Lion Nine Loaded With Talent

The Loyola Marymount baseball team will play its annual alumni game at noon Saturday, then will officially open the season Monday at home at 2:30 against Cal State Los Angeles. The Lions, under fourth-year Coach Dave Snow, are rated 13th in Baseball America’s preseason poll and are expected to contend for the West Coast Athletic Conference title. Snow has a 3-year record of 113-64-1.

The Lions return six of eight pitchers from last season--including top starter Mike Jones (6-2) and top reliever Darryl Scott (8-6), who will start this season. Other key lettermen are catcher Miah Bradbury, keystone combination Carl Fraticelli and Bobby DeJardin, slugger Don Sparks (.356), switched from outfield to third base, and outfielder Travis Tarchione (.377).

Snow has one of the best recruiting classes in the country. Top additions include pitcher Mike McNary, the CIF 4-A player of the year at Lakewood, and pitcher/outfielder Tim Williams, the CIF 1-A player of the year at St. Bernard.

Loyola Marymount’s women’s basketball team will try to end its conference skid Saturday night at Portland. The Lions, who started fast, are 11-9 overall but have gotten off to a 1-3 start in the West Coast Athletic Conference and are tied for sixth place. Freshman guards Kristen Bruich and Lynn Flanagan continue to lead the offense, scoring 11.5 and 11.2 points per game. Flanagan is shooting 54% in conference.

The No. 2-ranked UCLA men’s volleyball team will open defense of its Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. title at home tonight against Stanford at 7:30 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins are 14-1 and have not lost to an American collegiate team. Stanford, 2-6, is unranked. UCLA will play host to No. 7 UC Santa Barbara at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

A group of U. S. National Team swimmers will compete against UCLA at noon Saturday at UCLA’s men’s gym pool. U. S. Team members are expected to include 50-meter freestyle record holder Tom Jager, who trains with the Bruins, and former UC Berkeley standout Matt Biondi. The Bruins are led by national 200-meter freestyle champion Craig Oppel and Giovanni Minervini, who recorded the second fastest time in the world in 1987 for the breaststroke. The Bruins are 4-0 in dual meets and are ranked sixth. Admission is free.

For the second straight year, Harbor Park golf course was the busiest in the Los Angeles city system, according to the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department. The nine-hole course, which was closed only six days due to bad weather in 1987, saw 133,304 rounds, up 3,314 from 1986. The next busiest city course was Rancho Park, 130,113 rounds. A record total of 1,198,145 rounds were played on the 13 municipal courses, the seventh straight year rounds have topped 1 million.

Dick Maben of Redondo Beach recorded his first hole in one at Harbor Park. According to the starter, Maben aced the 135-yard eighth hole with a 7-iron.