SPORTSCOPE : Powerful Bruin Men’s and Women’s Track Teams to Challenge USC Speedsters

The UCLA men’s and women’s track teams, each sporting long unbeaten streaks in dual meets, will face USC in a double-dual meet on Saturday at the Coliseum.

Men’s and women’s field events will start at 11 a.m., the first men’s run at 1 p.m. and the first women’s race at 1:15. The hammer throw will begin at 10 a.m. at West Los Angeles College.

The Trojan men lead the series, 38-18, but the Bruins, whose dual-meet record in the last five-plus years is 45-0-1, have won the last 11 meets. The UCLA women, 18-0 in a span of more than three seasons, have beaten USC in four of six meets, including the last two.

Last week the Bruin men, missing a raft of key performers because of injuries, were led at the Mount San Antonio College Relays by senior John Knight, senior Pete Thompson and junior Jay Borick. Knight finished third in the invitational hammer with a career-best 214 feet, 5 inches. In open events, Thompson was second in the discus at 182-3 and Borick was third in the pole vault at 16-10 3/4.

Steve Lewis, who won gold medals at the 1988 Olympics in the 400-meter run and in the 1,600 relay, is one of several injured Bruins. He has been out the last four weeks with a recurrence of a hamstring injury that kept him out of last year’s NCAA outdoor championships. He may return in a couple of weeks.

The Bruin women are led by junior Tracie Millett, who won the NCAA indoor shot-put championship in March with a toss of 51-11, and sophomore Janeene Vickers, winner of the 1989 NCAA outdoor title in the 400-meter hurdles.

The Santa Monica College men’s and women’s track teams are competing in the Western State Conference championships at Bakersfield College. The finals will be held Friday.

At last week’s Mount San Antonio College Relays, the SMC men’s 4-by-400-meter relay team of Marlon Singleton, Aaron Echols, Dido Tshimunga and Sidney Morris won their race in 3:19.30, and the 4-by-100 relay team of Singleton, Echols, Keith Pouncey and Adelbert Baylis took a second in 42.22. Dennis Wildy ran a season-best 4:02.20 for 1,500 meters, finishing second.

The Santa Monica College men’s and women’s swim teams will compete today through Saturday in the Western State Conference championships at Los Angeles Valley College.

Last week both teams defeated Ventura, the men by a 49-44 score and the women, 69-57.

Against Ventura, Cecilia Henricksen was a triple winner in the 50- and 100-meter butterfly races and in the 200 individual medley and swam a leg for the winning 200 medley relay team. Jeannie Chick was a double winner in the 100 and 200 freestyle events. Double winners for the SMC men were Greg Behar in the 200 IM and 200 backstroke and Chris Hall in the 1,000 and 500 freestyles, and Chris Brainard swam a career-best 1:49 to win the 200 freestyle.

The top-ranked UCLA women’s softball team (46-5 overall and 13-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference as the week began) will play host to Sacramento State in a nonconference double-header at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Sunset Canyon diamond on campus.

The Bruins are led by sophomore outfielder Yvonne Gutierrez, who entered the week with a .371 batting average and 49 hits.

The No. 23 Pepperdine baseball team (28-16 overall and 16-7 in the West Coast Conference at the start of the week) will play host to St. Mary’s (26-18, 14-12) in a four-game series this weekend.

The series will include a game at 2 p.m. Friday, a double-header at 11 a.m. Saturday and a game at 1 p.m. Sunday at Eddy D. Field Stadium.

Senior Britt Craven with a 9-2 record and freshman Steve Duda at 9-1 lead the Wave pitching staff. Junior right fielder Jalal Leach is batting a team-high .378 with three home runs and 25 runs batted in, and senior shortstop Chris Martin is hitting .372 with 11 home runs, 15 doubles, 52 RBIs and 22 stolen bases.

The Santa Monica College baseball team (20-21 overall, 7-10 in the WSC) will play host to Oxnard at 2 p.m. today and end the regular season at Cuesta at 1 p.m. Saturday.

As the week began SMC pitcher Mark Graham had a 2.00 earned-run average, good for third place in the league in 16 conference games, and teammate Kenny Woods was batting .485.

