Fall Notebook /Sam Farmer : McCracken in Wrong Place at Right Time

It wasn’t even the right play.

UCLA receiver Brendan McCracken was supposed to line up with teammate Mike Farr on the wide side of the field and run a deep fly pattern, but instead there was a mix-up and he switched positions with Paul Richardson, who was supposed to go to the short side.

“When I broke the huddle I ran over to the right side and said, ‘Heck, I know exactly what Paul’s supposed to do,’ ” McCracken said.

A few seconds later, snafu turned to “Yahoo!”

McCracken, a resident of La Canada, made a leaping grab of a 26-yard pass from Troy Aikman and landed on his back in the end zone.

At first, McCracken wasn’t sure the catch would count.

“I saw two penalty flags lying on the ground. I thought, ‘Geez, Louise, that’s just my luck,’ ” he said.

Pass interference was called against the USC defender, however, and the touchdown stood.

A backup to Aikman at quarterback last year, McCracken switched to receiver last spring, but has seen limited action this season.

“For myself, it was really nice,” McCracken said of the catch. “It was something nobody can take away from me. But it was a bit anticlimactic because we were still losing.”

USC won the game, 31-22, and along with it the Pacific-10 Conference title.

“I just wish the situation was one that I could appreciate more. But I just thank God that I was able to convert to another position and just get on the field,” McCracken said.

In his collegiate career, McCracken has run for a touchdown, thrown a touchdown pass and made a touchdown catch.

Harried Harrier: One week after winning the NCAA Division III Cross-Country Western Regionals at Lake Castaic and improving her personal course record by 1 minute and 30 seconds, Michelle Trimble failed to finish in the national championships in St. Louis.

Trimble, a senior at Occidental College, dropped out with less than 500 meters remaining in the 5,000-meter race. She said she was hampered by a viral infection and chronic pain associated with a stress fracture in her heel.

“I don’t know why my heel started hurting so badly,” Trimble said. “My legs were dead for some reason.”

But Trimble said watching the presentation of awards was even more painful.

“After the race, nothing could have cheered me up,” she said. “It was really hard sitting through the awards ceremony knowing I should have been up there.”

Occidental Coach Bill Harvey said the race had no favorite but Trimble was in the top 6 runners and had a legitimate chance of winning the title.

“She’s been awfully good for a long time and that was the only major problem she’s had,” Harvey said. “One race didn’t go right and it just happened to be her last one. She’s lucky she has track left.”

Bowl Bound: The Glendale College football team (9-1 overall, 8-1 in Western State Conference play) was selected to represent the WSC Northern Division and will play Santa Monica (6-4, 6-3) in the inaugural WSC Bowl on Dec. 3 at Santa Monica College at 7:30 p.m.

Glendale, which concludes its regular season with a nonconference game against Taft on Saturday, has lost only to Moorpark.

“We’re really looking forward to playing Santa Monica,” Glendale Coach Jim Sartoris said. “They’re a team that’s really come on lately and it should be a great match-up.”

The Corsairs, under first-year Coach Ralph Vidal, improved throughout the season and secured their bowl berth with a 48-13 whipping of Valley and a 51-0 win over West Los Angeles last week.

Santa Monica is led by running back Deon Thomas, who led the WSC in rushing with a school-record 1,219 yards. Thomas has rushed for more than 100 yards in 9 consecutive games.

Quarterback Daryl Hobbs has thrown 8 touchdown passes in the last 2 games. He has 1,242 passing yards and 10 touchdowns.

Cornerback Naim Shah and linebacker Ken McKyer each have 4 interceptions for a defense that allows an average of 18 points a game.

“We didn’t play Glendale this year, but the same excellent staff has been there for many years so I don’t expect them to do things much different than in the past,” Vidal said. “They’re always good.”

The game marks Glendale’s fourth consecutive appearance in a bowl. The Vaqueros won the Potato Bowl in 1985, lost the PONY Bowl in 1986 and won the Southern California Bowl last year.

Devastating D: Glendale has the No. 1-ranked defense in the state and last Saturday’s 7-0 win at Ventura didn’t hurt the team’s totals.

The Pirates gained 184 total yards and only 36 yards rushing. Ventura quarterbacks Todd Paffhausen and Juan Moreno were intercepted a combined 7 times.

“Our defense never, ever goes out and second guesses. They just go out and play,” defensive coordinator John Cicuto said. “We turned the ball over against Ventura and I said, ‘Hey, be happy. Want the turnover so you can go back out there and play.”

Staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this notebook.