Small Colleges : Tiebreaker May End Up Costing Oxy

Before the 1985 football season, coaches in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference decided to adopt a tiebreaker to avoid confusion in SCIAC standings that might cost teams a shot at the Division III playoffs.

The conference didn’t use the tiebreaker until last weekend. And now, ironically, the rule might have knocked out Occidental, the only SCIAC team to have gone to the playoffs in the last three years.

The Tigers lost to La Verne, 53-52, in overtime. La Verne leads the conference with a 3-1 record.

In the SCIAC tiebreaker, each team is given the ball on the opponent’s 25-yard line. Since both teams are guaranteed a series and defenses cannot score, the winner of the coin toss chose to go on defense both times Saturday. Tied at 38 after regulation play, Oxy won the first toss and chose defense, giving up a touchdown but coming back to score. Both teams kicked extra points, so it was tied again.

La Verne won the second coin toss and chose defense. Oxy scored, but La Verne came back with a touchdown and faked the extra point, winning on a two-point conversion pass.

Occidental Coach Dale Widolff said he hadn’t considered going for a two-point conversion, especially since his team had scored first. “You want to make the kick and put the pressure on them,” he said.

The loss was Occidental’s second this season, probably barring the Tigers from returning to the playoffs. That was despite quarterback Mark Krajnik’s school-record 32 completions and receiver Jon Billingsley’s record 16 receptions for 193 yards and 4 touchdowns. It was the most points Oxy has scored in 20 years. “There’s all sorts of ways of losing,” Widolff said. “We’ve found a few this year.”

Use of the tiebreaker took some people by surprise, including some league officials. One, told the score had been 53-52 in overtime, quipped: “Basketball hasn’t started yet.”

The debut of Azusa Pacific’s new stadium was a box-office smash as well as an artistic success. The Cougars not only defeated the University of San Diego, 49-19, but drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 4,000. Capacity is listed as less than 3,000.

On the field, the Cougars found a winning combination by moving Aaron Eames to quarterback and shifting quarterback Dave Tichenal to halfback. Eames produced the first 100-yard passing day of the season for Azusa Pacific, and Tichenal caught three passes, including the team’s first touchdown pass of the season.

The Cougars were ranked 13th in the NAIA last week but hope to move into the top 10. Four teams ahead of them were defeated during the weekend.

The offensive line at Claremont-Mudd is feeding off the success of running back Chris Dabrow, the school’s most productive back in more than a decade.

Dabrow is averaging 128 yards a game, and his family has the offensive line over for dinner whenever Dabrow gains 100 yards and the team wins. The combination clicked for the third time last weekend when Dabrow got 114 yards in a 16-13 victory over UC Santa Barbara.

So far, the Dabrow family has cooked Italian and steak dinners. This week, the team will eat Mexican fare.

UC Riverside is the No. 15 Division II team in Street & Smith magazine’s preseason basketball guide. The California Collegiate Athletic Assn. also got two mentions on the magazine’s preseason All-American team. Riverside forward Robert Jimerson was named to the second team, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo guard-forward Sean Chambers to the third team. Virginia Union is the preseason No. 1 team. The top 20 and All-American team were compiled through a poll of Division II sports information directors.

Chapman College apparently takes the designation student-athlete seriously. According to a study by the Division II school in Orange, grade-point averages of its athletes have risen for five consecutive years.

Four teams posted grade point averages of 3.0 or higher for the 1958-86 school year, topped by women’s volleyball with an aggregate 3.2. Women’s soccer was next at 3.1, followed by women’s tennis at 3.05 and women’s basketball at 3.02. All Chapman athletes averaged 2.88.

Small College Notes Cal State Northridge, ranked No. 1 in Division II volleyball, will play at No. 2 UC Riverside Friday. Both are 6-0 in the CCAA. . . . Paul Wekesa of Chapman College and Edna Olivarez of Cal State Los Angeles won the Western Regional titles in the Rolex Small College tennis tournament, qualifying for the national small college tournament in December. In the weekend finals, Wekesa defeated Steve Yu of UC Riverside, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, and Olivarez beat Xenia Anastasiadou of Cal Poly Pomona, 6-3, 7-5. . . . The Westmont College men and Fresno Pacific women won the first cross-country titles in the new Golden State Athletic Conference. Individual winners in the meet at Fresno were Cal Lutheran’s Art Castle in 25 minutes 23 seconds, and Azusa Pacific’s Judy Thomas in 18:31. Fresno Pacific’s win was impressive since it is a first-year program. . . . Chapman College freshman Fabrizio Soto has scored three game-winning goals in two weeks for the sixth-ranked soccer team. He scored the tiebreaking goal in a 2-1 victory over UC Irvine, then had the only goals in 1-0 victories over East Stroudsburg State of Pennsylvania and Navy. . . . Goalie Mia Gail of the Cal Poly Pomona women’s soccer team has recorded four consecutive shutouts twice this season and has nine this season, a school record. . . . Pomona soccer sweeper Sue Spencer, in her second year on the varsity, has set school records for goals with 14 and points with 35. . . . Steve Davis, Claremont-Mudd men’s soccer coach, recorded his 200th victory last week. His 18-year record is 201-80-31. He has won 10 SCIAC titles.