SAN DIEGO -- The 14th edition of ABC's "The Bachelor" premieres Monday night, with two San Diego County residents among the field of 25 bachelorettes trying to win the heart of commercial airline pilot Jake Pavelka.

Christina, a 25-year-old restaurant manager from San Diego and Valishia, a 32-year-old homemaker from Carlsbad, will compete for Pavelka's affection against a member of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder dance team, a corporate flight attendant, a mortgage loan officer and a captain in the Air National Guard.

ABC did not release the last names of the bachelorettes.

Ten bachelorettes will be eliminated in the premiere, which includes a blondes versus brunettes touch football game played in eveningwear and barefoot.

"All 25 women were absolutely amazing, very high caliber from all walks of life," Pavelka said in a recent conference call with reporters.

Pavelka said he was looking for someone adventurous, intelligent, athletic, compassionate and romantic.

The planned eight-episode season, subtitled "On the Wings of Love," "is a very rocky and very dramatic," Pavelka said.

"Some of the things that happened on the show drama-wise floored me," Pavelka said.

The 31-year-old Pavelka was among the bachelors on last spring's edition of "The Bachelorette," becoming a fan favorite for his sincerity, charm, his professed dream of finding true love, and his hunky good looks.

Pavelka was eliminated in the sixth of the 10 episodes and appeared in the seventh episode in an attempt to protect bachelorette Jillian Harris from men who were not there for the right reasons.

Harris and her fiance Ed Swiderski help Pavelka make his choice for the first impression rose on the premiere.

Future episodes include Pavelka flying a date to Palm Springs and a private concert by Chicago; bungee jumping off the Bridge to Nowhere in the San Gabriel Mountains; trips to Magic Mountain, the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, the Castillo di Amorosa in Napa Valley and San Francisco's Coit Tower.

The finale takes Pavelka and the final three women to St. Lucia.

None of the 12 previous bachelors has married the woman to whom he presented the final rose, while entrepreneur Brad Womack rejected both finalists in the fall 2007 season.