Small Colleges / Alan Drooz : 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.