THE COLLEGES : Antelope Valley Recruiters Tap Nevada’s Natural Resources

Although school officials probably would prefer otherwise, the Antelope Valley College basketball team is becoming known as UNAV because of its connections to Nevada Las Vegas and the state of Nevada in general.

The Marauders, ranked 15th in California and ninth in Southern California, are 11-3 under first-year Coach Newton Chelette, who prefers the same up-tempo style as Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebels.

Three players on the Marauder roster are from Las Vegas high schools and another player is redshirting.

Consider:

* Chelette, 39, was a Tarkanian assistant in 1987. A former assistant at McNeese State and head coach at Division I Southeastern Louisiana, Chelette coached at Santa Barbara Community College last season before taking over at Antelope Valley this season.

* Freshman guard Dedan Thomas, an all-state player at Taft High who signed a letter of intent with UNLV, enrolled at Antelope Valley after he failed to meet admission standards under Proposition 48.

* Sophomore guard Paul Ernst, who transferred from Santa Barbara to Antelope Valley this season, attended Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas--a two-time state champion.

* Freshman forward Paul Mantashigian also attended Bishop Gorman.

* Sophomore forward Stan Wilson attended Valley High in Las Vegas.

* Redshirt guard Bruce Schneider attended Basic High in Las Vegas.

Because Antelope Valley draws students primarily from only Palmdale, Antelope Valley and Quartz Hill high schools, the college is one of eight in California that legally can recruit out of state.

Chelette said that the UNAV label does not bother him.

“You have to take advantage of an area like Las Vegas where there are great athletes,” Chelette said. “It was just one of those things where I had a chance to see some of those kids a year ago. It was a natural.”

Making a point: In Cal State Northridge’s win over Point Loma on Tuesday, Lady Matador guard Joan Weinerth scored 18 points, 16 in the first half.

Weinerth, a freshman from Buena High in Ventura, was 10 of 10 from the free-throw line and had five steals in only her second start of the season.

Weinerth came into the game averaging six points.

Going bowling: Football coaches from the Western State Conference took every chance to boast about the strength of the 12 teams equally divided among the conference’s two divisions.

When half of the WSC’s teams were invited to postseason bowl games, it only heightened sentiment within the conference that it, indeed, was the toughest around.

Well, the WSC bullies limped away without a victory.

Moorpark, the Northern Division champion, dropped a 31-28 decision to Rancho Santiago in the Orange County Bowl. Bakersfield, the top team in the Southern Division (no geography majors in this conference), lost to Kern County rival Taft, 36-31, in the Potato Bowl. In the Hall of Fame Bowl, Ventura lost to Palomar, 21-20, and in the Southern California Bowl, L. A. Southwest lost to Desert, 17-3.

The only Western State Conferences teams that did not lose were Valley and Santa Barbara. They played each other to a 25-25 tie.

Doing swimmingly: The nucleus of squads that won three consecutive NCAA Division II women’s swimming championships are long gone but the Cal State Northridge swim machine keeps cranking out great teams. Tina Schnare, Jude Kylander and Stacy Mettam, who combined for more than a dozen individual national championships in the past three seasons, have completed their eligibility.

So the names have changed, but the results are still the same. At the Northridge Invitational last week, nine Lady Matadors qualified in 17 events for the Division II nationals March 7-10 at Notre Dame.

“Based on their performance . . . I think our women will have an excellent chance of winning their fourth consecutive national title,” said Pete Accardy, CSUN’s coach.

Senior Lisa Dial, junior Michelle Sulak and freshman Mara Morgan all qualified in three events. Juniors Toady Kimble and Carol Eisele made the standard in two events.

Northridge’s men’s team had six qualifiers in 10 events. Senior Ted Hollahan, junior Jack Pentlarge and sophomores John Kunishima and Joe Brosler each qualified in two events.

Off and running: Cal State Northridge freshman Erick McBride made his 800-meter debut at an all-comers track and field meet at CSUN last week, and while his winning time of 1 minute, 52.6 seconds was fast for December, it was short of the 1:50 clocking he sought.

McBride was hampered by two factors. First, the race was run 10 minutes ahead of schedule, which prevented him from warming up properly. Secondly, the first 400 meters was run in an overly ambitious 50 seconds.

Gary Klein and staff writers Mike Hiserman, John Ortega, Brendan Healey and Kirby Lee contributed to this notebook.