Small Colleges : CS Dominguez Hills Takes Show on the Road

After riding to first place in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. and a No. 5 national ranking on the strength of home cooking, Cal State Dominguez Hills’ fate in the baseball race will be determined on the road over the next two weeks.

The Toros have forged a 13-2 record at home but must play 12 of their last 15 games on the road, where they are 9-9. “That’s where you find out what you’re made of,” fourth-year Coach Andy Lopez said.

CCAA teams normally play five games a week, and the recent rainy weather is forcing some teams to play almost daily. That puts a premium on pitching depth and avoidance of injuries. Injuries caught up with Dominguez Hills down the stretch last year, when three starters were hurt, and the Toros lost the title by 1 1/2 games.

This year, the Toros may have the conference’s deepest staff, which is coming in handy, since the team is in the midst of playing 11 games in 12 days.

“You have to be healthy, and hope they perform,” Lopez said. “The conference is real well balanced. Anybody can show up and beat anybody. There’s no sure win, or sure loss. You have to put 30 consistent games together.”

Lopez, who expected his offense to be down from last year, has put together the strongest pitching staff in his tenure at the Carson school.

Senior left-hander Jim Pena, the CCAA pitcher of the year last season, started out slowly but has rounded into form in conference play and has a 5-2 record and a 2.39 earned-run average.

Junior right-hander Brian Ayers, a transfer from Long Beach City College, was the Toros’ hottest pitcher at the start of the season but has leveled off. He still leads the team with six victories and has a 3.18 ERA.

Right-hander Mike Asprey, a transfer from West Los Angeles College, has chipped in with a 3-0 record and 2.15 ERA.

The bullpen is deep, too. Dennis Brady and Don Spadoni have two saves apiece and Pat McEachin has a 1.48 ERA. The pitchers, with a team ERA of 3.19, seem likely to break the school record of 3.80 set in 1984.

The offense, meanwhile, started off quickly but has sputtered in conference play. Leadoff man Mike Brocki, a senior second baseman, has sparkled with a .348 average, 28 steals and a .500 on-base percentage. Junior outfielder Jon Beuder, who played for Lopez at Manhattan Beach Mira Costa High, has been the heavy hitter with a .336 average and 32 runs batted in.

The middle of the lineup--first baseman Kevin Whalen and third baseman Fred Hanker--hasn’t hit as well as last year, but shortstop Craig Grebeck has been a big surprise. One of the smallest players in the conference at 5 feet 6 inches and 140 pounds, the junior leads the team with six home runs.

At 22-11-1, Dominguez Hills is the only team in the CCAA comfortably over .500. But Lopez said that records aren’t a true indicator of the conference teams’ strength because most play an assortment of Division I opponents early in the season. The CCAA has produced 8 of the last 12 Division II national champions.

“The reality of this conference is the competition prepares you so well for the postseason that if you’re fortunate enough to get to the NCAAs, you have a good chance to reach the World Series,” Lopez said. “This conference prepares the conference champ to do well.”

For Dominguez Hills, the title apparently awaits somewhere down the road.

Tom Harrison of Claremont-Mudd and Lynn Kline of Pomona-Pitzer, representing the old and the new guard, respectively, were named swimmers of the year in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Harrison, who led the Division III Stags to four straight second-place national finishes, is the all-time Division III scoring leader with 196 points in national meets.

He scored 50 points in last month’s NCAA meet, earned All-American listing in three individual events and three relays, and holds NCAA records in the 200-meter individual medley, 1 minute 51 seconds, and 400 individual medley, 3:56.63. He also holds SCIAC records in the 200 and 500 freestyle, 200 butterfly and all three relays.

The senior from Costa Mesa has earned All-American honors in 23 of the 24 events he has swum, during his career, in NCAA championship meets. He missed one because of a false-start disqualification as a freshman.

Kline, a freshman from West Bloomfield, Mich., led Pomona-Pitzer to its 10th straight women’s SCIAC title and a third-place national finish.

She earned All-American honors in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke, 100 butterfly, 200 individual medley and three relays. She was on relay teams that set SCIAC records in the 400 freestyle and 400 medley.

Ken Miller, entering his third year as football coach at the University of Redlands, will take on baseball coaching duties as well for the 1986-87 school year.

Miller will replace Chuck Deagle, who was selected to start the new program at Cal State San Bernardino. Miller, who has coached baseball on the high school and community levels, replaces a coach who took Redlands to the Division III World Series last year.

“I don’t think there will be a problem coaching both sports because I will have so few players to recruit, compared to football,” Miller said. “I . . . have already talked to several prospective players who excel in both sports.”

Small College Notes

Cal Poly Pomona will hold its fourth annual Lady Broncos track meet on Friday and Saturday. The heptathlon field will include Olympians Jackie Joyner and Cindy Greiner as well as Pomona stars Janet Nicolls and Debra Larsen. Events will begin at 11 a.m. Friday and noon Saturday. . . . Freshman tennis player Edna Olivarez of Cal State Los Angeles, the Philippine junior champion, is the top-rated Division II player on the West Coast. She has a 27-2 singles record and is undefeated against Division II opponents. . . . The Occidental women’s tennis team, ranked No. 1 on the West Coast in Division III, will play its toughest SCIAC opponent Friday in a match at Pomona-Pitzer. Oxy won in the first round, 5-4. . . . Four-year starter Rich Scheevel, an outfielder at Azusa Pacific, recently batted 7 for 8 in a doubleheader and has 16 hits in his last 25 at-bats. He is Azusa’s all-time hit leader with 215, and needs 11 appearances to become the leader in games played. . . . Biola catcher Matt Suttle recently set school career records for hits, 164, and runs, 112, and should set the mark in stolen bases as well. Teammate Carl Johnson has hit in all 27 games he has played this year and leads the team with a .430 average. . . . Cal Lutheran’s baseball team, trying to survive the NAIA District III race with six pitchers, just finished a stretch of 19 games in 21 days, winning 12. . . . Southern California College catcher Ron Nelson has had 21 hits in 41 at-bats in a 10-game hitting streak. . . . Cal State Bakersfield’s Ron Lee, the CCAA’s top high jumper, also showed that he can run when he won the 110-meter high hurdles at the Fresno Bee Games. His 14.18 qualified for the national meet. . . . In the same meet, Bakersfield’s Mandla Kunene set a school record of 14:39.58 in the 5,000 meters.