Ranking No Help to CSUN : Softball Team Hits Road for Playoffs

They are the defending champions and favored to repeat.

They have the best playing field and their fans are as rabid as any.

Since 1982, when the NCAA began sanctioning a Division II softball championship, Cal State Northridge has played for the title each year, winning four times.

Perhaps it is only fair, then, that Northridge be forced to go the extra mile come playoff time.

But 3,000 miles?

This morning, Northridge players will leave for the site of the Division II regional to which they were assigned. Surprisingly, they will not be walking across campus to their own field. Or, for that matter, taking a short bus trip.

They will be boarding a plane. The defending champions are taking their 49-11 record, their California Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship and their No. 1 ranking on a trip. Destination: The North East regional in Fairfield, Conn.

For the record, 13 of the other 15 teams in the playoffs are either farther north, farther east, or both, than Northridge. Only Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal State Sacramento are farther west. Still, when the decision was made, and No. 2-ranked Cal State Bakersfield was made host of the West regional and Northridge was sent packing, geography was the reason given.

Northridge and Bakersfield, which finished 1-2 in the CCAA, both bid to host the West regional. Gayla Eckhoff, chairman of the Division II subcommittee for softball, said the bids were comparable, but the deciding factor was Bakersfield’s central location. Sacramento, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Chapman, the other regional participants, are all within driving distance.

Had the tournament been at Northridge, Eckhoff said, Sacramento would have needed to travel by air. And the NCAA would have been forced to pick up the tab.

Eckhoff said the rankings--Florida Southern is tied for second with Bakersfield and Bloomsburg (Pa.) University--normally have little impact on site selection. “In Division II we don’t look at rankings,” she said. “It’s way down the list of priorities.”

But in this instance it came into play. Four of the top 16 teams in the national rankings came from the CCAA. Add Sacramento, champion of the Northern California Athletic Conference, and one team had to go.

The only consolation for Northridge is that it was placed in what generally is regarded as the weakest regional. The Lady Matadors play Central Missouri in their first game. Sacred Heart, the host school, and the University of Connecticut, Bridgeport, were the other teams sent to the North East.

“In a sense they did protect us,” CSUN Coach Gary Torgeson said. “If we had stayed in the West, we would have been in there with some strong teams. And in the playoffs anything can happen.

“This way we’re playing teams we haven’t played before and you have the top four teams all in different regionals.”

Torgeson said the long trip will not be a legitimate excuse should Northridge be upset. “We’ve played well on the road,” he said. “We’re leaving early enough to get the change of time worked out and that’s the only factor, I think.

“If things don’t work out, it will be our own fault.”