College Division : Westmont Has Banner Year on Super Saturday

Athletic department officials at Westmont College in Santa Barbara are calling last Saturday the best day in the school’s history, and it would be difficult to dispute them.

After all, it was a day on which the Warriors won District III championships in men’s and women’s cross-country and women’s volleyball in the National Assn. for Intercollegiate Athletics, and moved within a game of the district title in men’s soccer.

“I think it’s unprecedented (in the district) for a team to win three district championships in one day,” said Chet Kammerer, athletic director at Westmont. “It has to be the best weekend in Westmont sports history and, to say the least, we’re pretty thrilled about it.”

The Warriors are already off to a better start than last year, when their program won the all-sports trophy in the first Golden State Athletic Conference season.

Nod bad for a school that has only 1,200 students.

“It’s really a credit to our coaches and student-athletes,” Kammerer said. “I think one of the big reasons for our success is the coaching staff that has been here for a while. That’s something that a lot of small colleges can’t say. We’ve also been able to recruit well and I think our (educational) image has also lent to the success of the total program.”

Westmont’s success in men’s soccer is not a surprise. The Warriors won district titles in 1984 and 1986, and 11 of the 13 titles from 1967 through 1979.

This year’s team is 15-2-3 and ranked No. 7 in the NAIA heading into Saturday’s District III final against Biola in Santa Barbara. The Warriors are led by NAIA All-American goaltender Butch Grosvenor, who has an 0.90 goals-against average, and forward Tim Winstone, who has 11 goals and 9 assists.

The surprises have been the Warriors’ three other teams, which did not have expectations as high as the soccer team’s.

“We have traditionally been known for our men’s soccer team,” Kammerer said. “When you think of fall sports at Westmont you think of soccer.”

Westmont’s feat of winning the district title in both men’s and women’s cross-country marked the first time that has happened since Point Loma Nazarene did it in 1981. The Warriors, coached by Russ Smelley, will compete in the NAIA national meet Nov. 21 at the University of Wisconsin Parkside in Kenosha, Wis.

The women’s team, which won its third district title in the last seven years, is led by freshman Michelle Lubinsky and junior Maire Carman. The men’s team, ranked No. 8 in the NAIA, is led by seniors Jim Mattson and Jim Knox.

Women’s volleyball Coach Gene Krieger calls his team the “Rodney Dangerfield of the NAIA” because the Warriors defeated nationally ranked district rivals Cal Lutheran and Biola during the season but did not make the NAIA’s top 20.

The volleyball team, led by junior outside hitter Joanna Rathbun and freshman setter Felicia Chalmers, will take a school-record 23 wins--and 10 losses--into its matchup against Mesa of Colorado (35-12) in the NAIA bi-district playoffs Saturday in Santa Barbara.

In only its second year of competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s Division III level, the UC Santa Barbara football team may already be the division’s best team on the West Coast.

At least the Gauchos have a good argument with a 7-2 record that includes wins over Division II teams Cal Lutheran and St. Mary’s.

Considering that Santa Barbara has an enrollment of 18,000 students and fields Division I teams in all other sports, the Gauchos may not be long for Division III.

But Coach Mike Warren thinks a move to a higher division might be a little premature. “We are not ready yet to compete at the Division II level, and I think it would be a mistake for us to think that,” he said.

Warren said the Gauchos need to compete in Division III for another year to fulfill its obligation to the NCAA. “With our size and drawing power, we are a very illogical Division III team,” he said.

After next year, Warren said, a move to Division II is likely although there is uncertainty about which conference the Gauchos will join. He said the problem is that although Santa Barbara fits geographically into the Western Football Conference, the program fits more philosophically into the non-scholarship Northern California Athletic Conference.

“We are between a rock and a hard place,” he said. “We will probably move to a higher division but we want to do so gradually.”

Warren said he wants to avoid the embarrassment that the school faced when it dropped football in 1971. Santa Barbara was playing in Division I in those days. “We went to play Washington and Tennessee and came home in a bag,” he said.

For now, Warren said he is happy with the team’s success as a Division III team. The biggest problem for next season figures to be scheduling other Division III teams. “I’m seeing a reluctance on the part of some Division III teams to play us,” he said.

Not surprising considering the rapid success of the program.

College Division Notes

Portland State can wind up undefeated in the Western Football Conference with a victory over Cal State Northridge Saturday at 1 p.m. in Portland, Ore. The Vikings, ranked fourth in the NCAA Division II, are 5-0 in the conference and 8-1-1 overall. . . . Occidental and Claremont-Mudd can tie for the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference football title with victories Saturday. Occidental will play host to Whittier, while Claremont will visit La Verne. Occidental and Claremont split two conference games.

John Tansley and Lance Harter of have been named co-cross-country coaches of the year in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. Tansley coached Cal State Los Angeles to its first men’s conference title, and Harter guided Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to its sixth straight women’s title.