COMMUNITY COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Irvine Valley Gets Off on the Right Foot With Renewed Soccer Program

The Irvine Valley College men’s soccer team is off to an impressive start that belies its young age.

Irvine Valley had a soccer team in 1985, but the program was dropped for financial reasons.

But about a year ago, the college began looking into the possibility of starting a sports program and decided to begin small, with a men’s soccer team in the fall and a softball team in the spring.

Martin McGrogan, who is also the boys’ soccer coach at Corona del Mar High School, was hired as Irvine Valley’s coach in June. Since high school boys’ soccer is played in the winter, there should be no conflict.

In an effort to attract players, McGrogan started the program with a summer class. From there, the team has gotten off to the best start among Orange County teams. Irvine Valley is 7-0-1 and won its first tournament--the MiraCosta Tournament--two weeks ago.

Greg Daman leads Irvine Valley with seven goals and keeper Aaron Ryan has three shutouts.

“We are very fortunate,” McGrogan said. “We are in a very good soccer area. We tried to get the word out and get some players, and we did.”

Irvine Valley will get a solid indication of where it stands starting today, when the Lasers travel to Orange Coast for a 3 p.m. match to open the Orange Empire Conference season. OCC (3-4) is the defending state champion.

The Pirates are led on offense by Andy Strouse, who was the conference player of the year last season.

“We felt we had a chance to get off to a good start,” McGrogan said. “And now we’re getting greedy. We would like it to continue, but now it gets much tougher.”

Despite winning, El Camino (3-0) was bounced from the top spot of the weekly Southland football poll. The Warriors defeated Saddleback, 31-24, but Bakersfield (2-0) took over the No. 1 position.

Bakersfield defeated Glendale, 31-3, Saturday, after starting the season Sept. 8 with a 44-8 thumping of Navarro, Tex., the J.C. Grid-Wire defending national champion.

El Camino (2-0) fell to second in the poll, with Riverside (2-0) third.

Rancho Santiago (2-0) is fourth, Fullerton (2-0) fifth, Moorpark (2-0) sixth, Pasadena (2-0) seventh, Golden West (2-0) eighth, Cerritos (2-1) ninth and Santa Monica (2-0) 10th.

In Saturday’s best two games, Rancho Santiago is at El Camino and Pasadena is at Fullerton, both at 7 p.m.

Don Watson, the Orange Coast water polo coach, has put together an impressive streak of Orange Empire Conference victories in three seasons.

Watson’s teams have won 42 consecutive matches and three titles coming into this season. OCC extended the streak to 43 last Tuesday with a victory over Rancho Santiago and is hoping for 44 today when the Pirates play host to Cypress at 3:30 p.m.

Orange Coast finished third last weekend in the Merced Tournament. Golden West, the defending state champion, defeated OCC, 11-7, in the semifinal match. Golden West led, 6-5, after three quarters before pulling away in the final quarter.

Golden West was defeated in the championship match, 9-7, by Cuesta. Golden West, the defending South Coast Conference champion, opens conference play Wednesday with a 3:30 p.m. match at Mt. San Antonio.

Community College Notes

Fullerton’s Kevin Leon leads the Mission Conference in punting after two games. Leon, a sophomore from Esperanza, is averaging 41.9 yards in his eight punts. He has a long of 66 yards. . . . Mark Recktenwald of Orange Coast leads the conference in kickoff returns. He has averaged 41.3 yards in three tries with a long of 55. . . . Kari Calliham is averaging 12 kills per match and the Cypress women’s volleyball team has opened the season at 4-0. Cypress was 6-12 last season and 0-19 in 1988.