UC San Diego Track Teams Make Great Strides Under Stanforth

When Mark Stanforth became the men’s and women’s track and field coach at UC San Diego two years ago, he inherited a program that had never had an All American and had scored only one point in the NCAA Division III championships.

And the single point came when the top 12 finishers scored. Now only the top eight score.

Stanforth and his crew of assistant coaches were encouraged last year when Tim Vallez won the 800 meters to give UCSD its first national champion. And the Tritons got their first All-Americans in Vallez and shotputter Shannon Quigley.

Encouragement turned to realization this year--at least for the women’s team.

Behind national titles for Quigley in the shotput and discus, the Tritons finished tied with Cortland (N.Y.) State, for fourth place at the Division III championships last month. Scott Sargeant led the men with a fourth-place finish in the hammer throw, earning All-American status.

“I thought it would take five years to say we can be among the top five every year,” Stanforth said. “The women are already there. I can’t say the men are. I think the top 10 would be a good goal next year.”

Stanforth is waiting anxiously to see what strides can be made when the Tritons take over the new track facility that is being built on campus.

“When we came here, we had an old dirt track that was very bad and the throwing rings were not usable,” Stanforth said.

This season, the sprinters and hurdlers would practice at Balboa Stadium, the high jumpers at San Diego State and the pole vaulters wherever they could find a pit.

“It made it a little difficult from a total team standpoint,” Stanforth said. “Other than the meets, they may not have seen each other.”

That will change next season when the new track facility, scheduled to be completed in October, is ready.

The facility will include a nine-lane synthetic track with a six-foot jogging lane. The end zone will be an all-weather surface, and there will be multiple runways for the high jump and javelin. There also will be separate pits for the long jump, triple jump and pole vault. There will be seating for 2,000.

“The approach we took from the start was to put together the best staff we could,” Stanforth said. “In large part, our success is due to the assistant coaches we have in the program.

“There’s a lot more visibility to the program. Essentially we never scored in a national meet, and now we’ve had three national champions in two years. Things are looking very positive.”

Entering the state community college softball tournament as the top-seeded team was nothing new to Palomar College. The Comets looked like a lock in 1987 when they were the top seed and hosted the state tournament.

But once again, it was two teams from Orange County--the power base for women’s softball--that met for the state title.

So when the Comets found themselves the top-seeded team in the tournament this season, Coach Mike Eldridge was understandably cautious.

He needn’t have worried, as Palomar defeated second-seeded Fullerton, 2-0, at Golden West to win the school’s first softball title.

“A lot of people felt that Fullerton should have been No. 1, so it was neat to meet them in the final and settle it on the field,” said Eldridge, who has coached the Comets for 12 years. “It’s never been won by a team from San Diego. Even though we’ve been competitive over the years, we needed to get over that hump.”

The Comets lost to Sacramento City College in the finals last year with a sophomore-dominated team. But this year Palomar took home the title with a team dominated by freshmen.

Palomar had only three sophomore starters led by catcher Lis Ferracone (Mt. Carmel High School), who had a school-record 25 steals and hit .303. Ferracone will attend Cal State Northridge on a softball scholarship.

The Comets also placed three players on the 12-player All American team--all of them freshmen.

Making the All-American team were: Kenda Leffler (San Marcos High), who hit .400 and had 19 steals and was the state player of the year; Cammi Allen (Orange Glen High), the Pacific Coast Conference player of the year who had a 30-5-1 record with 224 strikeouts in 255 innings and an ERA of .55, and Nikki Wertz (Orange Glen), who hit .341, had 26 RBIs and 10-game winning hits.

Kyle Abbott, who transfered from UC San Diego to Cal State Long Beach, was named a first-team NCAA Division I All-American by Baseball America. Abbott, a junior left-handed pitcher, was 14-2 and helped lead the 49ers to the College World Series. Abbott was taken in the first round of baseball’s amateur draft Monday by the Angels.