Small Colleges / Alan Drooz : Dominguez Hills Almost Clinches It in CCAA Baseball

By winning four league games last week, including two over its closest pursuers, Cal State Dominguez Hills let much of the air out of the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. baseball race. With four games to play, the Toros have a 3 1/2-game lead over Cal State Northridge.

The showdown status of the Toros’ season-ending three-game series with Cal Poly Pomona evaporated when Pomona lost three CCAA games last week and fell into third place, 5 1/2 games behind with five to play. Pomona is now trying to catch Northridge for second place and a possible at-large NCAA tournament bid.

The Toros, with a 36-12 record, can clinch the title with a victory Wednesday at home against Chapman College. They will play at Pomona on Friday, then close out with a Saturday doubleheader at home against Pomona. Northridge will play host to UC Riverside today and Pomona on Wednesday, then will finish at Cal State Los Angeles Saturday.

Oddly, the Toros, at least on paper, don’t have nearly as powerful a team as they had last season, and only a few players are having outstanding years statistically. But the Toros have played consistently well, are a fine defensive team, have a strong bullpen and seem to have a knack for staying in close games.

“We’ve played well when we’ve needed to,” Coach Andy Lopez said. “We’ve been real consistent the whole year. We’ve put the three aspects of baseball together--defense, pitching and timely hitting. I guess we don’t have the athletes we had last year, but we’ve done even better. Last week makes or breaks us, with games against Northridge and Pomona--and we had a real good week.”

By clinching at least a tie, Dominguez Hills is the first CCAA team to repeat since UC Riverside in 1981 and ’82. The Toros have pulled away by winning 26 of their last 31 games and 10 of 11.

Along the way, the Toros have set several team records and are closing in on more. They are two games shy of a season-record 38 wins. Last week, they had a school-record 10-run inning against Cal State Los Angeles in a game in which outfielder Jon Beuder tied a team mark with eight runs batted in. Beuder is also in the running for the conference batting title with a .379 average. Senior Fred Hanker needs two RBIs to break his season record of 56.

The Toros will be the host team for the Division II West Regional and hope to be top-seeded as well.

Playoff Update: Azusa Pacific won the first Golden State Athletic Conference baseball title and top seeding for the NAIA District III playoffs this week. The double-elimination tournament will be held in Azusa.

Thursday’s openers have second-seeded Westmont (24-21) vs. Southern California College (19-30) at 11 a.m. followed by Azusa Pacific (31-19) vs. Cal Baptist (16-23) at 2:30. Winners and losers will play Friday, and the extra game will be Saturday if necessary.

The District III winner will advance to the area playoff at the site of the District II champion, either in Oregon or Idaho. The NAIA World Series will begin May 25 at Lewiston, Ida.

NAIA District III softball playoffs will be held at No. 1-seeded Cal Lutheran starting Friday. No. 2 St. Mary’s will play No. 3 Azusa Pacific (14-17) at noon, with Cal Lutheran (31-14) playing the winner at 2 p.m. The double-elimination tournament will continue Saturday. Cal Lutheran, rated 19th in the NAIA, is defending tournament champion.

Azusa Pacific and Cal State Northridge will be the host schools for the NAIA District III and CCAA track and field meets Friday and Saturday. There will also be a “last-chance” meet at Occidental for athletes trying to qualify for the NCAA national meet. Over the weekend, Pomona-Pitzer won the men’s title and Occidental won the women’s championship in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference meet.

Junior Miles Walker of Chapman College, who last week beat four Division I opponents in winning the singles title at Ojai, has been named California Collegiate Athletic Assn. men’s tennis player of the year.

Walker (24-5) led Chapman to a 19-9 record, 11-1 in the CCAA, and will lead the Panthers into the Division II national tournament, starting Sunday at Cal State Northridge.

Chapman lost to only one Division II team all season. At Ojai, Walker defeated Greg Failla of Cal State Long Beach, the tournament’s top-seeded player; Jean LeClercq of Fresno State, Martin Laurendeau of Pepperdine and Kevin Gillette of Long Beach.

Walker, who transferred to Chapman from College of Marin, was the California junior college champion last year. He is seeded No. 2 in the national tournament, behind Young Min Kwon of Millersville State, Pa.

Cal State Northridge has decided to drop women’s gymnastics, citing a shortage of competition and the lack of an NCAA-sanctioned Division II national tournament. The move by Northridge leaves the Cal Poly schools at Pomona and San Luis Obispo with the only Division II programs in the Southland. Northridge said there is not only a lack of competition in the region, but nationally among Division II schools as well.

Small-College Notes Chip Block of Occidental was named SCIAC most valuable player in tennis, and Claremont-Mudd defeated Redlands again to go 12-0 in dual matches. Claremont-Mudd also won the league tournament over the weekend. . . . Cal Lutheran won the first Golden State Athletic Conference tennis title with a 7-0 league record and will play host to the NAIA District III tournament, which opens Thursday. Westmont, the defending district champ, should be Cal Lutheran’s top competition.

Claremont-Mudd first baseman Larry Schmadeka won the SCIAC batting title with a .480 average, shattering the school record of .417 held by Dave Wells, now the school’s basketball coach. Schmadeka has also broken the school record for hits with 60. . . . UC Riverside has one of the CCAA’s hottest hitters in outfielder Mark Young, who has batted .460 the last three weeks to raise his average from .276 to .329. . . . With opponents pitching around power hitter Tom Weeks, outfielder Keith Barrett has carried Cal Poly Pomona in conference play, collecting 9 of his 10 home runs and 34 of 42 RBIs in CCAA games. . . . Ralph Acosta of Azusa Pacific tied a national college division record when he was hit by a pitch for the 11th time this season. Acosta has been hit in the head three times. . . . With 92 home runs, Cal State Northridge’s baseball team is closing in on the school record of 94. With 135 doubles, the Matadors are also within two of that school mark.

Deidre Lowe of Chapman was in on two school records in a meet at Pomona-Pitzer, running 1:02.89 in the 400 meters and running a leg on the 400-meter relay team that ran 52.7. . . . Freshman Brenda Lee of Cal Lutheran, a standout basketball player, set a school record in the triple jump with a 31-11 3/4 leap at San Luis Obispo. . . . Cal Poly Pomona basketball All-American Michelle McCoy is running track for the first time since high school. The senior ran a personal best 12.69 for 100 meters last weekend at UC Irvine and will compete in the CCAA meet this weekend.