College Baseball / Gary Klein : Murphy Restores Baseball at Notre Dame

The once moribund Notre Dame baseball program has been a regular member of the Collegiate Baseball Top 30 poll this season under Pat Murphy, who is in his second season as coach after spending two seasons at Claremont-Mudd.

“Everybody is jazzed up about baseball,” said Murphy, whose team is ranked 27th this week with a 24-6 record.

Murphy, 30, might not make anyone forget Knute Rockne, or Lou Holtz for that matter, but he already has achieved several notable milestones--including the signing of pitcher Pat Leahy, the grandson of Notre Dame football coaching legend Frank Leahy.

Murphy, who in 1986 led Claremont-Mudd to its first Southern California Interscholastic Athletic Conference championship in 11 years, inherited a team that was 15-29 in 1987 and engineered a 39-22 finish last season.

Last October, Murphy arranged for the Miami baseball team to accompany its football team to South Bend for what Murphy promoted as, “The Battle before the War.”

The Fighting Irish swept a two-game exhibition series and then proved it was no fluke by defeating the 14th-ranked Hurricanes, 4-2, in Miami last month. Tentative plans have been made for the USC baseball team to accompany the Trojan football team to South Bend in the fall.

Notre Dame also has a 12-9 road win over 10th-ranked Texas to its credit.

Murphy said the Notre Dame tradition will aid him in recruiting despite the built-in handicaps of the school’s rigorous academic entrance requirements and funding for only four scholarships.

“We’re recruiting 365 days a year in all 50 states,” Murphy said. “Don’t tell me I can’t come to Los Angeles and get a top kid because I’m going to do it. You watch.”

Sweet stuff: Pat Sweet said he elected to attend Texas A&M; over Cal State Long Beach and Pepperdine because he wanted to “get away and try something different.”

Other than the weather in College Station, Tex., and his own musical tastes, not much has changed for Sweet, a junior left-hander from South Gate who was 19-4 with a 3.39 earned-run average in two seasons at Cerritos College.

Sweet is 7-1 with a 2.95 ERA for Texas A&M; (40-1), which is ranked No. 1 in the nation for the seventh straight week.

“The humidity gets terrible sometimes down here,” Sweet said. “The first time I threw here it was like pitching in a steam room.

“I’m also into country music now. I used to like new wave bands like Depeche Mode and Erasure. But the only thing my roommates play is George Strait and now I’m hooked on it.”

This weekend Texas A&M; plays host to Texas, which has won or shared 10 consecutive Southwest Conference titles.

Strikeout king: Rick Davis never really considered himself a full-time pitcher until he struck out 11 batters in Cal State Dominguez Hills’ season-opening win over Arizona in Tucson.

“It kind of opened my eyes,” said Davis, a senior right-hander who played shortstop last season. “At that point I was still thinking about shortstop . . . The next thing I know, I would never see the field again.”

Good thing for Davis, who batted .220 and committed 27 errors last season. But bad news for opposing hitters who have been unable to handle Davis’ knuckle curve.

Davis, who went to Upland High and transferred to Dominguez Hills from Mt. San Antonio College, leads the nation in strikeouts with 126 in 104 innings. He is 5-4 with a 2.84 ERA and has allowed 74 hits and 47 walks.

Have a nice weekend: During Cal State Fullerton’s three-game Big West Conference series at UC Santa Barbara last weekend, Fullerton first baseman David Staton got 10 consecutive hits, which tied the school record shared by Brent Mayne and Tom Thomas. Staton’s hit parade included five home runs, two doubles and 14 runs batted in.

“I wasn’t looking for any particular pitch,” said Staton, a junior from Tustin who is batting .364 with 12 home runs and 46 RBIs. “Anything that came up there, I hit. It’s that type of situation where it didn’t matter what they threw.

“Every time I came up in the box I knew I was going to do it. You can’t explain it while you’re going through it.”

