CSUN’s Baseball Playoff Drive Heats Up

Forty wins is an accomplishment that would go a long way toward helping the Cal State Northridge baseball team qualify for the NCAA Division I playoffs.

But to reach that plateau a team needs to play as many games--the maximum allowable is 60--as possible. Which explains why Northridge (15-7-1) went all out to play last Saturday’s game against the University of San Diego at Matador Field.

CSUN Coach Bill Kernen said that 100 gallons of gasoline were burned to help dry the school’s rain-drenched infield. In addition, 40 bags of cat litter were dumped on particularly soggy spots.

“It absorbs pretty good,” Kernen said. “But some of it was scented. That plus the smell of the gas made a pretty interesting combination. The umpire about passed out.”

It did not bother Northridge. The Matadors won, 14-1. It did, however, bother officials from the fire department whom Kernen said showed up at the field Tuesday to ensure that the field would not be burned before CSUN’s game against UC Santa Barbara.

Injury update: Kernen said Denny Vigo’s hamstring pull was “relatively serious” and might be bad enough to keep him out of next week’s Fresno State tournament. Vigo, a junior from El Camino Real High, is Northridge’s starting third baseman and cleanup hitter.

One-two punch: Stanford and LSU, the top two baseball teams in the Collegiate Baseball-ESPN poll, have received contributions from Valley-area freshmen.

Andrew Lorraine, The Times’ Valley-area pitcher of the year from Hart High, has two saves for top-ranked Stanford and has become the staff’s No. 1 left-handed short reliever.

Keyaan Cook of Montclair Prep has two hits in five at-bats as a pinch-hitter for second-ranked LSU.

Scott Weiss, a Quartz Hill product, was Stanford’s top reliever last season but recently has moved into the starting rotation. He is 4-1 with 43 strikeouts in 31 2/3 innings.

Unstoppable Force: Nichole Force of Ventura High and Oxnard College might be the best player that four-year college basketball coaches have never heard of.

A 5-foot-6 sophomore shooting guard, Force averaged 25.5 points a game and led all players with 17 points in the recent North-South junior college all-star game. However, she has drawn little recruiting interest.

“Nothing seems to help,” Force said. “I’ve written several coaches, but every time they find out how tall I am, they turn me down.”

Force said Cal State Chico, a non-scholarship program, has expressed interest, as has Idaho State. Force said she would like to stay in California and has written UC Santa Barbara, Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine and UC San Diego to express her interest.

Force said she likely will attempt to play as a walk-on if she does not receive a scholarship.

High-flying debut: As opening performances go, it would be difficult to top senior Sherdrick Bonner’s effort in last Saturday’s quadrangular track and field meet at Northridge that included USC, Stanford and UC Irvine.

Jumping for a team for the first time since the 1986 state high school championships--in which he placed third--Bonner cleared 6 feet 10 3/4 inches to tie for first with teammate Dave Swanson.

Bonner also narrowly missed on three attempts at what would have been a personal best of 7-0 1/4. On his first attempt he hit the bar so lightly that he was actually on his way back to the approach area before the bar fell off the standards.

“I’ve always said that he and Swanson are two guys who could be great high jumpers if they just concentrated on the event year round,” Strametz said.

Bonner is an outside hitter on the Matador volleyball team and a two-year starter at quarterback for the football team.

Swanson, who placed second in the high jump in the state junior college championships as a Glendale College sophomore last year, is a swingman on the Matador basketball team.

Fast forward: Few members of the Northridge track and field team are likely this year to meet automatic NCAA qualifying standards for the Division I championships in Eugene, Ore.

However, the Matador men’s 400-meter relay team could be an exception.

The foursome of Schaun Reed, Wes Dunston, Tyrone Jeffries and Kevin Hendrix finished second in Saturday’s meet at CSUN with a time of 40.3 seconds, although it was the first time the quartet has run together.

The automatic qualifying standard for the NCAA championships is 39.50 in the 400 relay.

The Northridge record of 40.10 was set in 1974.

Two down: The Oxnard College baseball team has lost one its best offensive players and its ace pitcher but is nonetheless off to a 2-0 conference start.

Outfielder Jason Luttges was declared ineligible after playing in only two games, both Oxnard losses, because he did not have enough credit hours, Oxnard Coach Dave Taylor said. John Brookman, who was 2-0 and won six games last season, quit the team about two weeks ago, Taylor said.

Statwatch: Scott Richardson of Northridge has raised his batting average from the low .200s to .316 in the past two weeks. He has a seven-game hitting streak and has been moved to second in the batting order, with Greg Shockey being dropped to the cleanup slot in place of the injured Denny Vigo. . . .

Northridge’s Raphael Tulino leads the nation in service aces with 24 in 44 men’s volleyball games. . . .

In his first collegiate basketball season, Northridge’s Andre Chevalier led the Matadors in minutes (773, 27.6 a game) despite not breaking into the starting lineup until the sixth game. They were productive minutes too. Chevalier finished with 127 assists, two shy of Darren Matsubara’s school record. He also had 57 steals, five short of Derrick Gathers’ school record. . . .

Northridge triple jumpers Tonya Conner and Yvette McCullough and high jumper Terry Wasson set personal bests in their events in last Saturday’s meet at CSUN. Conner (40 feet 6 1/4 inches) and McCullough (40-1 1/2) placed second and third, respectively, in the triple jump to move to second and fifth, respectively, on the all-time Northridge performer list. Wasson won the high jump at 5-7 3/4 to move into a tie for seventh on the all-time Matador list.

Jumping the gun: Contrary to reports, Quincy Watts of USC has not become a convert to the 400-meter dash.

Although Watts, a former standout at Taft High, will concentrate on the 400 in the early part of the season, he plans to drop to the 100 and 200 for the Pacific 10 Conference championships at Arizona State in May.

“I’m just running the 400 to get in endurance shape,” said Watts, who anchored the Trojan 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams to victory in Saturday’s meet at CSUN. “I want to make sure I’m real strong before I run the 100 and 200 this season.”

Watts, a junior who won three state and five City Section individual sprint titles at Taft, has been hampered by various leg injuries in each of the past three seasons.

His personal bests of 10.30 in the 100, 20.50 in the 200 and 46.67 in the 400 were set in high school.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, John Ortega, Theresa Munoz and Brendan Healey contributed to this notebook.