Northridge Faces Battle for Berth in Baseball Playoffs

An already messy situation in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. baseball race was further muddied by rain Tuesday.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (19-10 in the CCAA) had its chance to secure the conference championship washed away by an early morning thunderstorm. A victory over visiting Cal State Northridge (14-11-1) would have clinched a Division II regional playoff berth for the Mustangs.

Instead, San Luis Obispo must now depend on last-place Cal State Dominguez Hills to do some of its dirty work.

Northridge and Dominguez will play a three-game series beginning Thursday in Carson, and the second-place Matadors need a sweep to remain in contention for a conference championship. If the Matadors win all three games, they would then travel to San Luis Obispo on Sunday to make up Tuesday’s rain-out.

Should Northridge win again, it would still be a half-game behind the Mustangs, which would force another make-up game--CSUN at home against UC Riverside--on Monday.

And if Northridge wins that?

Then CSUN and San Luis Obispo would both have 19-11 records in conference games, but the Matadors would receive the CCAA’s automatic playoff berth by virtue of its 4-1 advantage over the Mustangs in head-to-head competition.

There is a chance that Monday’s game won’t be needed, however.

A regional playoff selection committee will decide Sunday night which three teams will make up the West regional field. The CCAA champion gets the only automatic bid and Cal State Sacramento, a Division II independent, has a lock on another berth. The last slot will go either to the champion of the Northern California Athletic Conference or to the second-place team in the CCAA.

As a result, both San Luis Obispo (29-21 overall) and Northridge (28-18-1) could be chosen for the regional on Sunday.

A Northridge-Riverside matchup--a replay of a March 14 game that ended in a 5-5 tie--will be played only if CSUN wins its four games this week and the playoff committee decides that only the CCAA champion will advance.

Sonoma State (28-17, 20-8 in conference play) and San Francisco State (28-20, 20-9) are the top two teams in the NCAC. Neither team has played as difficult a schedule as Northridge, however. CSUN has won seven of 12 games against Division I teams, including victories over USC and Fresno State.

Sonoma and San Francisco State both played a nonconference schedule consisting primarily of Division II and Division III teams.

Northridge could advance to the playoffs even without a sweep of Dominguez. Winning two of the three games against the Toros would still give the Matadors 30 wins and the second-best overall record of any Division II team on the West Coast.

But Bill Kernen, Northridge’s first-year coach, would prefer to leave nothing to chance.

“We’re zeroing in on the Dominguez series as best we can,” Kernen said. “Assuming we’re going to beat them is assuming a lot. We have a lot of work to do before we can start thinking about a Sunday game.”

The Toros, champions of the CCAA in 1986 and ‘87, are 16-26-1 overall, 11-16 in the CCAA. But they are 2-0 against Northridge. Dominguez’s wins over CSUN have come rather decisively, by scores of 19-5 and 4-0--the latter on a one-hitter by Toro ace Rick Davis.

Left-hander Fili Martinez will open for Northridge on Thursday, probably against Davis. Martinez, a senior, has a 7-4-1 record and a team-leading 2.65 earned-run average. The Matadors will go with right-hander Vale Lopez (5-9, 4.24) at home Friday, and right-hander Robert Wheatcroft (11-2, 3.53) will start at Dominguez on Saturday. If a Sunday game is necessary, Martinez is the likely starter.