College Baseball Notes

Wednesday was the first day high school and junior college players could sign letters of intent. Arizona signed outfielder Steve Gill of Cypress College. Arizona State signed third baseman Todd Steverson of Culver City High and pitchers Tony Pena (Santa Ana Mater Dei) and Jeff Patterson (Cypress College). Pitcher David Mauss (Millikan) signed with Brigham Young University. California’s recruits include: pitcher/first baseman Matt Luke (El Dorado); shortstop Jason Evans (Chatsworth); pitcher Steve Biggs (Camarillo) and pitcher Roger Weems (Esperanza). Shortstop Phil Nevin (El Dorado) signed with Cal State Fullerton. Shortstop Gino Tagliaferri (Granada Hills Kennedy) and first baseman/pitcher Tim Costic (Monroe) signed with Fresno State. Pitcher Joey Kane (Valley College) signed with Cal State Long Beach. Loyola signed third baseman Andy Fox (Christian Brothers in Sacramento) and pitcher Tim Patrick (Sacramento City College). Oklahoma State signed pitcher Dennis Burbank (Cypress College). Pepperdine signed pitcher Derek Wallace (Chatsworth); pitcher/first baseman Dan Melendez (St. Bernard); pitcher Steve Duda (St. Paul); infielder Eric Ekdahl (Mission Viejo); catcher Scott Vollmer (Irvine) and first baseman/pitcher Jeff Myers (Carlsbad). Shortstop Mark Loretta (St. Francis) signed with Northwestern. Catcher Greg Zaun (St. Francis) and outfielder Rob Bailey (Fullerton College) signed with Texas. Catcher Scott Toppo (El Toro) signed with UC Irvine. Catcher Derek Tamburro (Westlake) has committed to UCLA. Catcher Casey Burrill (Hart) is committed to USC.

Adam Schulhofer, a freshman right-hander from Canoga Park, has made 10 relief appearances and is 2-2 with a save and a 3.00 ERA for UCLA, which plays host to conference-leading Arizona State this weekend. . . . Rick Lantrip, a sophomore third baseman for Arizona who was batting .333 with four homers and 25 RBIs, has left the team for personal reasons and will transfer to a school closer to his home in Visalia. Greg Fowble, a junior from Granada Hills who is batting .244 with a home run and 30 RBIs, replaces Lantrip as the Wildcats’ starter.

Fresno State outfielder Tom Goodwin has a 28-game hitting streak, breaking the school record of 24 that was shared by Terry Pendleton and Scott Buss. The national record for a consecutive-game hitting streak is 58 set by former Oklahoma State third baseman Robin Ventura in 1987. . . . Nevada Las Vegas outfielder Shaun Murphy, a junior outfielder from Simi Valley High who transfered from Arizona, is batting .321 with 8 home runs and 32 RBIs. Designated hitter Kevin Lofthus has a 31-game hitting streak and is approaching the Big West Conference record of 38 set last year by Fullerton’s Brent Mayne. Lofthus is batting .401 with 19 homers and 48 RBI.

Danny DeVille, a senior right-hander at Cal State Fullerton, is 5-0 with a 3.18 ERA. . . . Al Rodriguez, a sophomore shortstop at UC Irvine, had 11 hits in 19 at-bats last week, raising his average to team-leading .355. Junior second baseman Chris Gallego is batting .344 and .400 in Big West conference play. . . . UC Santa Barbara outfielder Mike Czarnetzki, a junior from Santa Monica, is batting .326 with two home runs and 33 RBIs . . . Long Beach second baseman Chris Gill is batting .353 with 26 RBI.

Joe Furukawa, a freshman from Canyon High in Anaheim, is starting at shortstop for California, replacing the injured Jeff Kent. Furukawa is batting .310 overall and .429 in conference play. . . . Pepperdine (25-12-1) is ranked 19th by Collegiate Baseball, the first time this season the Waves have made the Top 30. Going into the Waves’ weekend WCAC series at Nevada Reno, senior outfielder Rick Hirtensteiner was batting .357 with five home runs and 23 RBIs. He also was 2-0 with two saves and a 0.75 ERA in 12 innings. Junior right-hander Britt Craven has won his last six decisions to improve to 6-2 with a save and a 4.01 ERA. . . . Loyola catcher Miah Bradbury is batting .378 with five home runs and 34 RBIs.

Notre Dame catcher Ed Lund, a junior from Pasadena, is batting .266 with four home runs and 26 RBIs. . . . Eric Albright, a senior catcher from Rolling Hills, is batting .383 with eight home runs and 48 RBIs for top-ranked Texas A&M.; . . . Miami pitcher Alex Fernandez, who passed up a reported $150,000 bonus after the Milwaukee Brewers made him their No. 1 pick and the 24th player selected overall in last June’s draft, is 8-1 with a 1.61 ERA. Fernandez, a right-hander from Hialeah, Fla., has allowed 52 hits and recorded 103 strikeouts in 83 2/3 innings.