JC NOTES : El Camino Women Challenge for State Volleyball Crown

Glendora isn’t exactly a volleyball hotbed, but junior colleges’ top women will be there Saturday battling for a state title.

And in the eight-team field at Citrus College is El Camino, which cruised through its Southern California regional final at home on Tuesday.

The Warriors, ranked ninth in the state by the JC Athletic Bureau, defeated L.A. Pierce, 15-12, 15-3, 15-5, to earn one of the South’s four spots in the state tournament. Cuesta, Grossmont and Cerritos are the others.

“We didn’t expect to beat them in three,” said El Camino assistant Coach Terry Liegey. “We hadn’t played in two weeks and we expected to be a little rougher, but we played really smooth.”

While the folks at El Camino are excited, going all the way is nothing new for the women’s volleyball program. In 1984, under longtime Coach Sharky Zartman, the Warriors went undefeated and won the state title with a victory over College of the Sequoias in the final.

This season, under third-year Coach Mary McLaughlin, El Camino compiled a 14-1 record and won the South Coast Conference title with a 9-1 mark in the 11-member league. The Warriors’ only loss was to Cerritos, which is ranked fourth in the state.

Consistently strong performances by sophomore setters Cynthia Rutherford and Joanne Clemente have carried the Warriors all season.

“They’re the core of the team,” said Liegey, a member of El Camino’s 1984 championship team. “They’ve really set the tempo with the fast plays.”

Rutherford, a product of Torrance High, has 259 assists and 69 kills for the season. Clemente (Bishop Montgomery) has 258 assists and 67 kills. Each had 28 assists against Pierce.

Middle blocker Lisa Wenker and outside hitter Julie Glenn have had outstanding performances. Wenker, a sophomore from Redondo High, has 121 kills and 49 blocks. Glenn, a sophomore from Mira Costa, made 72 kills and 21 blocks.

The Warriors will play sixth-ranked Santa Rosa, the Camino Norte Conference champion, in the first round at 9:30 a.m.

Tom Hazell was wrong and now he’s glad. The El Camino wrestling coach predicted a mediocre season for his inexperienced team, but it turns out the Warriors placed second in the six-member SCC. On Saturday they’ll compete in the Southern California regionals at Rancho Santiago College in Orange County.

El Camino’s top seeds are sophomore Kyle Onaga (118-pound division), freshman Mike Ramirez of West Torrance High (177 pounds), Ben Rice (190 pounds) and heavyweight Robert Avila.

Ramirez is ranked second in the state in his division and Avila third. Onaga is top-rated in the SCC and Rice is second.

The top three finishers in each division will go to the state meet next week at Fresno. Hazell expects six of his athletes to qualify.

El Camino’s football team was a favorite among Mission Conference coaches who picked all-league players last week. The Warriors dominated the 16-member all-star team with 13 first-team and nine second-team selections.

The undefeated Warriors (10-0) also had the leagues’ offensive and defensive most valuable players. Sophomore quarterback Frank Dolce earned the honor for completing 60% of his passes--186 of 309 for 2,494 yards and 23 touchdowns--and sophomore defensive end Jeff Cummins (6-6, 245 pounds) for making 61 tackles, eight quarterback sacks, 10 deflections and one interception.

Also selected to the offensive first team were tackle Derrick Deese (6-5, 265), center Ishmal Peralta (6-1, 245), tight end Marlon McBride, wide receiver Khevin Pratt and place-kicker Louis Perez, who leads the conference in kick scoring (38 of 40 points after touchdowns and 11 of 15 field goals for a total of 71 points).

The first team defensive selections are linemen Eric Marrero (6-4, 275) and Tracy Gentry (6-4, 220), linebacker Gregory Franklin (6-0, 210) and backs Niu Sale, Anthony Anetema and Tony Church. Sale was also selected as a kick returner. The sophomore was third in the conference in punt returns with an average of 13 yards.

Named to the second team for offense were guard Robert Reid, running backs Al Savea and Al Lowe and wide receiver David Blakes. Defensive second-team players are linemen Elgin Lofton and Randy Strickland, linebackers Marc DeRossett and Ed Togia and back Ken Franklin.

JC Grid-Wire named Dolce, Cummins and Sale All-Americans.

L.A. Southwest defensive end Chris Mims (6-6, 240), a transfer from L.A. Pierce, was also named to the first team.

El Camino’s Marrero and Deese, L.A. Harbor defensive lineman Kevin Johnson and Southwest defensive back Lorenzo Dickson were honorable mentions.

The JC Athletic Bureau’s all-time national community college quarterback list includes two former El Camino stars, which is no surprise since the Warriors have had five All-American quarterbacks in the 1980s.

Tim Green is in third place for 443 single-season pass attempts in 1982, and Larry Eggar is fourth with 231 completions in 1984.

Green, who played at Aviation High, went on to USC where he was a Rose Bowl star in his senior year. Eggar, also from Aviation, played at Utah.

Ahead of Eggar on the all-time list are Scott Barrick and Duffy Daugherty of Palomar and Matt Booher (Inver Hills, Minn.) with 248, 233 and 232 completions.

Darren Kelderman (Iowa Lakes) and Barrick are ahead of Green in single-season attempts. Kelderman had 452 in 1984 and Barrick 449 this season.

More than half of the teams ranked in the nation’s top 25 by JC Grid-Wire are from California, and all are bowl-bound Saturday.

El Camino (tied for first place with Navarro, Tex.) will play No. 3 Riverside in the Orange County Bowl, No. 5 Taft will face No. 14 Bakersfield in the Potato Bowl and No. 11 Rancho Santiago will play No. 13 Moorpark in the first game of the Orange County Bowl.

The Northern California matchups include No. 8 Diablo Valley against No. 16 College of the Sequoias in the Sequoias Bowl, No. 19 Sacramento against No. 20 Chabot in the Bay Bowl, No. 22 American River against unranked San Jose in the San Jose Bowl and No. 24 Hartnell against No. 25 Butte in the Santa Cruz Bowl.

Harbor’s football team finished at the bottom of the Western State Conference Northern Division, but the Seahawks, unbelievably, weren’t the worst team in the 12-member conference.

West L.A., where Coach Dick Jones resigned this week, finished with a horrible 0-10 mark and Compton finished at 1-9. At least the Seahawks (3-7) improved over last year’s 1-10 mark with victories over Victor Valley, West L.A. and Ventura.

A heartbreaker for the El Camino men’s soccer team: The Warriors were eliminated from the state playoffs last week, 3-2, by Cuyamaca of San Diego in the quarterfinals.

El Camino won the South Coast Conference title with a 10-1-1 mark in the five-member league. The Warriors, led by sophomore Raul Haro, the SCC Most Valuable Player, finished with a 17-3-1 overall record. Coach Norm Jackson was named conference Coach of the Year.

Carl Courtney, Miguel Hernandez and Jose Perez were named to the SCC first team and Raman Bridwell, Mike Copeland and Al Kindsey to the second team.