LOCAL NOTES

UCLA setter Brandon Taliaferro has been named a first-team All-American selection.

Taliaferro, a 6-foot-5 sophomore from San Clemente High, is joined on the first team by fellow Bruin Adam Naeve, a 6-10 sophomore middle blocker. The two were second-team selections last season.

Long Beach State’s Gaby Amar, a senior middle blocker, was also named to the first team.

Receiving second-team honors were Pepperdine’s Chris Jacobson, a senior middle blocker from El Toro High, and Long Beach’s Chris Seiffert, a freshman setter from Capistrano Valley.

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Fullerton College teammates Ben Sanders and Matt Halverson have signed to play basketball at four-year universities next season.

Sanders, a 6-foot-5 guard, will attend San Jose State. He was a first-team All-Orange Empire Conference selection last season, averaging 19 points, six rebounds and 2.5 assists.

Halverson, a 6-7 forward, signed with Humboldt State, a Division II school. He averaged 10 points and five rebounds.

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Ardis Curtis will transfer from Long Beach State to Southern California College in the fall and play basketball for the Vanguards, according to the SCC sports information department.

Curtis, a 5-9 point guard from Bellflower, will enter SCC as a sophomore.

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Darian Chappell and Thomas Bohun of UC Irvine were named to the Big West first-team women’s and men’s singles tennis teams.

Chappell 11-10 in singles play, is the first Irvine freshman to earn first-team honors. She is only the school’s second women’s player to be named to the first team, joining Stacey Cadigan (1990).

Irvine’s Natalie Exon was honored as a second-team singles player. Chappell and Liz Yim were on the women’s second-team doubles list, with Cal State Fullerton’s Debbie Vonusa and Amy Medlin.

Bohun and Brett Lucas were on the men’s second-team doubles list.

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USC football Coach Paul Hackett will speak to a group of USC boosters May 12 in Orange County.

Hackett, most recently an assistant with the Kansas City Chiefs, will speak at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine.

Tickets for the event are $50, or $45 for USC athletic support group members. Dinner will start at 7 p.m. For more information, call (213) 740-4155.