SAN DIEGO COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Martin is Making Up For WAC Team Snub

Given the opportunity to re-select the Western Athletic Conference women’s volleyball all-conference team, Brigham Young Coach Elaine Michaelis might decide to head the campaign of Angela Martin for player of the year.

Martin, San Diego State’s marquee outside hitter, was not named to the WAC first team, despite some impressive statistics and despite leading No. 19 SDSU (24-11) to a third-place finish in the Aztecs’ first season in the WAC.

Martin did not happen to agree with the selections, nor the process, so she made it her crusade to let someone know about it.

That someone turned out to be BYU, the Aztecs’ first-round opponent Friday in the NCAA West Region playoffs. With a match-high 23 kills, Martin led the Aztecs to a 3-1 victory over the Cougars (26-8) in Provo.

Martin, normally sedate about most things, took the snub personally and took out her frustrations on BYU, which had the player of the year in Tea Nieminen.

Friday, Nieminen led the Cougars with 17 kills, but her hitting percentage was a dismal .068.

“I’ve always looked at a lot of these things as being sort of political,” Martin said. “I think they have these things picked out before the season even starts. And with us being new in the WAC, they didn’t give any of us a chance. It really upset me.”

“I don’t know how they could not have selected her,” SDSU Coach Ruby Suwara said before the match with BYU. “But there is this, revenge can be a great motivator. I think Angela’s going to be pretty motivated to take things out on BYU.”

She was, and she did. Martin got her satisfaction and the Aztecs avenged two earlier losses against the WAC champion Cougars.

With at least one match remaining in her career--sixth-seeded SDSU plays second-seeded Stanford at 8:30 p.m. Friday in a West Region semifinal at UCLA--Martin has placed her name among the best at SDSU. Martin is fourth in single-season kills with 573 this year, fifth in career service aces with 149 and sixth in career kills with 1,273. She is also 14th in the NCAA in kills per game this year with a 4.57 average.

“She’s an inspiration,” sophomore middle blocker Jennifer Miller said. “I just love watching her play. She carries a big load on the team, and she handles it great. I couldn’t believe she didn’t make first team. That blew me away. She had the stats, we had the team. She definitely deserved it.”

Suwara agreed, but he also commented, tongue-in-cheek presumably, on Martin’s inconsistency: “She’s either great or very great or very, very great.”

More women’s volleyball: Cal’s Lynn Patrick, a former standout for Serra High, was named to the all-freshman team in the Pacific 10 Conference.

It’s been such a long time: Only two assistant men’s basketball coaches have been at their current school longer than University of San Diego’s Gus Magee, according to The Sporting News.

Magee, a former Torero player, is in his 21st year as an assistant. Tommy Thompson has been at Bucknell for 26 years, and Bill Guthridge has been at North Carolina for 24 years.

What’s in a name?: Times staff writer Scott Miller tells the story of phoning a prominent Southern California-based sports agent last week looking for some information for a story. When the agent’s secretary took the call, she became rather excited.

She thought it was a prospective client, UCLA senior wide receiver Scott Miller.

Incidentally, Miller covered Miller--for The Times, that is--when the Bruins defeated San Diego State in football earlier this year in Pasadena.

It’s not who starts the game, but . . .: In its 75-74 men’s basketball victory over San Diego State last week, USD had only one starter on the floor for the final 21 seconds when SDSU was trying to score a game-winning basket.

Similarly, the Aztecs women’s team had three freshmen reserves in the game for most of the final 10 minutes in its 79-75 victory over USD.

Player/coach relations: Beth Burns, the SDSU women’s basketball coach, had this good-natured comment about Crystal Lee, after the 5-foot-4 junior point guard who scored 29 points to lead the Aztecs over USD.

“I told Crystal that coaching her has taken 20 years off my life,” Burns joked. “She said playing for me has taken 40 off hers.”