Notebook / Ray Ripton

Nicky Bravin, 14, of West Los Angeles has been selected by the U.S. Fencing Assn. to compete in the first international tournament for fencers 16 and younger.

The tourney, for foil only, is sponsored by the Mexican Fencing Assn. and will be held Saturday through Monday in Mexico City. Competition will be for both individuals and teams from the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela.

Bravin, a student at the Westside Alternative School, earned his berth on the U.S. team when he finished 18th in the Junior Olympics held last February in Cleveland. His record for 15 matches in that competition was 9-6.

He takes fencing lessons from Ted Katzoff, director of the Westside Fencing Club in Culver City. Katzoff said that Bravin “has shown a particular aptitude and affinity for fencing from the very beginning. He is very coordinated and very fast and brings a great deal of native intelligence to the game.”

Katzoff said that Bravin has been taking fencing lessons for about a year and that he “assesses his opponent and uses that knowledge in his moves.” He said that, as with any beginning fencer, Bravin needs to acquire “greater refinement of his technique and experience, the one thing you can’t buy with money.”

Jim Gattis, Pepperdine assistant baseball coach, probably never dreamed he would wind up in a book when he was managing the Utica (N.Y.) Blue Sox in 1983. But Gattis managed the Sox to the championship of the New York-Penn League that year, and author Roger Kahn wound up writing about that pennant year for Utica in his latest book, “Good Enough to Dream.”

Gattis, a star third baseman at North Hollywood High and later at UC Santa Barbara, where he played for current Pepperdine Head Coach Dave Gorrie, played seven seasons in the minor leagues before coming to Pepperdine last year.

Last summer Gattis managed another minor league team, Salt Lake City of the Pioneer League, and showed that his pennant-winning ways were transferrable. Salt Lake won the southern division flag in that rookie league and then beat Great Falls for the league championship.

Dave Gorrie, Pepperdine baseball coach, has been named the university’s coach of the year for the 1984-85 academic year, and junior Paul Faries was named student-athlete of the year.

Gorrie’s team won the West Coast Athletic Conference title last season with a 20-4 record and was 52-15-1 overall. The Waves advanced to the championship final of the NCAA West Regional before bowing to Stanford.

Faries, a business major, has compiled a 3.46 grade point average (in a 4.0 system), and last season he batted .350 and was named to the All-WCAC first team.