Small Colleges / Alan Drooz : Redlands Seeking 23rd Tennis Title

The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference can be unpredictable in most sports, but when tennis season rolls around the University of Redlands is always on top.

The Bulldogs have won 22 consecutive SCIAC titles and have competed for national honors as well, winning the NCAA Division III title in 1984 and placing third last year. They were rated fifth in Division III before this season. Claremont-Mudd, rated eighth, is the closest SCIAC competition.

The pressure for Coach Ralph Rabago, a former Redlands player, is to live up to the legacy left by his old coach, Jim Verdieck. In 38 seasons at Redlands, Verdieck had a 375-15 record in SCIAC matches and won 15 NCAA or NAIA national championships. Rabago, a 1981 graduate, took over for Verdieck last year and went 12-0 in the conference.

This season the Bulldogs have started off at 5-0, 3-0 in the SCIAC, and were scheduled to test themselves over the weekend against some of the top Division III teams, among them No. 9 University of Rochester and defending national champion Swarthmore of Pennsylvania--a schedule Rabago says “is intended to develop experience through competitive early season matches.”

Rabago’s squad is led by underclassmen, with sophomore Jon Flagg playing No. 1 singles and doubles. Junior John Kranz is at No. 2 singles and junior Jim Rowe teams with Flagg in doubles. The roster also includes Matt Armstrong, who reached the national doubles semifinals last year, earning All-American honors.

Rabago played on two national champions at Redlands but was never a star, holding down the No. 7 singles spot, so he never got to travel to national tournaments. So far, he’s gone first class as a coach. He just hopes not to be the one in charge when the SCIAC title streak is broken.

“The most pressure (on me) is in conference,” he said. “You hate to give up a streak like that. It’s not necessarily that I’m expected to win, but I put substantial pressure upon myself to continue the streak.”

The other pressure is in the actual coaching. Since most of the teen-age stars turn professional or go to the big-name Division I programs, coaches on the SCIAC level have to recruit and shape less developed talent. “The (SCIAC) teams that are successful every year develop from within instead of great players coming in,” he said.

Things continue to develop nicely at Redlands.

Although Redlands is dominant in tennis, Occidental College rules the SCIAC in men’s and women’s track and field. The women are going for their seventh consecutive SCIAC title, and the men have won three in a row under Coach Bill Harvey.

The Tigers, who have 12 All-Americans back from last season and 21 athletes with NCAA meet experience, are off to a promising start, with the most national qualifiers Harvey has ever had by this date.

The Tigers will attempt to gain more qualifiers when they hold the Oxy Decathlon-Heptathlon Saturday and Sunday.

The Cal Poly Pomona women’s basketball team will appear in the Division II Final Four for the third straight year. Coach Darlene May’s Broncos, the defending national champions and winners of 21 straight games, will play Thursday in Springfield, Mass., in a semifinal.

The top-rated Broncos (28-3) are favored to repeat, having advanced with an 83-49 blowout of Great Lakes Region winner Bellarmine College. The Broncos will play Delta State of Mississippi, which eliminated Hampton Institute of Virginia, 82-61. Philadelphia Textile and North Dakota State will play in the other semifinal.

Several pitchers are off to fast starts in women’s softball. Margaret Harvey, Cal State Bakersfield freshman, threw a 3-0 no-hitter against Cal Lutheran, allowing only one runner as far as second base, and while Harvey was out with a hip injury, teammate Millie Alvarado threw 11-0 and 16-0 shutouts in a doubleheader against The Master’s College. Alvarado pitched for only a total of nine innings, thanks to the 10-run rule in each game.

UC Riverside junior Tracey Weber opened the season by not allowing an earned run for 49 innings. She also knocked in the winning run in a 2-1 victory over San Diego State.

Rhonda Wheatley, a two-time All-American at Cal Poly Pomona, had to leave the Arizona State University tournament, however, because of a sore knee. Wheatley is 4-2 with a 0.60 earned-run average. Her teammate, freshman Kris Rokosz, has picked up the slack with a 5-1 record and 0.92 ERA. Wheatley returned to play last week when Pomona opened Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. play.

Small College Notes

Chuck Deagle, the baseball coach at Redlands, has been selected to head the new program at Cal State San Bernardino, which will field its first team in 1987. Deagle took Redlands to the Division III Final Four in 1985 and was West regional coach of the year. . . . Jo Anne Bly, who coaches the San Bernardino women’s basketball team, has been selected to coach the new softball team as well, starting next season. In her first year with the basketball team she turned the program around from 4-20 to 17-9. . . . Sue Gozansky, UC Riverside volleyball coach, has been invited to lecture this summer at the East China Normal University in Shanghai. She will speak to faculty members, postgraduates and researchers on the status of volleyball in the United States.