Valley Coaches, Players Making Big Hits at Loyola Marymount

The hard-hitting Loyola Marymount baseball team, heading toward a West Coast Athletic Conference showdown next weekend with Pepperdine, has maintained its ranking among the top teams in the country with a coaching staff and roster that boasts a distinctive Valley flavor.

The fifth-ranked Lions (42-11 overall, 15-1 in conference play) opened a four-game series at Santa Clara on Friday.

Loyola, with a team batting average of .349, is coached by Dave Snow, who is in his fourth season at the Westchester campus. Snow coached at Valley College from 1978-82, compiling a record of 156-41 and winning four Metropolitan Conference conference titles and the state championship in 1982.

Jim Benedict, the Lions’ pitching coach, was an outfielder at Chatsworth High, but was converted into a relief pitcher by Snow at Valley and was named California Player of the Year in 1982. Benedict pitched one year at Arizona State and played in the Kansas City Royals organization. Last summer, he managed the San Fernando Valley Dodgers, a semipro team that advanced to the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kan.

Nine players from Valley-area high schools and junior colleges are on the Lions’ roster, including first baseman-outfielder Rick Allen and senior relief pitcher Terry Seward. Allen, who played at Calabasas High and Moorpark College, is batting .333 and has 2 home runs and 40 runs batted in. Seward (Notre Dame HS, Valley) is 7-0.

Other Valley-area products include senior designated-hitter Kirk Mears (Kennedy, Santa Monica City College), who is batting .310 in 35 games; junior catcher Mark Grafitti (Hoover), who is batting .384 in 32 games; junior outfielder Rich Tricarico, junior pitcher Brian Clancy, sophomore infielder Mike Testa, freshman catcher Joe Testa (Crespi) and sophomore outfielder Joe Summers (Royal).

Ineligible: The Pierce College men’s volleyball team was forced to play in the state junior college championships Friday without starting setter Austin Johnson, who was declared academically ineligible.

Johnson, one of three sophomores on the team, was not taking enough class units.

At least 12 units of class work is required for athletic eligibility. A computer check Thursday showed Johnson enrolled in just seven units.

“I had 13 units at first, but then I just wasn’t going to two of my classes,” said Johnson, who sat on the bench during Friday’s state semifinal and final matches at Orange Coast College. “When I stopped going, the teachers dropped me. I’m real upset with myself.”

Johnson felt worse about letting his Brahma teammates down.

“I think they were a little disappointed in me, which they have every right to be,” he said.

Sweet revenge: Joe Manzo, who replaced Johnson, took the opportunity to get even. He got unexpected starts in Pierce’s two biggest matches of the year, including Friday’s semifinal win over El Camino College.

Manzo attended El Camino last year but failed to make the volleyball team.

“It felt really good to beat them,” he said. “There was an awful lot of personal satisfaction in it for me.”

Homer happy: Northridge outfielder Lenn Gilmore moved into a fifth-place tie on the school’s single-season home run list Friday with his 15th.

The blast, against Cal State Los Angeles, cleared the scoreboard in right at Matador Field and tied Gilmore with Jim Vatcher (1987) and Conrad Negron (1980).

Rondal Rollin holds the record (24), which was set in 1980.

Masterful performances: Tod Skinner, a senior catcher for The Master’s College, has tied the season record for hits (69) set by Matt MacArthur in 1986.

Jeff Holen and Tony Ellis have tied Tim Bahr’s mark for runs scored in a season (50).

Beach-bound: Ray Palagyi, an All-Western State Conference outfielder for College of the Canyons, has signed a national letter of intent with UC Santa Barbara.

Clinch time: The Cal State Northridge softball team (47-11, 16-2 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.) can clinch its seventh consecutive conference title with a sweep of Chapman today at Northridge.

Shortfall: When Pierce second baseman Shelly Creal suffered torn knee ligaments in practice last week, the Lady Brahmas’ season went down with her.

Pierce has been forced to forfeit its final three Western State Conference games for lack of enough players to field a team. The forfeits, to College of the Canyons, Bakersfield and Santa Monica, give the Lady Brahmas a season-ending record of 11-17, 2-12.

The Lady Brahmas started quickly (7-1), then lost all their starting outfielders, who quit the team for various personal reasons within a span of three weeks midway through conference play.

“I’ve had times where we’ve lost one player a season or something like that, but never where we were losing one every game, it seemed like,” said Pat Skinner, who has coached the Lady Brahmas for eight years. “I was grasping at straws.”

Welcome move: Walt Ker, women’s volleyball coach at CSUN, is happy that the university will jump from Division II to Division I. He feels the move will improve his chances of landing top recruits.

“I’ve had girls tell me, ‘I really like you. I really like the girls on your team. I really like the school, but I want to play Division I.’ ” said Ker, whose team won the Division II title last season. “I’d say that a third of the girls we have recruited over the last five years were lost because they wanted to go Division I. That was a major factor in their decision.”

Bold prediction: Marwan Ass’ad, the Northridge soccer coach, is also thrilled with the move to Division I and thinks it will have a far-reaching impact on the community.

“I don’t look at it as CSUN going Division I,” Ass’ad said. “I look at it as the Valley going Division I. In time, people out here are going to look at Northridge and forget UCLA and USC, forget everybody. In soccer, I think they’ve already forgotten everybody else.”

CSUN captains: Quarterback Rob Huffman and nose tackle Dennis McConnaughy, both seniors, have been selected co-captains of the Northridge football team by a vote of players.

Catch of the day: Keith Wright caught three passes for 101 yards last Saturday in Cal State Northridge’s Red-White spring football scrimmage. Such things are expected from Wright, a senior who led the Matadors in receiving last season with 26 catches for 476 yards and 10 touchdowns.

What tight end Rod Shinko accomplished with two catches for 41 yards was more of a surprise. At Chabot College last season, Shinko started every game, yet never caught a pass.

“It’s been a long time,” he said about the catches. “I forgot what it was like.”

Bright spots: Coach Ron Stillwell has only two good things to say about his Moorpark baseball team--Kevin Medeiros and Corey Aurand.

Aurand is batting .350 to lead Moorpark; Medeiros is batting .333 in the Western State Conference.

“Both have been real consistent for us,” Stillwell said.

The Moorpark pitching staff, however, has been anything but. The Raiders have lost three starters to injury this season and have only two healthy pitchers for their remaining four games.

“This year has been a disaster,” Stillwell said. “I’ve never been through anything like this.”

Moorpark plays host to Glendale on Monday in its final game.

Decision time: Malia Ouzts, a sophomore catcher from Moorpark, expects to decide this week whether she will sign with a Division I school or Cal State Northridge.

Ohio State and CSUN both have offered Ouzts scholarships. She also has been contacted by Cal State Fullerton and Arizona.

“I really want to play Division I because it’s the highest level,” Ouzts said. “Hopefully, I will decide after I see all of the schools.”

Ouzts, Western State Conference Player of the Year in 1987, has scored 33 runs this season and has a school-record 60 in her career.

Staff writers Gary Klein, Lauren Peterson, Mike Hiserman and Ralph Nichols contributed to this notebook.