SportsScope : Bruin Water Polo Team Has High Hopes of Capturing First NCAA Title in 16 Years

It’s been 16 years since Bob Horn, UCLA water polo coach, won an NCAA championship, but this may be the year he breaks his fast.

Horn’s Bruins (27-4 overall) are seeded second in the NCAA tournament, and they may be a notch better than that.

UCLA will meet Navy (26-6) in a first-round match at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach. The tournament will end with the championship match at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Top Bruin scorers are senior Hank Peterson with 68 goals and junior All-American Alexis Rousseau with 67. Rousseau set the UCLA single-season scoring record of 79 last year.

Fernando Carsalade, UCLA’s three-time All-American defensive specialist, has a team-leading 45 steals and also has 32 goals and 28 assists. Senior goalkeeper Mike VanderWaerdt has 192 saves and a 63% save average.

Horn’s record in his 26 years at UCLA is 429-167-8; in NCAA tournament play, his teams are 32-16.

Other tournament seeds: No. 1 California, No. 3 USC, No. 4 Stanford and No. 5 UC Irvine.

The Santa Monica College football team (6-4 overall) will play host to Glendale College (9-1) in the Western State Conference Bowl at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3.

Santa Monica (4-1 in the WSC Southern Division) finished second to Bakersfield (5-0) in the division, but Bakersfield elected to play in the Shrine Potato Bowl in Bakersfield. Glendale, defending WSC champion, and Moorpark tied for first place in the WSC Northern Division, each with 3-1 division records. But Moorpark, the only team to defeat Glendale this season, chose to play in the Pony Bowl at Orange Coast College.

The Corsairs did not play Glendale this year but last year handed the Vaqueros their only conference loss, 22-16. Glendale went on to win its next 14 games before falling to Moorpark this season.

Corsair running back Deon Thomas, the conference’s top rusher, has gained 1,149 yards on the ground, breaking the school’s single-season record of 1,144 yards set by Mike Ridley in 1969. In last week’s 51-0 rout of West Los Angeles, SMC quarterback Darryl Hobbs completed all 4 of his passes, 3 for touchdowns, and moved to third place on the school’s career total offense record with 2,847 yards.

The Pepperdine men’s basketball team and first-year Coach Tom Asbury will open the season against Texas in the first game of the Hawaii Tip-Off tournament at 8 p.m. (PST) Friday in Honolulu. In the second game, Hawaii plays Montana State.

On Sunday the consolation game will start at 7 p.m. and the championship game at 9:15. Pepperdine games are broadcast on KWNK-AM (670).

Starters for Pepperdine (17-13 overall last year) against the Longhorns are veterans Tom Lewis, the leading scorer last season with a 23-point average, and Dexter Howard at forwards, center Casey Crawford and guards Marty Wilson and Craig Davis. Reserves include guard Shann Ferch, a transfer from Montana State, and forwards Geoff Lear, a freshman from Bishop Amat High School, and David Hairston, a transfer from Chabot Junior College.

Texas, 16-13 last season, is beginning its first year under Coach Tom Penders, whose Rhode Island team advanced to the round of 16 at the 1988 NCAA tournament and finished with a 28-7 record. The Longhorns are led by All-Southwest Conference guard Travis Mays, who averaged 18 points a game last season, and forward Alvin Heggs, who averaged 15 points and shot 61.5% from the field.

The UCLA women’s basketball team, paced by returning starters Sandra Van Embricqs, Michelle Wooton and Althea Ford, will open the season against North Carolina State on Friday in the first round of the National Women’s tournament at Cincinnati. Other teams in the tourney, which ends Saturday, are Georgia and Cincinnati.

Top Bruin newcomer is 6-3 freshman Molly Tideback of Waterloo, Iowa, who was named a prep All-American by USA Today, Parade Magazine, Street & Smith’s and ESPN.

Coach Ron Fortner and his inexperienced Pepperdine women’s basketball team will begin the season on Friday afternoon against Houston in the Coopers and Lybrand Invitational in Chicago. Other teams in the tournament, which ends Saturday, are De Paul and Alabama Birmingham.

Three of this year’s projected Wave starters will be redshirting instead: center Sharon Clark, guard Stephanie Meneze and freshman forward Shannon Frowiss. Clark is recovering from knee surgery.

The Waves are led by guard Dionne Burgess, the team’s leading returning scorer with an 11.2-point average. Other starters are guards Michelle Watson and Sherri Murrell, freshman center Susan Tousey from Brea-Olinda High School in Orange County and forward April Marion.

The Santa Monica College men’s basketball team, 4-0 after winning last week’s Compton College tournament, will open against Columbia College on Friday evening in the Merced College tournament. Other teams in the field are Merced and Merritt. The consolation and championship games will be played Saturday.

SMC forward Kemo Patrick was named the most valuable player of the Compton tournament, and other all-tourney players for the Corsairs were guards DeShawn Pullard and Troy Batiste.

The Corsairs defeated Arizona Western, Los Angeles City and Oxnard. The victories gave SMC Coach John McMullen a career record of 186-120, making him the most successful basketball coach in school history. The old record of 187 career victories was compiled by Sanger Crumpacker from 1934 through 1954.

The UCLA women’s volleyball team, top-ranked nationally and 28-0 as the week began, will tune up for the NCAA tournament against No. 12 Brigham Young at 5:30 p.m. Friday in the Wendy’s tournament at the University of the Pacific. In the evening’s second game, No. 10 Pacific will face Colorado State. The tourney ends with Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. championship game.

UCLA middle blockers Daiva Tomkus, a junior, and Elaine Youngs, a freshman, have combined to average 7.5 kills, nearly 1 service ace, 2.4 blocks and 5.03 digs a game and are hitting .355.

The Pepperdine women’s volleyball team (16-15 overall and 13-1 in West Coast Athletic Conference play) clinched the conference title last week with a five-game win over stubborn Gonzaga and a four-game victory over Portland.

The Waves, winners of 10 of their last 13 matches, will find out who they play in the NCAA tournament when the 32-team field is announced Sunday.