COLLEGE DIVISION : Even Coach Surprised at National Volleyball Title for CS Bakersfield

David Rubio said that when he was named women’s volleyball coach at Cal State Bakersfield three years ago, he was simply hoping to be competitive with national-caliber teams by this season.

In his wildest dreams, Rubio admitted, he could have never envisioned that his team would win its first NCAA Division II championship.

The Roadrunners won the title Saturday, beating top-ranked Cal State Sacramento in three consecutive games in Bakersfield.

“The year before I came here, the team had won only one game in conference, and when I got here I set myself a goal of wanting to compete for a national title,” Rubio said. “But this, by far, surpasses all of those goals.”

The Roadrunners finished the regular season only 17-15 and in fourth place in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.

The team didn’t have the best record in postseason play.

Bakersfield, ninth in the final Division II poll, had never advanced beyond the Division II regionals and had lost to UC Riverside in regional play the previous season.

“All year long, from an athletic standpoint, I knew we had the talent to win,” he said. “Even last year, after we lost to Riverside in the regional, I knew we had the talent to win the title. But we know that it takes more than athletes to win a title.”

Rubio said it did not disturb him when the team did not get off to a fast start in the regular season.

“We had a master plan at the start of the season,” he said. “We knew that we had to be peaking at the end of the season.”

But Bakersfield appeared to have peaked after dropping its final regular-season match to conference champion Riverside.

Rubio called a team meeting.

“We had lost to Riverside and we just were not very competitive . . . and it was disappointing,” he said. “The next day we knew we’d be in the playoffs and we had a team meeting and decided what direction we wanted to head.

“We still knew we could win a national championship. We just went out after that meeting and it was very positive.”

Bakersfield wasn’t expected to last past its first match Dec. 1 against Northridge, a perennial Division II power. But the Roadrunners’ prospects improved significantly when they were selected to play host to the regional playoff.

“We had beaten them up here earlier in the season, and we felt like we could beat them (again),” Rubio said.

Rubio, a former player and volunteer assistant coach at Northridge, watched his team defeat the Matadors in three games to advance to the Division II Elite Eight championship tournament.

Even though Bakersfield had the worst record of any team in the Division II playoffs, the school was chosen to the tournament.

“In the NCAA Division II, it doesn’t matter what the school’s record is,” Rubio said. “It goes down to dollars and cents. Our choice was by far the most economical (for the NCAA) of any of the schools.”

He said playing at home was an important factor in the team’s success.

“One of the nice things about being the home team is you can go through your regular routine and prepare as you normally would for a home game,” Rubio said. “When we played West Texas State (in the quarterfinals), we were very nervous before we started and our home crowd just lit us up.”

The Roadrunners defeated West Texas State and Florida Southern to advance to the championship against Cal State Sacramento. Sacramento, which went into the game with a 40-4 record, had defeated Bakersfield twice in the regular season, and Rubio said his team was eager to face the Hornets in the final.

Bakersfield fell behind, 7-0, in the first game before taking control. The Roadrunners won in three games, 15-10, 15-1 and 15-13.

The Roadrunners were led most of the season by middle blockers Valerie Cowan and Rachel Morton and setter Tami Jurgensen. But Rubio said it was probably the improvement of his three other starters--left-side hitters Michelle Richard and Evelyn Sefuiva and right-side hitter Kim Fairchild--that transformed the team into a Division II champion.

Perhaps the biggest surprise early in the women’s basketball season has been the success of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Under second-year coach Van Girard, the Toros have a 7-2 record. That’s already more victories than they had all last season, when they finished 6-19.

Girard had coached a winning program at Lynwood High before arriving at Dominguez Hills. He coached Lynwood to the Southern Section 4-A title in 1986.

After watching the Toros struggle in his first season, Girard added five high school recruits to this season’s squad. Five of the team’s nine players are freshmen, and three of them are starters.

Leading has been 6-1 center Yvonne Vanlandingham, who averages 12.7 points and 8.5 rebounds. Other freshman starters are point guard Allison Krause and forward Denise Slater.

So far, the only one-sided defeat was a 64-43 setback against West Texas State--an NCAA Division II power--in November. The team will be tested when it opens California Collegiate Athletic Assn. play Jan. 12 at Cal Poly Pomona, which has won or shared all eight conference titles.

College Division Notes

An era ended at Cal Lutheran when longtime coach Bob Shoup was fired as football coach last week. Shoup, the school’s only head coach, coached the Kingsmen for 28 years--fourth longest among active college coaches--and had a 185-88-6 record and 13 National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3 titles. He also coached the school to its only NAIA title in 1971. The team was 3-7 this season and had not had a winning season since 1985.

The UC Riverside women’s volleyball team, which won the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. title and reached the NCAA Division II Elite Eight tournament last week, has put outside hitter Sheri Benson, middle blocker Jill Daniels and setter Regina Carbajal on the Division II All-American first team, selected by coaches. Middle blocker Kathleen Dixon of Cal State Northridge also made the first team, and middle blockers Valerie Cowan and Rachel Morton of Cal State Bakersfield were named to the second team.

Defensive tackle Robert Morris of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has been named a College Division I Kodak All-American by the American Football Coaches Assn. The 6-foot-5, 270-pound junior, a transfer from Boise State, had earlier been named Western Football Conference defensive player of the year . . . Paul Gabriel of Cal Poly Pomona, who was 114-91 in six years as coach of the women’s volleyball team (16-18 this season), has resigned.