Community College Notebook : Golden West Celebrates Because Season Isn’t Over

For the past three years, Jim Greenfield, Golden West College men’s basketball coach, has spent the week after the regular season pondering what went wrong.

Golden West had a combined record of 16-67 during the last three seasons. Golden West finished ninth twice and eighth once in the South Coast Conference in those three seasons.

But Golden West had the biggest turnaround of any team in the state this season.

Golden West went from 4-23 a season ago to 15-15 and a spot in the Southern California Regional playoffs, which starts Saturday.

Golden West is at Los Angeles Harbor (18-9). It’s the first playoff appearance for Golden West since the 1983-84 season when the Rustlers were 17-7.

But the change isn’t much of a surprise to Greenfield. He predicted his team would go 16-12. But he didn’t expect his team to get an at-large berth in the playoffs.

“It’s nice to have a game this week,” Greenfield said. “We beat some good teams along the way and we play in a strong conference. Both those things worked in our favor.”

Seven of the eight South Coast Conference teams made the playoffs.

El Camino (28-3, 12-2) won the conference, Cerritos (21-10, 10-4) was second, Fullerton (18-12, 8-6) and Compton (19-10, 8-6) tied for third, Long Beach (19-13, 7-7) was fifth, Golden West (15-15, 5-9) sixth and Pasadena (16-13, 4-10) was seventh. Only Mt. San Antonio (8-20, 2-12), which finished eighth, failed to make the playoffs.

“I still didn’t think we would make the playoffs,” Greenfield said. “It didn’t seem too likely that seven teams from our conference would make the playoffs.”

Golden West is led by freshman forward Markus Muller-Stach who averaged 18 points a game and guards Elbert Davis (15 points and 6 assists) and Anthony Howard (10 points a game).

Who is this Karl Becker? That’s what many of the Orange Empire Conference basketball coaches must be wondering.

Becker spent most of the first round of conference play on the bench, but in the last four games he has become a vital part of Cypress’ success. His boost off the beach helped Cypress go 10-O in conference. Cypress is 28-5 overall and ranked second in Southern California and fourth in the state.

In the first six conference games, Becker had six points.

Becker, a 6-foot 2-inch guard from Redondo High School, has found his three-point range. He is 10 of 10 in his last two games and 12 of 13 in three games.

He made 2 of his last 3 at Citrus, was 6 of 6 against Saddleback and 4 of 4 against Riverside in the regular season final Saturday against Riverside.

Becker scored 11 points against Citrus, 12 against Rancho Santiago, 22 against Saddleback and 16 against Riverside. He’s averaging 7.4 points a game, up from 1 when his streak started.

Streak remover. When the Long Beach women’s basketball team defeated Golden West, 92-84, last Wednesday, it snapped Golden West’s 27 game-winning streak.

But Golden West (29-2) still is the top-seeded team in the Southern California Regionals, which open tonight.

“At least we have the pressure of not having to take the winning streak into the playoffs,” said Dick Stricklin, Golden West Coach. “That should help. Long Beach just played a really good game. In fact they came over to us after the game and asked for a copy of the videotape because it was the best game they ever played.”

Golden West plays host to No. 16 Grossmont (13-12) and Cypress (23-7), the ninth-seeded team, is at No. 10 Moorpark (21-10) at 7:30 tonight.

Fast Company. Steve Watson pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the eight and got the save as Rancho Santiago defeated Cerritos, 6-5, Sunday to win the Casey Stengel baseball tournament.

The victory puts Rancho Santiago in a lofty position. The last three tournament champions have gone on to win the state title. Cerritos did so in 1985, College of the Canyons in 1986 and Cerritos again last season.

“That’s it, we won the state title, right?” Don Sneddon, Rancho Santiago coach, joked after the game.

Then in a more serious vain, Sneddon said: “There is a long way to go. Heck, we haven’t even started conference yet. We still have a lot to prove. This was just a good early-season test for us. But we have never been 8-0 before because we have always been in this tournament.”

Community College Notes

Jeannine Battaglia of Golden West was voted the most valuable player of the South Coast Conference. Battaglia, a sophomore guard from Westminster High School, averaged 15 points a game. Kim Takayama and Kathy Werth of Golden West and Lisa Crosskey and Kelli Johnson of Fullerton made the first team. Lori Totosz of Golden West and Steffi Stauss and Debbie Wagner of Fullerton made the second team. . . . The Orange Coast College men’s basketball playoff game at Chaffey, which was scheduled for Saturday, has been changed to Friday at 7:30 p.m.