GOLDEN VALLEY NAMES NEW ATHLETIC DIRECTOR.

Byline: GERRY GITTELSON

Dudley Rooney, a veteran coach and athletic administrator in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, has been named athletic director at new school Golden Valley High in Canyon Country, which opens with ninth- and 10th-graders this fall.

Rooney, 59, of Saugus, was a softball coach and athletic director at Alemany High in Mission Hills for 17 years before working as junior varsity softball coach at Valencia High the past three seasons.

``I'm excited. We're going to be offering all the sports of the other Foothill League schools,'' Rooney said.

At Valencia, Rooney's team won three league titles and finished 19-3 last season, 52-11 overall.

--In other Golden Valley High news, the maiden competition begins with a freshman girls' summer-league game against Valencia at 7 p.m. Thursday at Hart High.

``Basically, it's the school's first game ever,'' said coach Troy Best, formerly the girls' varsity coach at Canyon High.

Every player who has signed up is an incoming freshman, many of whom are from Sierra Vista Middle School, where Best has worked as a physical education teacher over the past few years. Among those expected to make an impact are 5-foot-9 Merideth Mathis, 5-0 Amber Henderson, 5-9 Christina Chandless, 5-4 Brooke Kuderer, 5-10 Kendra Ganevski, 5-5 Tera McKelvey and 5-5 Alysa Hernandez.

Best said he's looking forward to the uniforms being delivered.

``They're awesome uniforms. They look like the Lakers' white home jerseys and white warm-ups,'' he said. ``The road uniforms are nice, too. They?re all black with gold trim.''

The coach of Golden Valley's boys' team is Chris Printz, of Simi Valley, a former JV coach at Newbury Park High.

--Sean Legaux is the boys' basketball coach at West Ranch High of Stevenson Ranch, the area's other new school, which opens with ninth-graders only this fall. He's a former varsity assistant at Saugus.

--The Shock, a girls' 12-under soccer team based in Valencia, had quite a season. The team, coached by Cindy Lesinski, finished fourth or better in four of six tournaments.

Lesinski, 40, of Castaic, is the region's first female tournament head coach.

``It was a good season because we were kind of like the Bad News Bears because the team was comprised of all the leftover girls who didn't get picked for other teams,'' she said. ``A lot of them were overlooked. We rocked.''

--Valencia High's baseball team finished 39th in the final Cal-Hi Sports state rankings.

Santa Clarita Christian's team, unranked by Cal-Hi Sports until the final week of the season, reached its high point with a 9-6 victory over top-seeded Joshua Springs of Yucca Valley to win the Southern Section Div. VI championship in Irvine and finished No. 8 in the Div. V, Cal-Hi Sports' smallest division.

In Cal-Hi Sports' final softball rankings, Saugus finished 24th and Valencia 28th.