True, Loyola Cagers Could Score--but Baseball Sluggers May Top Them

Loyola Marymount University thought it had seen the peak of scoring over the winter when the basketball team got a nation-high 151 points in one game and 262 in two.

But the Lions baseball team must be eating at the same table. Last week the Lions scored a school-record 34 runs in a seven-inning game, 68 in a three-game series against the shellshocked University of San Francisco and 95 in five games.

“I thought our basketball scoring record might be challenged, but not by our baseball team,” Loyola sports information director Barry Zepel quipped.

The Lions have scored in double figures in 13 of the last 14 games. Against USF they had 11- and 10-run innings. Loyola’s hitting onslaught has earned the team a No. 1 national ranking in one baseball poll and has sent batting statistics on an inflationary spiral that would tongue-tie David Stockman.

Some numbers:

- The team is batting .332 and averaging 9.6 runs per game. The Lions raised the average 19 points last week, getting 82 hits in five games.

- Junior Todd Elliott knocked in 16 runs on five hits in five games and has 38 runs batted in on 27 hits (including three grand slams and a three-run homer) in 24 games. His slugging percentage is .718 and he’s batting .380.

- Slugging outfielder Billy Bean, a .400 hitter last year who had dipped as low as the .260s this spring, is up to .375. He went 9 for 17 last week with 13 RBIs, 10 runs and 4 doubles. His slugging percentage is .662. He has been walked 51 times.

- Sophomore power man Chris Donnels was named West Coast Athletic Conference player of the week for his 8-for-15 performance with three home runs, 14 RBIs and 13 runs. Donnels has 13 homers, three short of Brian Leighton’s 1984 school-season record. His 62 RBIs are five short of the season record held by Bean and Leighton. And he is batting .363 with a slugging percentage of .671.

- First baseman Steve Polk was 7 for 16 with 12 RBIs and three homers on the week. In the 34-run game he had a grand slam and seven RBIs. He’s hitting .344. And he was benched for a few weeks while in a slump.

While much of the damage last week was inflicted on USF--which has the third-best record in the WCAC--the Lions also picked on nationally ranked UCLA for 17 runs and got 10 against league rival Pepperdine.

The Lady Toros of Cal State Dominguez Hills may be making their move a little late, but their recent play has made them a spoiler in the California Collegiate Athletic Conference softball race.

They moved into third place last week by winning four of six games and sweeping a pair from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the nation’s No. 1 Division II team. The sweep dropped San Luis Obispo into a tie with Cal State Northridge.

Part of the credit for the surge goes to freshman Denise Biller, who has emerged as the complement to senior Barb Steffen, the veteran staff workhorse. Biller and Steffen threw two-hitters against Chapman College last week, and Biller got credit for both victories against San Luis Obispo. She threw a six-hitter in the first game and pitched the final six innings in the second.

They close the season Saturday in a 1 p.m. double-header at UC Riverside.

High school confidential: Rolling Hills broke an eight-year losing streak when its boys volleyball team defeated perennial power Mira Costa for the first time, 12-15, 15-9, 15-8, 15-6. The victory moved Rolling Hills into a tie with Mira Costa for second place in the Bay League. . . . Bishop Montgomery’s girls softball team was no-hit by St. Paul, but that had to be little solace to St. Paul. Bishop Montgomery won, 1-0, when Nancy Grijalva reached base on an error, advanced to third on wild pitches and scored on another error. . . . Think Morningside’s baseball team has seen enough of Leuzinger? In two Pioneer League games last week, Leuzinger’s John Ingram struck out 18 Monarchs--12 in a row--and two days later Scott Francis threw an 11-0 no-hitter at them.