Taft Alum Cornell Shows Olympic Teammates Her Bat Speed

Been there. Done that. When members of the U.S. Olympic softball team visited the Easton sports lab in Van Nuys this week to work with engineers in developing customized bats for the 1996 Atlanta Games, Sheila Cornell stayed home. Cornell, a graduate of Taft High and former UCLA All-American first baseman, already had designed her own bat months earlier at the same lab.

“At the lab they have a cage set up and they measure your bat speed with radar,” Cornell said. “The bats come in half-ounce increments, so you find your ideal weight.”

Cornell, who has a personal contract with Easton, uses 29- to 31-ounce bats with a 14-inch barrel and leather grip. Last month Easton began marketing her personalized signature bat.

“The bat I use depends on who I face and how I feel,” Cornell said. “If I’m tired I’ll use a lighter bat, and against slower pitchers I can get away with a heavier bat.”

Cornell was selected to the Olympic team earlier this month in Oklahoma City.

Big opener: After weeks of promoting the game, Moorpark College officials were overjoyed when an estimated 5,500 showed at Griffin Stadium for last Saturday’s football opener against county rival Ventura.

It was the largest crowd for a Moorpark home opener and Coach Jim Bittner, in his 17th season with the Raiders, was happy to see it. But he had a few anxious moments.

“I was a little bit worried,” Bittner said. “I thought, ‘Now we’ve got the crowd but we are having a hell of a time winning the ballgame.’ ”

Moorpark prevailed, 19-0.

Field fashion: The Pierce College football team has added a color dimension to its uniforms. The Brahmas are wearing black pants for some games instead of the customary white or red. They donned the black pants for the first time against Victor Valley and lost, 31-28, but Coach Bill Norton says Pierce will continue to use them.

“It wasn’t the pants,” Norton said. “The pants didn’t drop any passes. The pants didn’t miss any tackles.”

Home again: It was a far cry from the gleaming, $1.9-million stadium Westlake High christened last week with an exciting 35-35 tie against Buena. But the Warriors actually played four home games in 1992.

Temporary lights and stands were hastily brought in so Westlake could, in Coach Jim Benkert’s words, “show good faith that our desire for a stadium was sincere.”

Four games were played at Westlake, the most memorable being a 43-22 loss to Newbury Park in which the generator providing power for the lights ran out of fuel at halftime, delaying the game.

Honors

Littlerock High’s Jamie Foster was named the most valuable player of the Buckley volleyball tournament last weekend after leading the Lobos to the tournament title.

Stats

Moorpark College recorded five interceptions in a 19-0 victory over Ventura in a Western State Conference interdivision game last Saturday, one short of the school single-game record set against Santa Monica in 1986.

Senior forward Jill Gallegos leads the Cal Lutheran women’s soccer team with 10 points on four goals and two assists. The Regals are 2-0-1.

Things to Do

The 30th Senior Gymnastics Meet will be held at the Valley College gym Sunday at 1 p.m. There will be competition in all gymnastics events plus a 20-foot rope climb for men and women ages 20 to 65.

The Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team will play Pepperdine in Malibu on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Compiled by Irene Garcia. Contributing: Fernando Dominguez, Steve Henson.