College Division : Azusa Pacific Putting On the Hits

As college baseball teams go, you might say that Azusa Pacific University is a big hit.

Make that a lot of big hits.

The Cougars began the week with a team batting average of .370 and an average of 10.1 runs a game. In fact, Azusa Pacific has scored 10 runs or more in 20 of its 31 games.

Azusa Pacific also has nine players on its roster batting .340 or better and had a 52-14 advantage over its opponents in home runs through their first 29 games.

In this week’s Golden State Athletic Conference offensive statistics, the Cougars have seven of the top eight hitters. Outfielder John Alexander is at the top at .463, followed by infielder Pat Woods at .435 and second baseman Javier Murillo at .419 with a league-leading 11 homers and 32 runs batted in.

With those numbers, it is no wonder that Azusa Pacific is off to a 22-8-1 start--its best ever--and is ranked No. 14 in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics’ first regular-season poll. It is the first time that a California team has been ranked in a regular-season NAIA top 20 since 1983.

Coach Tony Barbone credits much of his team’s success to depth. Even the team’s pinch-hitters are batting about .340.

“We’re playing a lineup of 13 to 14 guys and it’s pretty interchangeable,” Barbone said. “We don’t really have a lineup of just nine guys. We have guys that can come off the bench and do a good job.”

That has given Barbone a few more options and batting orders than most of Azusa Pacific’s opponents.

“When one guy is slumping, another is there to pick it up,” he said. “I think it allows us to put everyone’s strength on the field when the situation calls for it.”

Although Barbone’s share-the-wealth philosophy might create animosity on some teams, he said it has instilled competition among the Cougars.

“I think the kids have accepted the competition in a positive way,” he said. “They know that there’s always someone there to push them and make them work harder.”

That healthy competition is particularly noticeable at first base, which has been shared by Woods and John Morin. “We talk about the competition, and those two guys have been going back and forth all year,” Barbone said. “I think it has been a good thing for both of them.”

The solid depth has even carried over to Azusa Pacific’s pitching, which has been something of an afterthought in recent seasons. Entering this week, Brian Coriell has a 3-0 record and 2.59 earned-run average, Ron Bush is at 5-3 with a 3.26 ERA, and Chris Van Howten has a 7-1 mark and a 3.96 ERA.

Van Howten’s accomplishments are particularly surprising, considering that he was only 1-1 with a 9.30 ERA as a junior. Beginning this week, Azusa Pacific’s team ERA was 4.76 compared to the 9.21 mark of its opponents.

“It’s the lowest ERA we’ve had in the three years since I’ve been here,” Barbone said. “With us it used to be, ‘We can hit but it’s a question of whether we can get you out.’ We’re not the University of Texas, but we’ve done a pretty good job.”

Until last Saturday, that is.

That’s when Cougar pitchers gave up 22 hits in a humbling 20-11 loss to conference rival Westmont. That gave the Warriors a sweep of their doubleheader in Santa Barbara.

High ranking or not, Azusa Pacific is now in fourth place at 4-4 in the GSAC behind Cal Baptist at 7-2, Westmont at 7-3 and Southern California College at 6-4. The GSAC is considered by some to be the best baseball conference in the NAIA.

Despite their current standing in the conference, Barbone said the Cougars are probably still the favorite to win the title. But he knows it will not be easy.

“We’re certainly capable,” he said. “Probably everybody in the world thinks we’re the favorite because we’re off to such a good start. But our conference is just so competitive.”

Barbone only has to think back to last season, when the Cougars were 32-21 and won the conference’s regular-season title only to lose to Southern California College in the District III tournament.

“Our goal is to get into that tournament and see what we can do because you can never tell what will happen,” Barbone said. “We were probably the best team in the conference last year but we got beat.”

Win or lose though, Azusa Pacific’s offense has already been a big hit.

A year ago, the Chapman women’s softball team struggled to a 13-28-1 mark overall and finished last in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. at 3-17.

But Chapman, making the most improvement of any team in the conference, has made nearly a 180-degree turn. Chapman, which plays a doubleheader at UC Riverside today, has a 26-18 record, 5-5 in the CCAA.

That may not be enough improvement to challenge perennial power and top-ranked Northridge for the conference title--Northridge took a doubleheader from Chapman Wednesday, 3-0 and 3-1--but it has been enough to earn the Panthers the No. 17 spot in the most recent National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division II poll.

A lot of the credit for Chapman’s turnabout will probably go to first year co-coach Gary Haning, who joined Lisle Lloyd after building a good reputation as a youth coach in Orange County and as an assistant at Saddleback College.

But the Panthers have also benefitted by having six of their eight position players return from a year ago and by the addition of two outstanding freshman pitchers.

The freshman pitchers are Cheri Schreck, who had a 9-4 record and a 0.60 earned-run average entering this week, and Jacki Blake, who was 10-6 with a 0.95 ERA.

The experience of Chapman’s position players has helped the Panthers improve their team batting average from .209 last year to .269 entering this week.

Among the most improved have been outfielder Kirsten Lewis, who has increased from a .183 batting average last year to .356; outfielder Sally Meyer from .232 to .356, and second baseman Leslie Burke from .126 to .295.

College Division Notes

UC Riverside second baseman Ty Murphy’s school-record hitting streak was snapped at 28 games in a 7-6 baseball win last Saturday over Cal State Northridge. But Murphy, who is batting .380, came back to get two hits the next day against Northridge.

Led by a first-place finish by Todd McKenzie in the 100-meter freestyle, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps was second in the NCAA Division III men’s swimming meet in Atlanta.