CSUN Is Bumped Off the Road to Alabama

If there were doubts lingering in anyone’s mind regarding that nagging mystery of the ages--Which has the better baseball team, Cal State Northridge or Cal State Dominguez Hills?--they disappeared Saturday during the NCAA Division II West Regional tournament at Dominguez Hills.

Both the doubts and CSUN were eliminated by the Toros, who out-played and psyched out the Matadors, winning a doubleheader, 5-1 and 6-3, to advance to next week’s Division II World Series in Montgomery, Ala.

The regional playoffs matched the rivals from the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. for the sixth and seventh times this season. Going into Saturday’s games, Dominguez Hills, the CCAA champion, had won three of five from second-place Northridge. And while some of the Matadors had openly talked of getting even with Dominguez and moving on to the national championship, CSUN Coach Terry Craven said he wondered if his players really believed deep down that they could win.

“We have a mental thing with them,” he said after Saturday’s first game. “Dominguez knows they’re good. They think they are better than us. If we think that too, then it’s going to be tough. If we don’t make up our minds, we’re going to be out of it.”

As it turned out, Dominguez made up their minds for them.

First-game starting pitcher Mike Aspray (11-3) and his curveball had Matador batters muttering to themselves for nine innings. He allowed just four hits en route to his second win of the season over Northridge.

“He didn’t surprise us with anything new,” said CSUN left-fielder Mark Anderson. “We’d seen it all before. He threw a lot of breaking balls and off-speed pitches. And when he gets those pitches over, it keeps hitters off-balance.”

While Northridge batters struggled to find their equilibrium, Dominguez pounded away at CSUN starter Dan Penner. The Toros scored one run in the first and another in the second.By the fourth inning they led, 4-0. Mike Perryman got the key hit in the fourth when he lined a double to right-center, scoring Joe Jones and Eric Mihkelson.

“All of us were seeing the ball real well today,” Perryman said. “Usually Penner can put his slider wherever he wants it, but he was struggling early. So we just sat on his fastball. By the time he got his slider going, it was too late.”

A pall of gloom seemingly settled on the Northridge dugout during the second game, which proved nearly as frustrating as the first for Matador batters. Starting pitcher Brian Ayers, a round mound who is kindly listed at 210 pounds, gave CSUN nothing fat to hit. In seven innings, the Hoss Cartwright look-alike gave up two runs on seven hits and struck out 10.

With the Toros (41-13) leading, 6-2, Ayers finally got himself in a jam when he walked John Balfanz and Anderson in the top of the eighth. CSDH Coach Andy Lopez then brought in reliever Chris Haslock, who played at Burroughs High in Burbank. Haslock got Tim Rapp to bounce into a double play and Craig Burns to ground out, ending the inning and the threat.

The Matadors staged one last uprising in the ninth, but another double play punched the air out of them. They scored their final run when Lenn Gilmore singled up the middle to score Mark Hebert from second.

But when Haslock struck out Balfanz for the third and final out, CSUN’s season came to an end.

“This was a tough way to go out,” Gilmore said. “Dominguez Hills doesn’t have the best talent. But they beat us because they use all they got.”