COLLEGE BASKETBALL ‘89-90 : CAL STATE LONG BEACH WOMEN’S PREVIEW : 49ers Are Favored to Win the Big West Again

She has only one returning starter and seven new players, but Coach Joan Bonvicini of the Cal State Long Beach women’s basketball team is confident that the 49ers will have another outstanding year.

“We lost a lot from graduation, there’s no doubt about that,” said Bonvicini, in her 11th year as coach. “But each year that happens and we come back and do even better. . . . We just seem to keep going.”

The 49ers advanced to the Final Four in 1987 and 1988 and finished last season at 30-5 after losing to Tennessee in the NCAA East Regional final.

The team is heavily favored to finish atop the Big West Conference--in which it finished 18-0 the previous two seasons--for the fifth straight year, although steady Nevada Las Vegas, with the Jordan sisters, Pauline and Geannine, is always a threat.

In the last 10 years, Bonvicini’s teams have won at least 24 games each season. The 49ers have had the nation’s top offense--they averaged 89.3 points last season--for the last four years.

Having finished ranked seventh nationally last season, the 49ers are ranked anywhere from fifth to 14th in the various polls this season, despite the loss of guards Traci Waites and Penny Toler, two of the team’s top scorers.

“When you have Waites and Toler you’re guaranteed so many points a game,” Bonvicini said, adding that this year’s lineup will be quicker, taller and more balanced.

Notable off-season acquisitions include sophomore guard Trise Jackson, who was academically ineligible last year; and 6-2 forward-center Kari Parriott, who transferred from Oregon State, where she averaged 14.4 points and 8.3 rebounds in 1987-88.

Angelique Lee, 6-4 and the lone senior, will be the captain and play center. Lee averaged 8.6 points and 7.2 rebounds last season and will be counted on to improve those numbers with the absence of Waites and Toler.

Junior forward Penny Moore, who averaged 6.8 points last season, and junior guard Dana Wilkerson, who shot 52% from the field while averaging 9.7 points, are expected to get more playing time.

Three junior newcomers with fairly impressive credentials are forwards Renae Duffie and Vjera Kaludjerovich, an international recruit who played on the Yugoslavia national team, and guard Serina Strange.

Freshmen Tesia Green, Marsheela Harriston and Sherri Thormahlen--all termed excellent athletes by Bonvicini--will add to the team’s depth and overall speed.