Alexander, Yanai, Lopez Stand Out Among ’87 Heroes

Time for those end-of-the-year awards. The envelopes, please:

Player of the Year: William Alexander, Cal State Dominguez Hills. Alexander led the Toros to the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. basketball title and NCAA playoffs and was named CCAA male athlete of the year.

Runners-up--Chris Donnels, Loyola Marymount baseball; Dan Speltz, El Camino College football; Michele Salas, Dominguez Hills soccer.

Coaches of the Year: (tie)--Dave Yanai and Andy Lopez, Cal State Dominguez Hills. If you get the feeling Dominguez Hills had a good year, you’re right. And it wasn’t done with mirrors, or with front-line, blue-chip talent. Yanai led his small, hustling basketball team to the CCAA championship and the best record in school history. Then Lopez duplicated the feat in baseball, taking the Toros to the Division II World Series.

On the community college level, how about El Camino football coach John Featherstone returning to his alma mater and producing the school’s first perfect season and mythical national championship.

Rookie of the Year: Holly McPeak, former Mira Costa High volleyball star, was named Pac-10 freshman of the year as setter at UC Berkeley.

Comeback of the Year: Loyola Marymount baseball Coach Dave Snow was almost wooed away by Cal State Fullerton but made a last-minute decision to stay at Loyola. That’s good news for Lions baseball.

Quote of the Year: Paul Westhead, Loyola Marymount basketball coach and a Shakespearean authority, came up with this line from “Macbeth” to describe a ballgame that he was glad to see over: “Nothing became him like the leaving of him.”

Magician of the Year: Basketball player Tony Akins, set to become Dominguez Hills’ star in the wake of William Alexander’s graduation, instead disappeared from the Carson campus and magically appeared at UC Santa Barbara.

Blue Collar Award: Loyola basketball player Mike Yoest continues to collect floor burns and dive into the stands for loose balls, whether the margin is a basket or 50 points.

Right Place at Right Time Award: Dominguez Hills outfielder Jon Beuder shook off a career’s worth of injuries to lead the Toros to the college World Series and earn All-American honors. Then, undrafted, he signed with the Salt Lake City Trappers just in time to play in the Trappers’ record 29-game winning streak. Beuder hit a grand slam to win a game during the streak.

Be It Ever So Humble Award: West Coast Athletic Conference basketball teams seem to thrive on home cooking. Last season, only one team had a winning record away from home. This year, Loyola and Pepperdine are 1-3 and 2-3 on the road but undefeated at home.

Mike Yoest may have been an unknown quantity coming out of Crespi High School, but the latest Loyola Marymount career listings show him moving up among the top scorers in school history.

On this season’s more balanced team, his average is down a bit from last season when he tied for the scoring lead in the West Coast Athletic Conference. Yoest--a four-year starter--has 1,167 points and has moved into 11th place on Loyola’s all-time list. He needs 83 points--about five games at his 16-point pace--to move into the top 10.

Yoest has a good chance to move into the top five. The all-time leaders at Loyola are Forrest McKenzie with 2,060 points, Keith Smith (1,980), Jim Haderlein (1,706), Luther Philyaw (1,581) and Ed Bento (1,504).

Yoest’s four-year partner at forward, Mark Armstrong, is also moving up the career lists. Armstrong had 13 rebounds Wednesday and is seventh in career rebounding, and could finish second.

The high-scoring Loyola team may produce a rarity this season--three, possibly four, players scoring 400 or more points. Along with Yoest, Hank Gathers and Corey Gaines are on target for 400, and Bo Kimble appears to be making up for lost time, having scored 28 points in his first game after missing six games with an injury.

Maybe the hoops are different on the road, but the basketball season has produced an amazing disparity in shooting accuracy at Pepperdine. The Waves’ top three scorers--Tom Lewis, Levy Middlebrooks and Craig Davis--are shooting .514, .767 and .551 in two games at home. The Waves are 2-0 in Firestone Fieldhouse and shooting .536 as a team. In five road games, those three are shooting .468, .452 and .406. The team is shooting .435 in road contests, part of the reason the road record is 2-3.

El Camino College’s latest state champion is Darren Uyematsu, who captured the 118-pound division at the state wrestling finals in Santa Rosa last week. The freshman out of Torrance High went to the state meet as the second-place wrestler at his weight from the Southern Region, but he defeated the champions from the North, North Central and South Central regions to win.

Uyematsu scored a 5-1 victory over Brett Southwick from Butte College, won 10-4 over Jacob Perez from Chabot and was a 9-5 winner over Luis Nebel from Rio Hondo. “If you had to find tougher competition, you simply couldn’t,” Warrior Coach Tom Hazell said.

El Camino heavyweight Mike Galindo went to the state meet as the Southern Region champion but lost his opener to Andy Gonzales of Cypress. The sophomore from Hawthorne High got a 5-4 consolation victory over Scott Thompson of Diablo Valley College to place seventh.

Definition of a save: Cal State Dominguez Hills basketball player Roger Coleman, who also serves as the team trainer, was the most valuable player when the team van broke down recently on the way to a game in San Francisco. Coleman diagnosed and solved the problem--the transmission fluid had run out--and the van continued without mishap. How’s this for a resume line: Official team trainer and auto mechanic.

College Notes

Former Palos Verdes High star Jim Pelton was named West Coast Athletic Conference basketball player of the week for his showing against San Diego State. The University of San Diego center, pressed into a starting appearance, had a career-high 20 points and 7 rebounds as USD defeated its cross-town rival. . . . Former P. V. High soccer star Carin Jennings, now the coach at Westmont College, has played well enough for the U. S. national team to be named female athlete of the year by the U. S. Soccer Federation. Jennings just returned with the team from a 10-team tournament in Taiwan where it won the silver cup. . . . Former Mira Costa High setter Holly McPeak has been named Pacific-10 Conference volleyball freshman of the year. McPeak helped UC Berkeley to its first NCAA playoff appearance since 1983. Also named to the team were Megan McCallister of USC and Lisa Arce of Berkeley--both former teammates of McPeak at Mira Costa. . . . Cal State Dominguez Hills junior center Anthony Blackmon has moved into the school’s No. 4 career spot in rebounding with 457. The school record is held by James Shaw at 847. Blackmon is 10th in career scoring with 565 points.