Free Spirits of Mission College Only Feel at Home in the Win Column : COLLEGE FALL SPORTS NOTEBOOK

Call them a soccer team without a practice field--or even a campus.

But, what else should you expect from a team that calls itself the Free Spirits?

Although the Los Angeles Mission College soccer team has no place to call home, it does have a winning program. The team, a nomadic group of junior college recruits, has compiled a 2-1-1 record this season, which includes a 2-0 shutout Wednesday over Cerritos at Pierce, where Mission plays its home games.

“We get 90% of our players from Pierce College and the rest from the Valley,” Mission College Coach Frank Parodi said. “I think of us as an All-Valley team.”

Oregonian and Brazilian recruits aside, they are.

Parodi figures his Free Spirits will be one of the two Metro Conference soccer teams going to the playoffs this season. The team finished last season with an 8-7-4 record, just two games behind first-place leader, El Camino, which has dominated the conference the past five years.

Today and Saturday, Mission College will take on El Camino, Fullerton College and Golden West in the Golden West Soccer Tournament in Huntington Beach.

Mission College is led by an all-freshmen group including Chris Montalbano, Bruce Abernathy, Tom Shaefer, Desmond Willows and Rodrigo Mendes.

Montalbano, from Crespi High, plays at midfield and on the front line. Abernathy, a recruit from Oregon, is called “the quarterback” by Parodi. The real quarterback of the team, Tom Shaefer, who played quarterback at Notre Dame last year and was chosen to an area all-star team, traded one type of football for another and is challenging for the Mission goalkeeper position.

“Tom’s quarterbacking skills have really helped our team,” Parodi said. “His throwing arm has helped us out a lot and because of his football experience, he’s not afraid to get hit. In fact, he intimidates a lot of the forwards on the other teams.”

Willows from Chatsworth High redshirted last year after breaking his arm. A former cross-country standout, Willows fought his way back onto the team this year.

“The other players really look up to him,” Parodi said. “He has been a source of inspiration and motivation for the others.”

Mendes, an import from Brazil, adds “a Latin-Brazilian soccer flair” to the team, Parodi said, and has created quite a few scoring situations.

“I think this will be a good year for us,” Parodi said. “Cal State Northridge aside, we’re the other soccer team in the Valley.”

Cal Lutheran College cross-country Coach Don Green says this should be the week his Kingsmen finish first.

They were third at the Cal State Fullerton Invitational a week ago and second last weekend at Chapman. “Now it’s time to be first,” Green said.

Green is hoping that this third invitational Saturday will be the charm. As last year’s District III cross-country champions, the Kingsmen are looking to repeat this season. And with junior co-captain Art Castle and senior co-captain Mike Smith, the CLC cross-country team has two top runners in District III this year.

On Saturday, Cal Lutheran finished second to Biola in the nine-team cross-country invitational at Chapman College.

Castle finished first on the four-mile course with a time of 23:26. Smith finished third with 23:49 and junior Tom Peterson came in fifth with a time of 23:59.

The Kingsmen travel to Santa Barbara this Saturday to compete in the Westmont College Invitational at Westmont.

Briefly

The Master’s College dropped its sixth straight soccer match Wednesday, losing to Cal Baptist, 7-2, in a non-conference meeting.

Freshman forwards Darrin Johnston and Rick Marshall scored the two goals for Master’s. On Saturday, Master’s will play Pt. Loma-Nazarene at Pt. Loma.