The Colleges : Teams Must Try Twice as Hard to Pick Up Win in SCIAC

Regardless of how their teams perform in a game that brings victory, most football coaches will concede that “a win is a win is a win.”

However, that is not necessarily the case in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, in which victories are sometimes worth only a half-win.

In the SCIAC, each team plays one conference member twice in a season, making for unusual standings.

Last Saturday, for example, Redlands defeated La Verne, 19-3. The win earned Redlands sole possession of first place in the SCIAC with a record of 0.5-0.

Redlands will not receive credit for a full victory unless it defeats La Verne again later this season. Should La Verne win the rematch, the two games will be recorded as a tie, something the conference apparently has little use for.

If the score is tied at the end of regulation, SCIAC teams play a tiebreaker, alternating possessions from the opposition’s 25-yard line until one team scores unanswered points.

Occidental will play Whittier twice this season.

Goal oriented: Craig Pannell, Azusa Pacific’s tight end, scored on a 36-yard pass play Saturday against Occidental. Not bad for a guy who spent his entire high school athletic career trying to prevent people from scoring.

Pannell did not play football at Kennedy High. Instead he earned All-City Section honors tending goal for the Golden Cougar soccer team.

Pannell was 6-foot-3, 180 pounds when he graduated from Kennedy in 1984 and decided to try out for football at Moorpark College.

“After playing soccer my whole life and playing goalie, I knew catching the ball would be no problem,” said Pannell, who took two years off between seasons at Moorpark. “A football coach at Moorpark got me lifting weights and I liked it. I started getting bigger and bigger.”

Pannell now stands 6-6 and weighs 245 pounds.

Portland power: Curtis Delgardo, Portland State’s All-American running back, had a plate inserted Monday into the broken right ankle he sustained Saturday at Montana.

Delgardo’s absence will slow Portland State, but the Vikings are still held in high regard by Bob Burt, football coach at Cal State Northridge.

“They still have as much or more talent than anyone in the conference,” Burt said. “It depends on how they handle it mentally. They threw for almost 500 yards against Montana, so they’re obviously doing something right.”

Portland has played in the Division II championship game in each of the past two seasons.

Getting offensive: Portland State’s Darren Del’Andrae, a junior from Calabasas High, leads the Western Football Conference in passing with 827 yards in 10 quarters of action. With the loss of Delgardo, Del’Andrae likely will enhance his per-game average.

Another player Portland fans may be seeing more of is Glenn Vereen, a junior transfer from Antelope Valley College. Vereen, who gained 1,007 yards for AVC last season, may replace Delgardo at tailback. Vereen hasn’t seen much action in Portland’s first three games because of two reasons--the presence of Delgardo and the task of learning a new offense.

Questionable choice: Leo Biggs, a linebacker from Southern Utah State, was selected defensive player of the week in the WFC after making 14 tackles, including two sacks, against Idaho State.

The statistics are certainly impressive, but they make Biggs’ selection no less curious.

Southern Utah not only lost the game, 37-34, but also allowed 355 yards in offense. In the same press release that Biggs’ selection was announced, Jack Bishop, Southern Utah’s head coach, is quoted as saying, “Someday, we have to start playing better defense, but I don’t know if I’ll live long enough.”

Bombs away: In its two losses, Occidental has surrendered four touchdowns--all of them on passes of 26 yards or more.

Occidental has been handicapped by injuries to key players such as cornerback Ben White and safety Craig Hartley, but Tiger Coach Dale Widolff said that the problem has been lapses, not personnel.

“We’re playing pretty good pass defense,” said Widolff, whose team has three interceptions. “We’re getting good pressure. It’s just the inconsistency, We’ve broken down at critical times.”

Dearly departed: Muhammad Zaid, a redshirt freshman from Van Nuys High, has left the Valley College football team. Zaid had transferred to Valley from Grambling State.

Gaps to fill: There are only eight sophomores on the Antelope Valley College football team this season, leaving Coach Brent Carder understandably concerned about the Marauders’ inexperience.

But Carder’s worry has subsided recently because of the defensive play of Theron Egana and Dennis Bowker.

Egana and Bowker, both freshmen, rank first and third in tackles after two games. Egana, a 5-11, 205-pound linebacker, was involved in 18 tackles, including 11 that were unassisted, in last week’s 34-7 victory at Porterville. Bowker, a 5-9, 220-pound lineman, was in on 14 tackles and was selected the Marauders’ defensive player of the game for the second week in a row.

Egana’s 18 tackles rank him seventh in school history in the single-game category. He had 17 in the Marauder’s opener against El Camino.

Gary Klein and staff writers Mike Hiserman and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.