Chris Brisco has been a varsity and junior varsity boys basketball coach at Point Loma High long enough to know what he thinks is needed to turn around the Pointers program.

“We're starting with the kids, the youth programs,” said Brisco, who was named varsity head coach after Dave Aros stepped down at the end of last season.

Point Loma, which last appeared in a San Diego Section title game in 1998, has been shifted from the deep Eastern League to the Central League, where the Pointers are expected to be more competitive.

Brisco will be drawing on players he coached the past three years on the JV squad, which won league titles the past two seasons.

“The challenge, as it was for Coach Aros, is to get the players to go hard all the time,” said Brisco, who played two years for Point Loma Nazarene before graduating in 1990. “Basketball is a year-round sport now. We have a lot of ninth-and 10th-graders in the program and we hope they mix well with the seniors and juniors.”

The Pointers finished 5-20 last season.

Carlsbad coaches

Carlsbad High has filled three coaching positions.

Randy Bull has been named girls basketball head coach. Bull was an assistant for 11 years at Santa Fe Christian. He was an assistant last season at Carlsbad. It's his first head coach position.

Former University of Virginia runner Katie Meehan has been chosen to head the Lancers cross country program after a stint at Brick Township High in New Jersey.

Kristin Tomkinson, a math teacher at Carlsbad who played volleyball at UC Santa Barbara and professionally in Europe, has been selected girls volleyball coach.

Softball honors

High school seniors Lisa Akamine of Escondido, Courtney Craig of El Camino and Trina Harrison of Oceanside have been selected first-team all-state for softball by CalHiSports.com.

Akamine, who will attend Penn State, was 13-1 with a 0.20 ERA. Craig, who's headed to the University of Texas, hit .447 with 11 home runs. Harrison, on her way to Cal State Fullerton, tied the San Diego Section season record with 17 home runs while setting a section career mark with 41.

Seniors Rachel Brown of Scripps Ranch and Jessica McDermott of Mt. Carmel and sophomores Jenny Lahitte of Granite Hills and Kellie Fox of Mt. Carmel received second-team honors.

Other awards:

First-team all-underclassmen – Lahitte and Fox.

Second-team all-underclassmen – sophomore Lorena Klopp of Steele Canyon, junior Ashley Lane of Escondido and junior Amanda Carpenter of Santana.

All-state medium schools – Klopp, Carpenter and senior Britty Balough of Santana.

All-state small schools – senior Kelly Majam of Mountain Empire and junior Amye McIntyre of Francis Parker.

Volleyball title

The Encinitas Wave 16s team won a USA Volleyball Junior Olympic championship in Dallas last week.

Behind outside hitter Kelly Reeves, a Cathedral Catholic High junior, the Wave swept Long Beach Mizuno in three games in the final to finish undefeated in nine matches over four days.

Reeves was named tournament MVP. Wave setter Kendall Polan and outside hitter Natalie Hagglund were named to the all-tournament team.

The Wave 15s earned a silver medal. The Wave 17s and 13s took bronze in their divisions.

The four medals won by Wave squads were more than any other club in the nation at the 860-team event.

Griffins baseball

Grossmont College pitcher Cameron Selik, who missed all of last season because of arm surgery, posted a successful outing for the San Diego-Barona Stars team recently and received several college scholarship offers. Selik accepted a full ride to Kansas of the Big 12 Conference.

Despite a so-so season, the Griffins struck it rich with scholarships.

Pitcher Bryan Longpre, a former San Diego State prospect who bounced back at Grossmont, is headed for Cal State Northridge. Longpre led Pacific Coast Conference pitchers in strikeouts during conference play. Second basemen Tony Jusino (Rancho Bernardo High) will play for Temple University. Ross Blondin, a first-team All-PCC performer, is headed for one of the nation's top NAIA programs at Lubbock Christian.

Other Grossmont players moving on are Clifton Thomas (El Cajon Valley High) to Texas A&M Kingsville, Garrett Jenner (Steele Canyon High) to Iowa's William Penn, Josh Miller (Granite Hills High) to Cal State San Marcos and Nick Spears to Southern Nazarene in Bethany, Okla.

The next step

Mission Bay senior Charles Jock, state champion in the 800 meters, has accepted a track scholarship to UC Irvine.

Jock won the state title in May with a time of 1:51.64, breaking a school record set by 1957 state champ Jim Cerveny. Last month, Jock went 1:50.66 in finishing second at the Nike Nationals in North Carolina.

Other local high school athletes continuing their careers in college:

BOYS TRACK: Lincoln's Nico Reaves, Arizona State.

FOOTBALL: Oceanside's Brian Schwenke, Cal (2009); El Camino's Colton Morrison, SDSU (2009); Oceanside's Osmond Nicholas, SDSU (2009).

---