UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Whitworth Enjoys Playing With a Winner This Season

Yes, Ken Whitworth says, things are going pretty well. Definitely, things are going well.

The UC Irvine pitcher has started eight games this season and, with a 6-1 record, he already has won as many games as he did all last season, when he was 6-7.

He has been shaving a little bit off his earned-run average every time he takes the mound, whittling it to 2.64.

And the past three times he has pitched, starting with a game against No. 1-ranked USC, Whitworth hasn’t walked away until he had a complete-game victory.

Yes, this will do.

Whitworth gets his ninth start of the season today, on the road against Pepperdine.

Irvine’s baseball team is off to a 16-8 start, and has lost only two of its past 16 games, putting together a nine-game winning streak.

This is a team that finished 20-35-1 last year.

“I don’t think we played to our potential last year,” said Whitworth, who led the staff with a 3.54 ERA last season.

The Anteaters’ start, bolstered by an offense that has averaged more than seven runs a game and has scored in double figures nine times, has the players rethinking their prospects as they prepare for the Big West Conference season, which starts later this month.

“I see us finishing in the top half,” Whitworth said. “First or second, why not? I think we’re that good. We’ve played good teams in the preseason; it’s not like we’ve padded our schedule.”

The Anteaters’ biggest victory of the season came against USC at Dedeaux Field, although the Trojans did not play all their starters in that game.

“That was nice, beating them in their own yard,” said Whitworth, who pitched a five-hitter in the 3-2 victory.

The only trouble he had in that game was with the last hitter in the lineup, who hit a triple and a home run off him.

“If I could have gotten the No. 9 hitter out, I could have had a shutout,” said Whitworth, laughing.

Whitworth, a senior right-hander, is putting together his second strong year after fairly limited action his first two seasons. He underwent shoulder surgery in 1986, during what would have been his freshman season. He redshirted that year.

Somewhere around the middle of last season, things began to turn.

“Through the first half of last season, he was just doing OK,” said Robin Dreizler, Irvine’s pitching coach. “Midway through the season, something clicked and he hasn’t stopped since. He finally got in the position where he knew he was going to get to start consistently. He knew he was going to get the ball.”

Dreizler said Whitworth throws a hard breaking ball, a forkball with movement and a fastball with good control.

“If he has one problem, it’s changing speeds,” Dreizler said.

So far, he hasn’t had many problems this year.

If Irvine continues to play the way it has the past four weeks, Whitworth says it’s possible Irvine can make the NCAA playoffs, something the Anteaters have never done as a Division I school.

“We’ve got to be careful not to get complacent,” Whitworth said. “But I don’t think that will happen this year. We got stepped on a lot last year.”

Trivia: Who did UC Irvine’s women’s basketball team defeat in its 1-27 season?

Bill Mulligan finally has quit worrying about this basketball season, which ended with a 5-23 record.

“I think it’s kind of a relief,” he said. “I can get off those damn sleeping pills.”

Of course, now there is next season to worry about. Even though Irvine finished by winning three of its final six games with three freshmen in the lineup, the Anteaters have a ways to go.

“We need about four junior college players,” Mulligan said. “Not high school players, junior college players, you understand.”

The translation is that he needs immediate help, and lots of it.

Irvine signed one player during the fall, Gabe Higa, a 6-foot-6 forward from Quartz Hill High School.

But the strong finish with freshmen Dylan Rigdon, Jeff Von Lutzow and Craig Marshall was encouraging, as Mulligan noted after a victory at Utah State in the regular-season finale.

“Next year we’ll be fine,” he said. “We better be fine or they’re (the administration) going to start looking funny at me.”

Trivia Answer: Southern Utah State.

Dean Andrea, women’s basketball coach, is recruiting hard.

One player signed early with Irvine: Kari Rasmussen, a 6-3 high school forward from Glenco, Ore.

“We’re working,” Andrea said. “Obviously we need guards. We need them very badly, some point guards and some off-guards.”

Anteater Notes

Irvine’s 17th-ranked men’s volleyball team plays host to second-ranked UCLA at 7:30 tonight in Crawford Hall. Irvine lost to top-ranked Stanford Friday, 7-15, 10-15, 11-15. . . . Sophomore tennis player Aaron Stolpman sustained a broken right leg while running and is expected to miss the rest of the season. His record is 6-9 in singles and 13-4 in doubles. . . . Mike Morales broke his school record in the hammer throw last week with a distance of 212 feet. The previous mark was 209-1. Morales also won the shot put and finished second in the discus in the meet against UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.