The Colleges : Aerial Display Impedes Glendale

The football stadium at Glendale High is called Moyse Stadium, but after Saturday night’s game between Glendale College and L. A. Southwest there might be some support for changing it to the Do-Drop-In.

Southwest was in Glendale territory with less than 30 seconds left in the first half when out of night mist emerged a lone parachutist who landed near midfield, arriving a few minutes early for the halftime homecoming ceremonies.

“I thought it was the start of World War III or something,” said Glendale Coach Jim Sartoris, who had not been informed about the scheduled appearance. “I guess the first half ran a little long and there was a loss of communication between the ground and the plane.

“The guy came down right over the deep official’s head and must have scared him, because the official threw a flag.”

Glendale was tagged with a 15-yard penalty.

As the teams lined up to resume play, 2 more parachutists descended onto the field. Glendale was assessed another 15-yard penalty.

“I was yelling to our coaches to get our players off the field because I didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” said Sartoris, who directs the Vaqueros’ attack from the press box. “Later on, the ref said, ‘I only gave you 15 more because two of them came down at the same time.’ ”

Southwest, however, was not able to benefit from the parachutist-induced penalties. Glendale stopped the Cougars, got the ball back with just a few seconds left and scored with no time remaining in the first half to increase its lead to 38-10.

After the game, Sartoris crossed the field to exchange pleasantries with Southwest Coach Henry Washington.

“I told him, ‘I’m really sorry about what happened with the parachutes,’ ” Sartoris said. “Henry said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We needed the yardage.’ ”

Glendale won the game, 45-24.

Jolly good show: Two months ago, Gary Mills spent his weekends watching football on television at the local pub.

In Birmingham, England.

Mills liked what he saw so much he dreamed of playing for an American football team. He never really expected it to happen, however.

But it did. And very quickly.

Mills, 22, is the starting center for Cal Lutheran. The Kingsmen lost 2 players at the position early this season because of knee injuries. Mills started classes last month, before the Sept. 19 enrollment deadline, and played in his first game 2 weeks ago.

The past 4 years, Mills played center for the Birmingham Bulls, an amateur British football team. One of Mills’ teammates, Russ Jensen, a former Cal Lutheran quarterback, had heard that the Kingsmen were looking for a center.

Mills immediately called CLU Coach Bob Shoup, who offered him a 1-semester scholarship.

“It was the chance of a lifetime for me to come to California and play college football,” Mills said. “Football is my great love.”

Mills, 6-2, 265 pounds, never attended college in England. He hopes to remain at Cal Lutheran after this season, but that will depend largely on how he does in the next 3 games.

“This might just be a one-year thing to get Shoup out of a spot,” Mills said. “But no matter what happens, I have no qualms or complaints. I knew what to expect before I came.”

Shoup said he doesn’t expect Mills to remain with the team after this season.

“I think it’s unlikely because of his age,” Shoup said.

Depth chart: The Northridge football team has no chance of winning a Western Football Conference championship and likely has been eliminated from Division II playoff contention after losing 3 of its past 4 games.

All this, plus a sub-par performance from senior Rob Huffman in a 31-13 loss to UC Davis on Saturday, led to speculation that sophomore Sherdrick Bonner might take over as the starting quarterback.

Not so, says CSUN Coach Bob Burt.

“We’re gonna put Trent Morgan in,” Burt deadpanned. “He has our best percentage and best yards-per-pass average.”

Morgan, CSUN’s punter, completed a 31-yard pass off a fake against Davis. He is 1 for 1 this season.

For the record, Huffman will be the starter Saturday at Santa Clara. Bonner will see action as a reserve.

In a rush: Northridge opened its first offensive series against Davis without a huddle. The Matadors ran 2 plays but then were penalized for holding to interrupt the string.

Burt said the plan was to run 6 plays in a row before huddling for the first time. “Sometimes you can make a team a little disoriented and they don’t get their calls, you get the ball rolling and things get going in your favor,” he said.

CSUN coaches were hopeful that the tactic would inspire a Matador offense that had struggled in the previous 3 games.

“We did it for the players,” Burt said. “We did the same thing at Hawaii, but there were 45,000 fans and they just went crazy. We did it in shifts. The first-team ran three plays, then the second-team was supposed to come in for three. The second play we called for our second-team was a pass, and we had to call time out. We were on the 3-yard line and there was no room to run it. The plan worked too damn good.”

Pace quickens: What a difference a month has made for the No. 4-ranked Northridge women’s volleyball team. The Lady Matadors have won 6 of 7 matches in October. The previous month, CSUN was only slightly better than .500, playing a predominantly tournament schedule.

Coach Walt Ker says his team’s recent surge is because of the combination of a schedule break and a more disciplined work ethic.

“We’ve raised the level of our intensity during practice the past few weeks and that’s helped us during matches,” Ker said.

With victories Saturday over UC Riverside and Tuesday over Cal State Dominguez Hills, CSUN extended a pair of winning streaks. The Lady Matadors have won 47 consecutive CCAA matches and 45 matches in a row at home.

Ker is hopeful that improved balance within the CCAA will help prepare CSUN to defend its Division II national championship when the playoffs begin in December.

“There are four teams in the league that offer us a good challenge and make us play well to win,” Ker said. “Last year that wasn’t case. . . . I’m happy for the competition. It will help us.”

Bruin basher: Daiva Tomkus, a former Chaminade Prep standout, seems well on her way to becoming the nation’s top collegiate women’s volleyball player. She was selected Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Week after leading UCLA to victories over UC Santa Barbara, Oregon and Oregon State.

The 6-1 junior leads the top-ranked Bruins in kills, aces, blocks and assists. Her career hitting percentage is .325. In UCLA’s 3 games last week that percentage reached .505. She leads the nation with an overall percentage of .430.

Tomkus, an All-American last season, had 2 game-highs last week. She had 20 kills against Oregon, 8 blocks versus Oregon State and 11 service aces during the week.

UCLA (19-0) plays host to the Pac-10 Challenge tournament beginning Friday at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins open with a 6 p.m. match against Colorado State.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Ralph Nichols and Gary Klein contributed to this notebook.