CSUN Starting to Throw Its Weight Around With Frazier’s Strong Support

Art Venegas, the highly regarded weight-events coach at UCLA, calls first-year Cal State Northridge assistant John Frazier one of the nation’s bright up-and-coming coaches in the throwing events.

Frazier, a 1981 graduate of Antelope Valley High and a two-time NCAA All-American in the shotput at UCLA, has wasted little time in giving credence to his former coach’s praise when it comes to recruiting. He already has signed four highly regarded throwers to letters of intent at Northridge since the signing period began April 10, including Teresa Stricklin of Arroyo Grande High and Nicole Logan of Novato High, two of the state’s best shotputters and discus throwers.

“Being Division I has really helped our recruiting this year, and so has John,” Northridge Coach Don Strametz said. “In the past, we’ve had to wait until late June or July to sign a lot of kids, kids who had been waiting for Division I offers, but that’s changing.”

So is Northridge’s image as a poor school for women’s weight events.

“That was one of the big reasons why we brought John in, to beef up our weight program,” Strametz said. “You can already see the big difference he’s made.”

Damaged digits: Their play has earned applause this season, but what shortstops Ricky Banuelos of Pierce and Chris Chandler of Moorpark really need is for someone to give them a hand, literally.

Both are playing with broken fingers but neither has missed a game because of his injury. Banuelos broke his right pinkie diving into first base against Santa Monica on April 6. In fact, Banuelos has even disdained his doctor’s advice to quit playing.

Pierce co-Coach Bob Lofrano said Banuelos has fielded well and actually has hit better since the injury and calls him an inspiration.

Moorpark Coach Ken Wagner said he expected Chandler, one of the Raiders’ best players, to miss at least a week when Chandler cracked the tip of his right index finger on a bunt. However, “He just kind of fought it off and kept playing,” Wagner said.

Different strokes: Joe Cascione and Pat Huston have each homered in Pierce’s last two games and share the team home run lead with six. If these two are bash brothers, though, they are more like the mismatched pair of Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie “Twins” than Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.

The 5-foot-7, 150-pound Cascione generates a surprising amount of power for his size, and at 6-feet, 210 pounds, Huston is a burly Harmon Killebrew-type slugger.

“They’re like Mutt and Jeff,” Pierce co-Coach Bob Lofrano said. “They’re definitely on opposite ends of the physical scale but with the same results.”

Second helpings: Glendale’s turnaround from last in the WSC a year ago to legitimate conference title contender this year is attributable to several factors, among them pitcher Rock DeTolve’s 7-1 conference record, a lineup with nine players hitting better than .300 in conference play and an improved defense. A scheduling quirk also has helped Glendale (19-15, 11-7 in conference play).

The past two seasons, teams faced Glendale before taking their bye, a disadvantageous position for Glendale. This season, though, teams play Glendale immediately after playing Canyons.

Canyons draws more aces than a riverboat gambler because teams like to throw their best pitcher against a traditional power like the Cougars. This spring, for example, Canyons has faced Pierce’s Travis Arsenault twice, Moorpark’s Mike Jenkins twice and Valley’s Steve Trainor twice, as well as Cuesta’s Paul Mayo and Glendale’s DeTolve.

Rainouts have affected the schedule, but the arrangement has nonetheless kept Glendale from facing many top starters.

No threes: Don’t expect Darcy Arreola of Cal State Northridge to run any 3,000-meter races during this track and field season.

Although Arreola won NCAA Division II titles in the 3,000 in 1988 and 1989 and ranks second on the all-time Northridge performer list with a time of 9 minutes 13.34 seconds in that event, she does not expect to run any 3,000 races this season because a series of early-season illnesses and injuries set back her training.

“It’s kind of a bummer because I really wanted to get the school record (9:12.63),” Arreola said. “I was so close to it, but my training just hasn’t been consistent enough to run a good 3,000.”

New York, New York: Although Arreola’s season best of 4:18.09 in the 1,500 meters at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays on Saturday fell short of the automatic qualifying standard (4:18.00) for the NCAA Division I championships, May 29-June 1 in Eugene, Ore., it bettered the qualifying standard of 4:19.14 for The Athletics Congress championships in New York, June 12-15.

Arreola placed seventh in the 1,500 at the 1989 and ’90 TAC championships.

Hits and misses: After one week of spring drills, CSUN football Coach Bob Burt is generally pleased with the teams’ progress, but his main area of concern is the kicking game. None of the five candidates have distinguished themselves. For that matter, neither did last season’s kicker, Abo Velasco, a senior who missed 19 of 30 field-goal attempts.

Burt’s dissatisfaction, however, is not such that he will consider recruiting a member of the Matador soccer team.

“It is completely different,” Burt said. “The mind-set, the accuracy, the ball. It is controlled, a step, step, kick, not a running kick.” Moreover, Burt would not want to share a player with the soccer team.

“He would have to be involved every day.”