The Colleges : Dark Ages Take Hold at Glendale

A few days before last Saturday’s inaugural Western State Conference Bowl, construction workers accidentally severed power lines leading to the Glendale College gym. Later that week, they broke a gas line near the football field and practice was abruptly curtailed.

For the Vaqueros, the mishaps meant showering in darkness. Several players had difficulty seeing the combinations on their lockers and sought the logical solution: matches.

“We were yelling, ‘Hey, no matches! The place is going to go up!’ ” defensive coordinator John Cicuto said.

But the players were not the only ones Cicuto was worried about.

“We had to make sure no coaches were lighting up cigars after practice,” he said.

The team was plagued by gym problems--including ice cold shower water--much of the season.

“It was a great recruiting tool,” Cicuto quipped. “ ‘We’ve got a lot of stuff to offer you guys: no hot water, no lights and sometimes you get this rancid smell that encompasses the campus.’ ”

A costly lapse: Most of the crowd of 4,588 at North Campus Stadium last Sunday was surprised when Edward Grosso scored on a 5-yard header off a free kick that gave the Florida Institute of Technology a 3-2 win over Cal State Northridge in the NCAA Division II soccer championship match.

FIT Coach Rick Stottler, however, said he had come to expect the unexpected from his team.

“It shouldn’t happen, but it happens routinely,” Stottler said. “We scored a lot of goals this season exactly like that.”

Northridge’s breakdown on the game-winning goal also was not unprecedented, Matador Coach Marwan Ass’ad said. Northridge, which started 5 freshmen in the championship match, had trouble all season clearing the ball from the goal box.

“Composure in the box is maturity and experience,” Ass’ad said. “You can’t ask them to be experienced when they’re not.”

Playoff prophecy: Rick Iversen, a senior defender on Northridge’s soccer team, will not be playing for the Matadors when they begin competing at the Division I level in 1990.

But he has a prediction: “There are going to be a lot of unhappy teams. Right now there are teams making the playoffs that won’t be anymore because of Northridge.”

Iversen is certainly qualified to make the comment. He played on the San Diego State team that played for the Division I national championship in 1987.

Add Iversen: His goal on a free kick 1:39 into the second overtime period gave Northridge the lead in its semifinal match against Oakland, Mich., on Saturday. The Matadors went on to win, 3-1.

Iversen credited a sports psychology class he has taken at CSUN for his relaxed approach to pressure situations.

“I work on it all the time in practice. I have a lot of confidence taking that shot,” Iversen said. With good reason, too. Iversen defeated Cal State Dominguez Hills in October with an almost identical shot.

A kick in time: The Northridge soccer team is known for its wide-open style of play.

Now Coach Marwan Ass’ad wants to take things one step further.

He was heard after Sunday’s championship game lobbying for a shot clock.

As Henry Gibson might say, “ Very interesting, but . . . “

Schedule switch: The Western State Conference has adopted a scheduling format that will ensure that the conference’s top teams meet at least every other year.

This past season, Bakersfield cruised to the Southern Division championship and WSC title without playing Glendale and Moorpark because of the conference’s divisional alignment, which allowed for a nonconference opener followed by games against non-division and, finally, division opponents.

Next season, WSC teams will again play a nonconference opener. Two of 4 non-division games, however, will be against opponents that were not played last season.

“The only way you can win the conference championship is to play the best teams,” Glendale Coach Jim Sartoris said. “It’s a little fairer.”

Return to sender: Moorpark was hoping for a first in its PONY Bowl football match-up against Rancho Santiago, and the Raiders got one. It was not, however, what they had in mind.

Jim Bittner, Moorpark’s coach of 16 years, had never seen an opponent return a punt for a touchdown against the Raiders.

Until Saturday. With the score tied, 10-10. With 1:37 left to play in the game at Orange Coast College.

Paul Peters raced 84 yards for the game-winning touchdown in a 17-10 Rancho Santiago victory.

“We weren’t concerned about him returning the punt because it has just never happened,” Bittner said.

Peters, a freshman wide receiver, scored both Rancho Santiago touchdowns and was selected the game’s most valuable player.

Moorpark was hoping for its first victory in a bowl game. The Raiders lost in their only previous bowl appearance to Pierce in the 1985 Brahma Bowl.

In memory: No. 45 was inscribed on the helmets of several Moorpark players during the PONY Bowl. The gesture was in honor of Kaylon Whaley, a former Raider player.

Whaley, 23, died last Thursday night after his motor scooter collided with a car in Moorpark. He was a sophomore defensive end who left the team after a Nov. 12 game against Ventura partly because of insufficient playing time.

Fire damage: A fire that destroyed $35,000 worth of track, softball, baseball and football equipment in an equipment warehouse at Moorpark is under investigation, Athletic Director Paul Dunham said Wednesday.

Dunham said that a television monitor, a video camera and 2 VCR recorders also were destroyed in the fire that broke out about noon Tuesday in a 15-by-30-foot warehouse behind Griffin Stadium.

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