SPORTSCOPE : Bruin Gymnasts to Open Season With Dual Meet

The UCLA women’s gymnastics team, which finished second at last year’s NCAA meet, will open its season when it plays host to UC Santa Barbara and Minnesota at 7 p.m. Friday at John Wooden Center.

Among returning UCLA stars are seniors Kim Hamilton and Jill Andrews. Hamilton set a national record last year by winning her third straight NCAA championship in floor exercise. Andrews, the 1989 NCAA champion in the beam, also was second in the vault and fourth in the all-around at last year’s NCAA meet.

UCLA’s top freshman is Rhonda Faehn, an alternate on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team.

Ranked sixth in the state by the JC Athletic Bureau, the Santa Monica College men’s basketball team (18-3 overall and 2-0 in the Western State Conference as the week began) will play West Los Angeles (8-9, 1-1) at 7 p.m. Friday at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Culver City.

SMC opened conference play by defeating Bakersfield, 94-84, and squeaking by Glendale, 75-74. The Oilers began WSC play with an 85-81 loss to Glendale and bounced back to edge College of the Canyons, 89-88.

A tip-in basket by Mark Moton with eight seconds left gave SMC the win over Glendale. Corsairs who scored in double figures were Donald Smith and Chris Cook with 17 points apiece, Moton with 14, Cornelius Banks with 13 and Dana Harris with 10.

Against Bakersfield, Smith had a game-high 24 points, Moton had 15 points and nine rebounds, Harris 12 points, Banks and Cook 11 points each and Marcus Williams nine.

WLAC’s Anthony Gates, the leading rebounder and second-leading scorer in the conference, had 20 points and 11 rebounds, Booker Waugh had 16 points, and David Hollaway added 13 points and six assists in the loss to Glendale. Gates is averaging 19.5 points and 11.1 rebounds.

Hollaway scored a season-high 34 points against Canyons, Gates had 14 points and 11 rebounds, and WLAC also got 10 points each from Eugene Miller, Maurice McKinzy and Tony Middleton.

On Wednesday, SMC will be at College of the Canyons at 7 p.m. and WLAC at Los Angeles Valley at 7.

The Santa Monica College women’s basketball team, ranked 19th in the state by the JC Athletic Bureau, will play a Western State Conference game at 5 p.m. Saturday at Pierce (8-9, 1-1 as the week began).

The Corsairs (15-3 overall, 2-0 in the WSC at the start of the week) posted conference wins last week over Bakersfield, 68-57, and Glendale, 71-28.

Jackie Nikzad led SMC with 22 points against Bakersfield and Illana Mazingo added 17. Nikzad scored 21--on a school-record seven three-point shots--against Glendale, CoCo Jones had 16, Judy Nakashima 13 and Crystal Nettles 10.

The Pepperdine women’s basketball team (9-5) will begin its West Coast Conference schedule when it plays host to the University of San Diego (10-3) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and to Santa Clara (4-8) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Firestone Fieldhouse.

The Waves have won six of their last eight games. Shannon Frowiss leads Pepperdine with averages of 15.3 points and 8.1 rebounds. Others averaging double figures in scoring are Sherri Murrell, 13.4, Sharon Wilson and Dionne Burgess, each 10.6, and Kristy Greenberg, 10.5.

Murrell scored a career-high 25 in a 107-84 victory over Valparaiso last week.

The UCLA women’s basketball team (6-5 overall, 1-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference) will play tonight at Arizona State (8-4, 0-1) and Saturday night at Arizona (7-6, 0-2).

Last week the Bruins defeated Pepperdine, 76-63, and opened conference play with an 83-68 victory over USC.

Against Pepperdine, Elaine Youngs scored 24 points in only her second game with the basketball team this season. Youngs joined the cagers after finishing the season in volleyball, in which she was named an All-American.

In the USC game, Rehema Stephens led the Bruins with 20 points, Nicole Anderson had 18, Sandra VanEmbricqs,14, and DeDe Mosman 13. Anderson’s point total was a career-high, as were her seven assists and five rebounds.

The UCLA men’s swim team, 2-1 in dual meets after last week’s 79-34 defeat of Nebraska, will play host to Cal State Bakersfield, four-time defending NCAA Division II champion, at 2 p.m. Friday at the UCLA men’s gymnasium pool.

Against the Cornhuskers, senior All-American Rodrigo Gonzalez qualified for the NCAA championships with a 1:49.62 in the 200-meter individual medley, and sophomore All-American Andrea Cecchi set a UCLA men’s gym record with a 2:01.91 in the 200 breast-stroke.

Gonzalez also won the 100 freestyle in 46.02, junior Terry Harvego was a double winner in the 1,000 and 500 freestyles, and sophomore All-American Byron Davis won the 50 free in a season-best 20.89.

The Pepperdine men’s volleyball team, ranked sixth before the season by Volleyball Monthly, will play host to the Israeli national team in an exhibition match at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Firestone Fieldhouse.

The Waves (16-14 last season) will open the season at home with a Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. match against UC Irvine at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Pepperdine has four returning starters, all juniors: Dijon Douphner, Geoff Hart, Brian Merrick and George Thompson. Others back are seniors Tom Parr, Jamie Smith and Chuck Williams.

Freshmen include scholarship players Duane Cameron, David Martin, Greg Shankle and Tom Sorenson and walk-on players Nick Kormeluk, Lee Legrande and Chad Weiss.

Pepperdine Coach Marv Dunphy said his team is “inexperienced--tall and thin--but capable of playing well as a team.

“I anticipate the league will be as competitive as ever this season because a number of teams return several quality starters. . . . It is too early to tell if Pepperdine will be among the top contenders, but, if this group works hard each day, we have the personnel to be a formidable squad.”

Brigham Young has joined the conference, which will be split into two divisions, each of six teams. The Waves will play in the DeGroot Division with BYU, Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. The Wilson Division includes Cal State Long Beach, Loyola Marymount, Hawaii, San Diego State, Stanford and USC. Teams will play two matches with each team in their division and one each against squads in the other division.

The UCLA men’s and women’s tennis teams will be among top college squads in the Vivitar National Collegiate Tennis tournament, which begins Friday and ends Sunday at Shadow Mountain Resort and Racquet Club in Palm Desert.

In an exhibition doubles match at 2 p.m. today, Billy Jean King and Rosie Casals will play the nation’s first- and second-ranked college singles players, Sandra Birch of Stanford and UCLA’s Jessica Emmons.

Anton Nistl Jr., a senior on the UCLA men’s soccer team last season, was named college Goalkeeper of the Year by adidas Inc. Nistl set a school record with 16 shutouts last season. In his career, he had 41 shutouts and 281 saves.

University High School half-miler Kamau Lawson, Venice High miler Danny Jordan and the Beverly Hills High boys two-mile relay team will compete in the high school portion of the Sunkist Invitational on Jan. 19 at the Sports Arena. Prep events start at 4:30 p.m.