thousand Oaks, 1-0, in last year’s title game.

Other ranked teams competing include No. 7 Fullerton Rosary, No. 17 Valencia, No. 18 Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula, No. 22 Anaheim Canyon and No. 23 Riverside King.

-- Martin Henderson