UC Riverside Baseball Team Stays Healthy, Fulfills Last Year’s Promise

It is more than halfway through the 1990 season, and it has been a relatively injury-free year for the UC Riverside baseball team.

The Highlanders have experienced a few minor injuries that have kept players out of the lineup for a game or two.

But Riverside has been a picture of health in contrast to last year--a season that started with a world of promise and ended in nightmarish fashion.

That alone might explain why the Highlanders are sitting atop the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. standings, 23-8 overall and ranked No. 17 in the NCAA Division II after posting a 24-26-1 record last year.

“Nothing’s gone wrong so far,” Riverside Coach Jack Smitheran said. “We’ve got a club that’s basically healthy. We have a mature squad that has learned through the adversity of last year and basically kept their heads on straight.”

Smitheran could not make the same claim last season, when the team lost eight everyday players, one starting pitcher and one reliever to serious injuries.

Left fielder Scott Hayward had three operations on an injured ankle and missed most of the season, second baseman Matt Davis sat out 20 games with a broken collarbone and center fielder Pete Weber suffered a dislocated ankle and only played in the team’s first 12 games.

“Those type of things just don’t lend themselves to getting any continuity in your lineup and playing the way you want,” Smitheran said. “The other thing that happens is the guys you do have start to press and try to pick up too much of the load and they end up having poorer years than they expected.”

Smitheran said that last season did not have an entirely negative effect on the squad.

“I think no matter what happens you have to try to learn a lot from every season you play, whether it’s good or bad,” he said. “Without a doubt it was a difficult situation. But what it did do was open things up for other players like Mark Saugstad at shortstop.”

Most of the injured players are back this season.

“Another club may not have responded as well as this year’s did,” he said. “But we’ve got 13 or 14 seniors on this team and they didn’t dwell on last year’s problems. They only concentrated on what they could accomplish this season.”

Besides avoiding major injuries this season, the coach said the team’s experience has played a critical role in the team’s success.

“This is really a senior group,” he said. “This is the first year since 1977 that we’ve had a senior-dominated club. We’ve just been devastated by the (major league) draft over the years.”

Like most of Smitheran’s recent teams, Riverside ranks among the top offensive teams in the conference with a .322 batting average. The leader is Weber at .453 with six home runs and 39 runs batted in. Hayward is batting .417, third baseman Ruben Ayala .372 and Davis .345.

But Smitheran said the key to the team’s success has been its pitching and defense. The pitching leaders are starters Bill Jordan at 4-1 and David Coopersmith at 4-0 and relievers Eric Welker at 3-2 and Steve Green at 2-0.

“You really win with pitching and defense,” Smitheran said. “Our pitching has just been very good and we’ve gotten excellent long relief when we’ve needed it.”

An era came to an end for the Cal Poly Pomona women’s basketball team when the Broncos finished third in the NCAA Division II tournament Saturday in Pomona.

The tournament ended the college careers of center Niki Bracken and forward Marcine Edmonds--who played major roles in the success of the Broncos in recent years.

Both players went out on a winning note. In the team’s 87-68 victory over Oakland of Michigan in the third-place game, Edmonds had 22 points and 11 rebounds and Bracken 14 points and seven rebounds.

Bracken, the school’s all-time leading scorer who averaged 19.2 points and 9.5 rebounds as a senior, was also selected to the Division II All-American squad for the second consecutive season and was voted to the all-tournament team. Edmonds, the team’s second-leading scorer and rebounder, was a two-time All-California Collegiate Athletic Assn. selection.

“We wanted to win it for Niki and Marcine,” Pomona guard Stephanie Coons said. “It was their last game and we wanted to do it for them.”

Pomona Coach Darlene May said neither Bracken nor Edmonds will be easy to replace next season.

“As you might have guessed, it’s a pretty emotional time for us,” she said. “We’re losing two of the best kids who ever played here. Losing two kids like that, they’re going to be hard to replace. And I’m not just talking about them on the court.”

Fortunately for the Broncos, who finished with a 29-4 record and made the division final four for the second consecutive year, all is not lost for next season.

Bracken and Edmonds are seniors, but seven of Pomona’s top nine players will return from this season, including starters Coons and Denise Ogburn at guard and forward Kelly Connelly and reserve center Danielle Carter.

With another good recruiting year in progress, Pomona appears on target for an unprecedented 10th consecutive CCAA title next season.

It was a memorable season for Southern California College center Jeff Bickmore, on and off the basketball court.

The 6-7 junior averaged 19.2 points and 7.8 rebounds to lead the Vanguards to a 26-9 record and the second round of the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics tournament. He also sparked Southern California to its first NAIA District 3 title.

Since then, the honors have poured in for Bickmore.

Last week he was named a recipient of the NAIA Scholar Athlete Award and received honorable mention on the NAIA All-America basketball team. Bickmore is a physical education major.

He also recently made the All-District 3 team and was selected Golden State Athletic Conference player of the year.

Notes

It will be a battle between two of the top college division baseball teams in the Southland when UC Riverside plays host to Cal Baptist at 7:30 tonight. Cal Baptist is 19-6 and leads the Golden State Athletic Conference and NAIA District 3. . . . Christian Heritage, which had previously won its first NAIA District 3 regular-season title in men’s basketball, put the finishing touch on its best season ever by capturing the National Christian College Athletic Assn. Tournament championship last week. The Hawks defeated Cedarville of Ohio, 106-97, in the title game in Chattanooga, Tenn. . . . Two players from Christian Heritage, senior guard Mark Kraatz and senior forward Brad Soucie, have been listed on the NAIA All-America men’s basketball squad.