OCCIDENTAL : Veteran Team Looks Like a Title

They are teams of similar experience and, Coach Jeff Henderson hopes, similar destiny.

The Occidental College baseball team begins the 1990 season Saturday at Westmont with more veteran players than any Tiger club since 1982--the year Occidental won its last Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship.

Henderson, in his fifth season as Occidental’s coach, was a second baseman for the 1982 champions.

“We had a lot of four-year starters that year and this year we do too,” Henderson said. “There’s a camaraderie that develops with a group like that. They’ve been together a long time working hard toward a goal.

“The SCIAC title is a realistic goal for us this year.”

The Tigers have every player back from a team that finished 22-17 overall and 10-8 in the SCIAC last season. Among them are pitcher Dave Stoll and infielder Tom Bonetto, both of whom were selected first team all-conference.

Stoll, a 5-foot-11, 175-pound sophomore left-hander, was 8-3 with a 3.39 earned-run average as a freshman and led the conference with 82 strikeouts in 85 innings.

Bonetto, a senior who is a four-year starter, led the conference in batting last season with a .434 average and was selected second-team All-American. This season, he moves from second base to third to make way for junior Mark Dalton (.207)

Other veterans include junior shortstop Mark Harris (.370), sophomore first baseman Mike Bonetto (.354 and a conference-leading 10 home runs) and senior catcher Mike Knisely (.314). All three players were second-team all-conference selections in 1989.

“One of our goals in the off-season was to strengthen the pitching staff through recruiting,” Henderson said, “and I think we were successful.”

Rich Mather, a freshman right-hander from Corona del Mar, and junior right-hander Mark Teitelman, a transfer from Johns Hopkins, are expected to have the greatest impact. They join senior right-handers Rob Drew and Isidro Rodriguez and junior right-hander Jason Rusk.