SPORTS ROUNDUP:Athletes swim to finals

SWIMMING

CIF Southern Section Division II preliminaries: Burbank High's Aram Simonian and the school's boys' 400- and 200-yard freestyle relay teams earned spots in today's finals by doing well Thursday in the preliminaries at Long Beach's Belmont Plaza Pool.

It is the first time since 1996, when John Won took part, that Burbank will score points in the finals.

Simonian placed 13th in the boys' 100 butterfly, setting a school record of 53.76 seconds. He broke the mark of 53.89 set in 1986 by Spencer Hess. He will swim in the consolation championship. He was also disqualified in the 200 individual medley.The Bulldogs 400 relay team of Simonian, Greg Fields, David Nelson and Marc Anunta earned a spot in the consolation championship by placing 14th in 3:19.13. The group also finished 17th in the 400 relay in 1:30.97. The Burroughs team of Michael Singhanate, Nick Fiock, Josh Lawrence and Jarrod Przebieda was 30th in the same race in 1:32.75.

"The guys are really happy they made it," Burbank Coach Adam Wright said. "They are excited about [today]."

The Indians 200 medley relay team of Singhanate, Fiock, Przebieda and Michael Peyton was 31st in 1:45.61, Przebieda was 32nd in the boys' 50 freestyle, Burroughs' Mikela Velasquez was 32nd in 26.25 in the girls' 50 freestyle and Anunta was 29th in the boys' 100 freestyle in 49.98.

SOFTBALL

Bellarmine-Jefferson 9, St. Mary's Academy 5: The Guards earned a berth in the CIF Southern Section playoffs for the first time in 13 years by defeating the Belles Tuesday in a Santa Cruz League game at Gross Park.

"The girls are really excited about being in the playoffs," said Bell-Jeff Coach Patty Bertole about the program that hasn't been in the postseason since 1994. "They've really worked hard and this is nice for them to make it."

The Guards ended the regular season 8-5 and finished second in league with a 4-4 mark.

Bell-Jeff has shown a marked improvement over the last three years. Last season, the team went 4-5 (1-11 for last place in the Sunshine League) and the Guards won just two games in 2005.

"It was a lot better for our team that were able to leave the Sunshine League and go to our new league," Bertole said. "There were just so many really good teams in the Sunshine League. But our new league is no cakewalk either."

Downey St. Matthias (15-7, 8-0) captured the league championship.