Concordia Women Are Pressing Their Press

Not the tallest women’s basketball team around, Concordia depends on relentless full-court pressure for its edge.

For instance, the Eagles forced Chapman into 37 turnovers in a 79-53 victory last Saturday and Tuesday beat Southern California College, 75-67, forcing 23 turnovers.

The press helped the Eagles rally from a 14-point deficit in the first half and win despite being outshot (42.4% to 38.5% from the field) and outrebounded (51-43).

“If you can beat Concordia’s press,” SCC Coach Dean Cooper said, “you can beat them. They are not a great offensive team. They beat you by out-hustling you.”

Concordia opponents have committed 26 turnovers per game; the Eagles, averaging 23, had 17 against SCC.

“In a running game you are going to have more turnovers, but 17 we can live with,” Concordia Coach David Wolter said. “At this point of the year, our transition from offense to defense and defense to offense is very quick.

“To me that’s the most ignored part of a basketball game. We’re half a step into what we are doing when the ball goes through the net.”

Concordia (14-9, 4-2) pulled into a second-place tie with SCC (12-9, 4-2) in the Golden State Athletic Conference.

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Those who missed Chapman’s most exciting men’s basketball game of the season--a 109-102 victory at UC San Diego in triple overtime--have a chance to see the teams play again, at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Hutton Center.

Chapman’s Ramin Bastani made a desperation three-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into the third overtime. Under first-year Coach Greg Lanthier, San Diego (9-11) is averaging 86 points a game, but giving up 87. The Tritons have won two in a row and three of four.

Chapman (13-6) has won seven of its last eight.

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Eighteen games into the season, Chapman’s Anthony Gonzales finally made his first two-point basket, in the 77-75 loss to Concordia last week. Until Gonzales made a layup in the second half against the Eagles, he had made only three-pointers--29 of them--this season. Gonzales has made 33 of 88 three-point shots (37.8%) and is now 1-12 on two-pointers. Bastani has made 32 of 69 (46.4%) three-point shots.

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Panther honors: Chapman will induct Ezra Van Horn and Gordon Blakely into its athletic Hall of Fame Feb. 8 at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange.

Van Horn (Class of ‘59) was a member of Chapman’s 1957-58 men’s basketball team that advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA’s College Division championships. He went on to coach basketball at Western and Los Alamitos high schools and Cypress and Fullerton colleges.

Van Horn, who is retired and lives in Montana, had a 140-109 record at Fullerton and his teams won two conference titles.

Blakely (Class of ‘76) was a third baseman on Chapman’s baseball team. After transferring from Golden West, he batted .338 and .340 in two seasons with 19 home runs and 100 runs batted in. A first-team NCAA Division II All-American, he played three years in the Detroit Tigers’ minor-league system.

Blakely coached baseball and football at Sonora High before taking a scouting job with the Seattle Mariners in 1988. He is in charge of international scouting for the New York Yankees.

Cathy Rigby, whose son, Buck Mason, is a freshman at Chapman, is the keynote speaker at the induction dinner. Tickets are $100 with proceeds benefiting the school’s scholarship fund.

Notes

The Concordia men’s basketball team dropped out of the NAIA national poll this week. The Eagles (20-4, 4-3 in conference) were ranked as high as 10th, dropped to a tie for 24th last week after losing two consecutive conference games, and dropped out after losing a third. . . . The Chapman women’s basketball team, which committed a season-high 37 turnovers in a 79-53 loss to Concordia Saturday, committed only six in an 82-69 victory over host Pomona-Pitzer Tuesday. . . . Point Loma Nazarene’s Beau Pack, who played at Chapman from 1989-91, was named Golden State Athletic Conference player of the week after averaging 22 points and 10 rebounds in three games last week. . . . SCC’s Heather Woodruff, a freshman forward from Springfield, Ore., was named conference player of the week for Jan. 16-22. She averaged 18 points and 10.6 rebounds in victories over Azusa Pacific, Point Loma Nazarene and Biola. . . . Three from Southern California College and one from Concordia were named All-American Scholar-Athletes by the NAIA. SCC’s Genevie Wright, a senior volleyball player majoring in mathematics, has a 3.69 grade-point average. Junior cross-country runners Wes Hinson and Heather Salisbury, both majoring in physical education/sport science, have GPAs of 3.73 and 3.68. Amy Bonacorsi, a junior volleyball player majoring in biology and liberal studies at Concordia, has a 3.86 GPA. . . . The Chapman football team ranked 23rd in the NCAA Division III in attendance. The Panthers, playing their first season since 1932, drew an average of 3,309 for their nine games. . . . Chapman volleyball player Shawna Parkinson finished 13th in Division III in kills per game with 4.3 and setter Christi Park finished 16th in assists with 10.5 per game.