Xanthos Serves Up Lavish Praise for Pierce Men’s Tennis Team

The net results usually have been positive for the Pierce College men’s tennis team.

The Brahmas have won 27 consecutive matches over the past two seasons. Their most recent loss was to Harbor College and before that defeat Pierce had won 97 matches in a row.

Paul Xanthos, in his 23rd season as coach, has guided the Brahmas to 19 consecutive conference titles and Pierce has not lost a conference match since 1976.

So when Xanthos calls this team one of his best ever, he is saying something that opponents may not particularly want to hear.

“We should do very well,” he said. “I have six solid players, and I have five guys who could all be our No. 1.”

Among the five are Nelson Gary, a sophomore who did not play last year after being one of Pierce’s top players as a freshman two years ago. Other top players include sophomore Bill Kearlsey, who played at Cal State Northridge last season, and freshmen Sang Kim, Mauricio Quiroga and Sudantha Soysa. John Holiday, another freshman, has been coming on strongly, Xanthos said.

Pierce defeated the UCLA junior varsity and Moorpark College in its first two matches.

‘T’ time: The Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team has been hit with three technicals this season without throwing a punch or harassing an official.

Against Riverside last month, Northridge was assessed with a technical when Todd Bowser’s uniform number did not coincide with the one in the official score book. Two weeks later at Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Matadors again were hit with a technical when Sherdrick Bonner reported into the game. He had been left off the CSUN roster in the official score book.

Both these instances pale in comparison to what happened last Saturday against Riverside, however, when Northridge was done in by its own fans.

Bowser scored on a hook shot 43 seconds into the game, prompting the home fans to litter the court with toilet paper. Under NCAA rules, a technical was called.

Incidentally, Northridge lost all three games.

Almost even: For the second time this season, Northridge missed a chance to even its all-time record in men’s basketball. The Matadors were 390-391 going into Saturday night’s game against UC Riverside, which they lost, 63-55. Last month, CSUN had a chance to reach the .500 mark with a win at Cal Poly Pomona but lost, 87-78, in overtime.

Northridge started playing basketball in 1958, finishing 3-13 its first season. It has been trying to even the score ever since.

Stat watch: Not counting his 8-for-13 shooting performance against Cal State Los Angeles last Tuesday, Chuck McGavran, the best outside shooter on the Northridge basketball team early in the season, is 4 of 30 over the past two weeks. He is 0 of 15 from three-point range.

High performance: Steve deLaveaga, a junior forward at Cal Lutheran, is known for his three-point shooting, not his rebounding.

But deLaveaga led CLU in both scoring and rebounding against Fresno Pacific on Tuesday. He scored a team-high 28 points and pulled down a season-high 12 rebounds to lead the Kingsmen to a 98-85 victory.

DeLaveaga tied his previous high for rebounding with eight in the first half against the Sunbirds.

After being held to a season-low 15 points against Westmont last week, deLaveaga has scored 38 and 28 points in CLU’s past two games.

The Kingsmen (13-12 overall) are tied with Westmont at 8-3 in the Golden State Athletic Conference with three games remaining.

Drop your guard: Eric Menzies, a sophomore guard for The Master’s College basketball team, has withdrawn from school and will miss the Mustangs’ final nine games, Master’s Coach Randy Stem said.

Menzies was declared ineligible to play for Master’s earlier this month because he was not carrying enough units for the spring semester. Stem said Menzies dropped a class and was left with only 10 units, two short of the NAIA minimum of 12.

Valley rally: The Valley College and College of the Desert women’s basketball teams will share the championship of the Southern California Conference if Valley defeats Antelope Valley on Friday.

The Monarchs already have clinched a berth in the Southern California regional playoffs that begin next Wednesday.

Valley avenged last month’s one-point loss to Desert with a 74-63 victory last week. The Monarchs (24-3, 10-1) have won three games in a row. Desert is 25-2, 10-1 in the SCC.

Dametra Johnson, Valley’s leading scorer, is averaging 25.5 points in conference games. Ruth Aguilar averages 15.5 points and Bernadette Tillis averages 15 points and 12.7 assists.

Dominant Dixon: When it came to comparing twins Kathleen and Marianne Dixon as basketball players last season, Kathleen got the nod.

The 6-1 center averaged 12.1 points and 6.7 rebounds for Cal State Northridge last season. Marianne, a 6-0 forward, averaged 8.5 points and 6.3 rebounds. But she is starting to turn the tables lately.

Two weeks ago, Marianne was CCAA player of the week and she is close to matching her sister in scoring. Kathleen leads the Lady Matadors with a 12.4 average, but Marianne is close behind at 12.1. Marianne has the rebounding edge, 5.4 to 5.2 and an advantage in assists, 31 to 17.

Silver lining: When a baseball team loses 21-7 there usually isn’t much positive to talk about. About the only CSUN performance worth note in Tuesday’s embarrassing loss to Santa Clara was turned in by pitcher Zach Lundin, a transfer from Cal Lutheran.

In his first appearance of the season, the junior right-hander got the last out in fourth inning, then gave up only four hits over the next four innings. He left in the ninth inning after giving up a three-run homer.

Getting the last out in the fourth inning was no minor accomplishment, either. Santa Clara scored 15 runs in the inning, the most allowed in a single inning by a Northridge team. UC Santa Barbara held the previous record, scoring nine against the Matadors in 1982.

Unscheduled day off: The Moorpark College golf team only played half of a scheduled two-day match against Monterey Peninsula College and San Jose City College last week.

The itinerary was shortened when the Raiders arrived in Monterey and the host school announced that it was backing out of the second day of competition.

“It’s never happened to us before,” Moorpark Coach Buck Andreasen said. “But I didn’t care. We couldn’t have had any more fun than we had when we stayed and played against ourselves that second day.”

On the first day of action--the one that counted--at the Rancho Canada Country Club, Moorpark finished second with a team score of 385; Monterey won with a 368 and San Jose finished last at 397.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Lauren Peterson and Ralph Nichols contributed to this notebook.