Toros Nine Has Slim Chance at 3rd Crown in CCAA Race

Where is the Cal State Dominguez Hills baseball team going to finish in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. race?

Maybe anywhere it wants in a league where no clear-cut favorite has emerged at the halfway point of the season. Dominguez Hills (6-7, 11-16-1 overall) begins a three-game series at UC Riverside this afternoon at 3. The teams meet Friday at 3 at Dominguez Hills, then return to Riverside for a 1 p.m. game Saturday.

All seven conference teams are within striking distance of first. Dominguez Hills, which has lost four of its last five games, is only two games out of first place. Only three games separate the top and bottom teams.

First-year Coach George Wing, a former Riverside assistant coach, thinks the CCAA race could come down to the final week of the season.

“I just don’t see a runaway happening,” he said. He thinks the level of play in the conference has gone “definitely down” over the last five years. Because of that the Toros, a scrappy but inefficient bunch, may be able to back into a third CCAA title.

Realistically, that would be more than Wing bargained for when he arrived in Southern California from his most recent post at Cosumnes River Community College near Sacramento. He had virtually no time to recruit because he arrived in late August. So what he is left with are last year’s holdovers from a 19-30 team, a few walk-ons and what players he was able to entice to Carson.

“I didn’t know where to expect us to be,” Wing said. “We have some quality guys and we have some good players, but not in numbers.”

Touted for his ability to rebuild programs in a short period, Wing sees the CCAA race coming down to the wire.

“It’s the kind of thing where everybody is beating up on everyone else,” he said.

The main reason the CCAA is so wide open is that no team seems to be capable of putting together victories in numbers, most notably Dominguez Hills. Only recently have Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo shown signs of shaking the pack. Neither has been overly impressive. Pomona took three out of four games from Dominguez Hills recently but is 13-21 overall. San Luis Obispo (8-6 in the CCAA) has split its last six conference games.

Dominguez Hills has failed to score a lot of runs for its ace pitcher, Rick Davis (5-3). Against Pomona last week Davis hurled a six-hitter and struck out 10 but lost, 3-1. At one point Davis was 5-1. In his last four outings he has lost twice and had two no-decisions.

Considered a major league prospect, Davis has broken the school’s single-season strikeout mark (116) and his earned-run average of about 2.00 is one of the top marks in the conference.

Left-hander Ron Veazey (5-1) has been more fortunate. He is in the No. 2 spot in the pitching rotation.

Wing received “a real shot in the arm” when Harbor College transfer David Haggard pitched “seven strong innings” in a 5-2 non-conference loss to U.S. International University last week. Haggard is considered the team’s No. 3 pitcher, but arm problems plagued him early in the year. At Harbor he was 14-3 in two seasons, but at Dominguez Hills he is 0-5 with an ERA of 6.17.

A few key pitching performances out of the bullpen could help. Right-hander Charlie Plumley (1-4) is the only pitcher to win a game in relief. That came last week in the Pomona series.

But the team’s .272 batting average and slugging percentage of .379 will have to improve if the Toros want to make a serious run in the second half.

Explained Wing: “The bottom line is, this team will have to swing the bat just like anyone else.”

Defensively, things are getting smoother now that a few players are settling into new positions. But the team has allowed 43 unearned runs to opponents’ 17.

When Davis moved into the starting rotation as a pitcher, Dominguez Hills lost him at shortstop. So Wing moved a pair of community college players up the middle. Adrian Rodriguez, who played third base at El Camino College last season, was moved to second base and second baseman Fred Camerena, a transfer from Fullerton College, switched to shortstop. Like Davis a year ago, Camerena leads the team in errors with 11, followed by third baseman Ruben Jauregui with 10.

Rodriguez has been much smoother, committing just six miscues, including two in a mop-up role at shortstop. “Early in the year we were hurt in key situations by key people,” Wing said. “But we are beginning to settle down a bit.”

Down the stretch Wing says good defense will play a major role.

“I keep harping on the guys from the very beginning that we have a good pitching staff and we have to play catch behind them.”

The batteries need to play defense, too. Between the pitchers and catchers there have been 16 errors.

Among the regulars, Jauregui leads the team in hitting, but his average is about 65 points below his CCAA-leading .408 of a year ago. However, last week he went nine for 22 to lift his average 50 points in 14 days.

First baseman Damon Neidlinger, forced to play second base last year on a team decimated by injuries, is beginning to look comfortable at his old position and has shown signs of awakening from a slump 30 points below his average of a year ago. He leads the team in runs batted in with 16 and in home runs, four.

“He’s really come on in the last 10 to 15 games,” Wing said. “We are looking to him in key situations again.”

And center fielder Rob Campbell has “been on a terror,” Wing said. He is batting .328 as the leadoff hitter and went 11 for 26 last week.

Harbor College transfer Billy Keep is batting .313.

A sweep of Riverside would send Dominguez Hills to San Luis Obispo with a chance to grab the CCAA lead. But Wing is more practical. He’d be happy winning two of the next three.