COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Heggen Lands on Sideline After Raising a Fuss

Jamie Heggen played on the first University of Arizona women’s team to win an NCAA championship. She also is believed to be the first Moorpark College graduate to play for an NCAA champion, but that does not spare her from some ribbing from her family.

Relatives are still giving her a hard time about the injury that knocked her out of the Division I softball regionals. Heggen hurt herself against Arizona State on May 18 when she jumped into the air protesting a call at first. She hyperextended her left knee and damaged ligaments.

“I’ve gotten a lot of flak about it,” said Heggen, who missed the subsequent softball world series. Arizona defeated UCLA, 5-1, in the championship game.

“I’m so happy that my team won, but I’m so disappointed I got hurt and sat on the sidelines,” said Heggen, a sophomore right fielder from Thousand Oaks High. “I sat on the bench and cheered like crazy.”

Heggen might not have been playing at the end of the season, but, as one of only three Arizona players chosen first-team All-Pacific 10 Conference, she played an integral role in the team’s success. Despite hamstring, ankle, shoulder and elbow problems, Heggen batted .330, second on the team, with a team-leading three home runs. She also had 17 stolen bases, 28 runs batted in and 41 runs.

She is still wearing a knee brace and continues to consult doctors but plans to be back in action by fall.

To catch a rising star: Pass rushers could not get this quarterback, but the Detroit Tigers have. Del Marine, who split time at quarterback last year for Moorpark College, would have been the early favorite for the position this season but, after being drafted by the Tigers, he said he will give up football in order to concentrate on baseball.

The Tigers drafted Marine in the 37th round and Moorpark pitcher Mike Jenkins in the 38th and would like both to remain in college for another year. Marine, who played third base this spring, said the Tigers see him as a catcher, and he is skipping football to concentrate on working behind the plate in summer and fall baseball.

Last fall, Marine threw for 931 yards and 10 touchdowns, several of them to his brother Pete, a sophomore receiver. Del believes he has a better future in baseball.

Moorpark will not be without a Marine next season, however. Ryan Marine, Del and Pete’s younger brother, plans to play running back next fall as a freshman for Moorpark.

Waiting game: Moorpark has completed finals, and star running back Freddie Bradley has fallen a half-unit short of graduation, George Machado, Bradley’s legal guardian, said. Bradley has signed with Arkansas but needs his Associate in Arts degree in order to be eligible to play football there in the fall.

Machado said Bradley will pick up the final half-unit through a television course offered by Moorpark this summer.

“It doesn’t change his plans as far as his scholarship and eligibility,” Machado said. “He’ll be heading to Arkansas July 7. He’s set and ready to go.”

Bradley has passed all of his major requirements but dropped a humanities class this spring and fell shy of the 60 units necessary for an AA, Machado said.

Trend setter: Cal State Northridge’s Bill Kernen has coached baseball teams that went to the NCAA regionals in 1979, ‘80, ‘81, ‘82, ‘87, ’90 and ’91. Never have they opened the playoffs with a victory.

The 1979 and ’82 Cal State Fullerton teams, for which Kernen was an assistant, battled back through the losers’ bracket to win the regional and advance to the College World Series, in which, you guessed it, they lost their first game.

“I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s something with my personality,” Kernen said. “We’d rather do things the hard way.”

Prime time: At least one Northridge baseball player was seen on television during ESPN’s television coverage of the College World Series. Scott Sharts, CSUN’s slugging first baseman, did an anti-drug commercial for the NCAA.

Trading places: Ron Redell, who started spring practice at Stanford as a quarterback, was moved to defensive back and later to halfback.

Redell, a sophomore from Crespi High, is third on the depth chart behind preseason All-American Glyn Milburn, the national leader in all-purpose running, and J. J. Lasley, another Crespi product.

“He was a better offensive player than defensive player,” said Tyrone Willingham, Stanford’s running backs coach. “He may give us a back that really has excellent hands and fits into our passing game.”

Fantasy league: Moorpark College’s spring college basketball league was won by a team that could hold its own with most Division I schools.

The team, which included former Ventura standouts Lester Neal (who has signed with Arizona State) and DiJon Barnard (Cal State Fullerton) and former Moorpark standout Sam Crawford (New Mexico State), beat a team of Moorpark players that included Damian Wilson, Jimmy Galbert and Kenny Collins for the championship of Moorpark’s six-team spring basketball class.

“You wouldn’t mind coaching them,” Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist said of the all-stars. “There’s an awful lot of talent.”

Big fish: Dereck Ornelas would be a good catch for any team, but he might be even better bait. Ornelas, Sylmar High’s senior center fielder and The Times’ Valley player of the year, has given Mission Coach John Klitsner an oral commitment, and Klitsner hopes other talented players will follow Ornelas’ lead.

“I think you can recruit off that,” Klitsner said of Ornelas’ commitment. “He’s one of the finest players around, and guys want to play with him.”

So far it has worked, Klitsner said he also has commitments from first-team All-Valley selections Robert Garcia of Sylmar and Poly’s Marlon McKinney.

Staff writers Brendan Healey and Mike Hiserman contributed to this notebook.