THE COLLEGES : Phone Number So Easy It Was Child’s Play

Bill Kernen requested an easy-to-remember phone number when he moved to the San Fernando Valley from Illinois after being named baseball coach at Cal State Northridge in July, 1988.

His theory was that a coach who was scrambling late in the recruiting season for Division I-caliber players didn’t need to have prospects forgetting his number.

“I wanted something people wouldn’t have to write down to remember,” said Kernen, whose team begins its season Tuesday against top-ranked USC.

Given a listing that featured six consecutive nines and a different last digit, Kernen’s phone did, indeed, ring off the hook. Unfortunately, mixed in with the calls from prospects and coaches were others from children--Matador recruits for 2005?--practicing their technique on the telephone touch-pad.

“I thought it was going to be pretty clever and it turned out to be a nightmare,” said Kernen, who recently changed his number. “We got five or six calls a day from gurgling children in the area. It was unbelievable.

“Our answering machine would take a half-hour to listen to because there were always two or three of those calls.

“Anybody that says parents aren’t having babies anymore ought to get that number. They’ll find there’s plenty of kids out there.”

Positive decline: His average has dropped from 20.3 points a game to 19.4. His rebounding has gone from 8.8 to 8.1. And after leading the team in scoring in 12 of the first 13 games, teammate Kendell McDaniels has outscored him in two of the past three.

But you won’t find Derrick Gathers complaining.

Not as long as the Cal State Northridge basketball team continues to win.

Northridge has won five in a row and Gathers says there is a direct correlation between the win streak and his scoring decline.

“We’ve got more guys involved in the offense now,” Gathers said. “And that’s made things easier for me. There’s not as much pressure on me to score, and when I feel less pressure, I play better.”

Northridge’s reserves--led by freshman guard Bill Mazurie--have played a major role in the Matadors’ streak.

After accounting for 23.6% of Northridge’s scoring in the first 12 games, the Matador bench has scored 41.5% of the team’s points in the past five games.

Over the hump: After losing to Grand Canyon College, 81-80, in overtime last week, The Master’s basketball Coach Mel Hankinson said that his team needed to learn how to play to win instead of playing not to lose.

Based on their come-from-behind victory over Biola in an NAIA District 3 game Tuesday, the Mustangs are fast learners.

Trailing by 17 points with 7 minutes 30 seconds left, Master’s went on a 31-11 run to win, 76-73.

Full-court man-to-man and zone press defenses forced numerous turnovers during the stretch that led to easy Master’s baskets.

“They handled the press real well for the first 32 minutes,” Hankinson said of Biola, “but then they just broke down and we took advantage of it.”

The win was the Mustangs’ second in a row over Biola, which had beaten Master’s in 40 of 43 games before this season.

It was the first time Master’s had won at Biola since the 1970-71 season.

Down but not out: Glendale College was impressive in winning its own basketball tournament in December but has hovered around the .500 mark since Western State Conference play began in January.

The reason can be summed up in a word: injuries.

Starting forward Justin Lord injured an ankle last Saturday against Moorpark, missed the Oxnard game and might not be ready by Wednesday. Dave Swanson, the other starting forward, suffered a nasty gash on the cheek a week ago against Bakersfield, and the team has battled a rash of other nagging injuries as well as a flu bug that swept through the lineup.

“We’re just not progressing as a result of all the detours,” said Coach Brian Beauchemin, who will give his team a day off from practice today. “We’ve got to play through whatever our problems are and get after it.”

Muddy waters: The Northridge men’s swim team came into last week’s dual meet with Cal State Bakersfield feeling a little bit sore, which was to be expected. After all, the Matadors were training through the meet and didn’t expect to be at their sharpest.

However, swimming had little to do with some of the aches CSUN swimmers were feeling. A game of mud football--played unbeknown to Coach Pete Accardy--two days before the meet didn’t help matters.

“When you’re in top swimming shape, you’re very, very sore to begin with,” Accardy said. “But when you’re doing land exercises you’re compounding the problem, because you’re using completely different muscles. They were so sore that they could barely walk.”

Bakersfield, the four-time defending NCAA Division II and five-time California Collegiate Athletic Assn. champion, won the meet, 178-56, taking 11 of the 13 events.

“Going into the meet, I knew there was no way we could have won,” Accardy said, “but it should have been closer, a lot closer.”

Doing swimmingly: The Northridge women’s swim team, three-time defending national champion, narrowly defeated Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 109-105, in a dual meet Saturday.

Despite the Lady Matadors’ No. 1 ranking, Accardy didn’t expect to win. “I was surprised,” he said. “They should win the conference meet,” Accardy said of the Mustangs, who are ranked fifth nationally, “but we should have a chance at the national title.”

Northridge (9-1), usually trains through the conference meet (Feb. 15-18 this year) and concentrates its efforts on the nationals, which will be held March 7-10 at State University of New York, Buffalo.

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