UC Irvine Notebook : Anteaters Finally Have Some Depth to Go the Distance in Track and Field

Track and field should be the most predictable of team sports. You grab the rosters of the teams in the meet, look at what kinds of times/distances each competitor has been turning in recently and figure where everyone will finish. Add up the points, and you have your winner.

Sometimes it even works.

Fresno State’s coaching staff, using a more sophisticated version of the same process, has decided that the UC Irvine men’s team should win the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. championship this year. The Bulldogs, who won it last year, will be second, Cal State Long Beach third and San Jose State fourth, according to their calculations.

The Anteaters, ranked 22nd in the nation by Track & Field News, open the season Saturday by playing host to seventh-ranked USC and Cal Poly Pomona. This year, Irvine has more than just a few cross-country All-Americans who will dominate the distance events. For a change, the Anteaters have depth.

“We’ve finally got some good people in the field,” Coach Vince O’Boyle said. “We’re strong in the hurdles and again in the distances, of course. And we’ve got some pretty darn good sprinters, too.”

The Anteaters’ foundation still is based on a monopoly of long distance to rival AT&T.; Senior Gus Quinonez returns after winning both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at last year’s conference meet as well as PCAA athlete of the year honors. Richard Graves, who won the PCAA cross-country title, will be running at Quinonez’s hip. And seniors Rod Brower, Todd Chambers and Rod Curry--all of whom redshirted last season--will add talented depth to the distance corps.

George Wainscoat, the senior captain who won the conference decathlon last year, is more excited about the team’s youth and ability to win some points in the field events than the traditional distance dominance, however.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who are sophomores this year and have made big improvements over the fall,” Wainscoat said. “We’ve finally got a thrower in (sophomore) Mike Morales, who’s made tremendous improvement over last year. We’ve got some great sprinters, and what we’re lacking in the field events, we make up in the distance.”

Morales should battle for the PCAA title in the discus and is among the conference’s top five in the hammer.

Wainscoat, who O’Boyle says can “do anything else we ask well in the field events” will be joined in the decathlon by Jeff Williams, who finished third in the state community college meet while at Saddleback College.

And things are finally jumping for the Anteaters too. Freshmen Matt Farmer, the San Diego Section champion in the high jump, long jump and triple jump at Monte Vista High School, and Jon Conrad, the Southern Section champion in the triple and long jump at Mater Dei High School, should score some long-absent points for Irvine.

Erik Kenyon, runner-up in the PCAA pole vault last season, is returning.

“We’ve just got a ton of strength in field we didn’t have before,” O’Boyle said.

The Anteaters also will have depth in the speed areas. Richard Hill, the defending 110 high hurdles conference champion, and sophomore Walter Harris, who finished second to Hill, return.

Senior Fred Simmons, a PCAA finalist in the 100 and 200 meters last season, and sophomore Glenn Stewart, runner-up in the 400 last year, lead the sprinters.

So the Anteaters look pretty good on paper. And they don’t look too bad on the track, either.

“We’ve got 60 guys out and they’re all pretty solid performers,” O’Boyle said, watching his troops work out. “You look out here and you feel pretty good. Of course, nothing ever works out like you figured it would on paper.”

The women’s track team is rated 20th in the country by Track & Field News and could be much higher if it weren’t for a glaring weakness that has long plagued Anteater teams: no one in the field events.

That means some sprinters will be throwing hammers some days.

“We’ll fill up the events the best we can,” O’Boyle said. “We’ll try to have somebody in every event in the PCAA meets, but we won’t embarrass anyone in the big invitationals.”

Irvine figures to do the embarrassing in the distances. Olympic trials qualifiers Buffy Rabbitt and Jill Harrington lead the way, along with Jennifer Thomas, the conference 5,000-meter champion. Rabbitt, the PCAA champion and a cross-country All-American, is the 27th-ranked runner in the nation (not just the NCAA) in the 1,500. Harrington, the school record-holder in the 1,500 and 3,000, is ranked 28th in the 1,500.

Junior Beth McGrann, who won the PCAA 5,000-meter event as a freshman and sophomore, is back after redshirting last year.

Sophomores LaJuene Gage, the school record-holder in the 100 hurdles, and Sjondrala Vaughn, who set the school record in the 200 meters last year, lead Irvine in the speed events.

The Ratings Game Continued: The men’s tennis team, 2-1 this season, is ranked 10th in the country in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn. poll. It’s the first time since 1983 that the Anteaters have cracked the top 10.

“To tell you the truth, I’m a little surprised,” Coach Greg Patton said. “We were 0-1 (a loss to fifth-ranked Pepperdine) when they voted, so I thought we’d drop down. But I feel better about this team than I ever have.”

Patton is not feeling too well in general these days, however. He’s been bothered by occasional dizziness and a constant ringing in his left ear since Dec. 21. Doctors have been unable to discover the origin of the problem.

Patton, who underwent a brain scan Tuesday afternoon, is hoping for the doctor’s OK so he can fly to Louisville and join his team at the ITCA National Team Indoor Tournament. The Anteaters begin play in the event today with a match against UCLA.

Anteater Notes

Center Wayne Engelstad to former Irvine teammate Rodney Scott, now a starting guard at San Jose State, after Spartan Coach Bill Berry called timeout with three seconds remaining and the Anteaters leading, 61-55: “Unless you guys have a special six-point play, you’re gonna lose this one.” . . . The women’s volleyball coach, Mike Puritz, is obviously happy about his latest recruit, Rhonda Schnitger, a 5-foot 8-inch setter from Corona del Mar High School. Schnitger is an All-Southern Section 5-A selection, and her signing marks the first time Puritz has landed a player from the Sea Kings, a powerhouse of girls’ volleyball. “I am very excited about adding such a quality student-athlete to the program,” he said. “Rhonda’s the most accomplished setter we have ever signed and she should make an immediate contribution to the team.” . . . The men’s basketball game against Cal State Long Beach has been changed from Saturday night, Feb. 27, at Long Beach’s campus gym to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Long Beach Arena. . . . Senior second baseman Jeff Oberdank, who is hitting .441 with a team-leading 14 RBIs and 17 runs scored, isn’t the only Anteater off to a torrid start. First baseman John Seeburger has a .360 average with 3 home runs, 13 RBIs and 14 runs scored.