The Santa Monica College women’s softball team (12-17 overall, 6-5 in the WSC) will play host to Moorpark at 3:30 p.m. Friday and finish the regular season at Ventura at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Last week the Corsairs played eight games in seven days. They won three of five games at the Cerritos tournament but lost to the host school, 11-0, in the final. SMC also won conference games from College of the Canyons and Los Angeles Valley and lost a nonconference game to Long Beach City.

The UCLA men’s and women’s crews will race Saturday on Ballona Creek in Marina del Rey.

The men will play host to USC, but the Bruin varsity and freshman eights will not compete. The UCLA novices will row against the Trojan freshman at 1:30 p.m., and the Bruin junior varsity will race the USC varsity at 1:45.

The UCLA women will be hosts for the annual Miller Cup. The first race begins at about 10 a.m. Other crews include USC, Cal State Long Beach, Loyola Marymount, UC San Diego, San Diego State and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Last week the UCLA men’s varsity and freshman boats each finished second at the Potomac International Regatta. The varsity finished behind defending national champion Harvard, and the freshman lost narrowly to Wisconsin.

The Bruin women’s varsity was edged by Princeton in the final of the Stanford regatta.

The No. 2 UCLA women’s tennis team (21-6, 4-5 in the Pac-10) will compete today through Sunday in the Pac-10 championships at Ojai.

Last week the Bruins lost to top-ranked Stanford, 8-0, and to No. 5 California, 5-4. UCLA junior Stella Sampras has broken out of aslump by winning five of her last six singles matches.

The No. 3 Pepperdine men’s tennis team (22-3 at the start of the week) will play host to the University of San Diego at 1:30 p.m. Friday and to Chapman College at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Last week San Diego won the team championship in the West Coast Conference tournament, but Pepperdine freshman Alejo Mancisidor won the singles title, defeating defending champion Jose-Luis Noriega of San Diego in the semifinals and USD’s Dan Mattera in the final. Pepperdine’s Kevin O’Neill and Tomer Zimmerman lost in the doubles final to Noriega-J. R. Edwards.

The No. 18 Pepperdine women’s tennis team clinched at least a tie with San Diego for the West Coast Conference team title. The Waves lead the Toreros, 81-78, and can win the title if Ginger Helgeson defeats San Diego’s Sakolwan Kacharoen of San Diego in the singles final at an undetermined date.

Four women and three men from the Santa Monica College tennis teams will compete today through Sunday at the annual Ojai tournament. Playing singles will be Melinda Phillips, Jackie Baker, Mike Dismukes, Jose Sola and Joachim Weibull, and the team of Rosa Alvarez and Jane Kwon will play doubles.

The No. 9 UCLA women’s golf team, led by fourth-ranked Jean Zedlitz, will compete Friday through Sunday in the Pac-10 championships at Stanford. USC won last year’s conference tournament and UCLA was fifth.

The Santa Monica College men’s volleyball team (11-8 in the South Coast Conference at the start of the week) will end its season at 7 p.m. Friday at Palomar.

UCLA gymnasts Jill Andrews, Carol Ulrich and Paula Rasmussen were outstanding last weekend as the Bruins finished fourth in the NCAA championships, behind first-place Utah.

Andrews, a senior, and Ulrich, a freshman, tied for fifth in the all-around, each with career-best scores of 38.95. Andrews tied for third in the vault at 9.825 and Ulrich was second on the balance beam at 9.825. Rasmussen, a freshman, had career-best marks of 9.5 in floor exercise, 9.375 in the vault, 9.625 on bars and 9.625 on the beam and finished 23rd in the all-around among 49 competitors.

The Santa Monica Judo Team, including boys and girls from the Santa Monica YMCA and the Boys Club of Santa Monica, finished second at the Nevada “Silver State” championships, according to Coach Jim Nieto.

Amanda Nieto, the coach’s daughter won titles in both the 8 and younger middleweight and the eight-year-old heavyweight divisions. Other girls who took firsts were Jeannee Stoddard, 9-10 middleweight, and Tiffany Reyna, 13-14 middleweight. Marc Kompayenets was first in the 15-16, 143-pound division.

Heidi Seibold took second in the 15-16 heavyweight girls division, while David Reyna was second in the 15-16, 143-pound division and Eugene Song was second among lightweight boys age 8.

Finishing third in boys divisions were Abelardo Gil, 9-10 middleweight; Kurtis Berger, 11-12 middleweights, and Whitney Seibold, 11-12 heavyweights.