THE COLLEGES : Glendale’s Moore Honors Late Teammate With Stirring Run

Glendale College athletes wore black armbands in last Friday’s Western State Conference track and field championships in honor of their late teammate, Pablo Herrera, who died in an automobile accident three weeks ago.

James Moore, a close friend of Herrera’s, dedicated his 10,000-meter race in Herrera’s memory.

And then he delivered.

Moore swept past Juan Romero of Bakersfield in the final 200 meters to win in 31 minutes 36.0 seconds, almost a minute faster than his previous best.

“We used to do our homework together and we used to stay in the same rooms when we traveled,” Moore said of Herrera. “He was probably my closest friend on the team. (The 10,000) was his race and he should have been here. I wanted to win it for him.”

Moore also placed second in the 5,000-meter run.

All track, no field: Glendale was dominant in the middle-distance races in the WSC championships, picking up 41 of its 148 points in the 800 and 1,500 meters.

Rick Provenzano won the 1,500 (3:59.20), one of four Glendale runners placing among the top seven. Nick Lugo (1:56.73) and Derrick Mitchell (1:56.93) placed first and second in the 800.

“I was happy with the way we ran on the track, but Bakersfield was too strong in the field events,” Glendale Coach Tom McMurray said.

Bakersfield outscored Glendale, 114 1/2-19, in the field events to win its second consecutive WSC title. The Renegades scored 224 points.

Doubly effective: With seven games left in the regular season, Craig Clayton of Cal State Northridge is one double shy of becoming only the fifth Matador player to have at least 80 hits and 20 doubles in a season.

The sophomore from Anaheim Loara High is batting .419 with 83 hits and 19 doubles after Saturday’s 7-6 victory over UC Riverside.

Rondal Rollin (105 hits and 22 doubles in 1980), Dave Govea (91 and 30 in ‘82), Jim Vatcher (87 and 20 in ‘87), and Lenn Gilmore (84 and 22 in ‘87) are members of Northridge’s 80-20 club.

Clayton already is the only CSUN player to bat better than .400 and lead California Collegiate Athletic Assn. pitchers in victories. He has 11.

Irish stew: The Western State Conference, despite canceling its Shaughnessy baseball tournament this spring after three teams tied for first place, will retain the current format for two more seasons, conference coaches decided at a meeting Monday.

The Shaughnessy tournament has come under fire from some coaches who believe it occasionally keeps the conference’s best teams out of the state tournament.

However, the conference’s lower-division teams like the idea of having a five-team postseason tournament. It gives the also-rans a goal and, indeed, nearly every team in the conference was in contention entering the final week of play.

Aye for contact: A survey of Division II football coaches shows, predictably, that an overwhelming majority is opposed to the no-contact rule for Division II that was implemented this spring.

The coaches were opposed, 93-4, to the current guidelines, which limit spring drills to 12 practices of two hours in duration with no contact. They voted, 91-6, in favor of adopting the Division I rule, which goes into effect next season and allows contact in 10 of the 15 practices.

The survey, conducted by the Division II coaches’ committee, was sent to all 116 schools that played football at the Division II level last fall.

Division II university presidents voted the no-contact rule into effect at the NCAA meetings in January as a cost-cutting measure. It was hoped that the cost of insurance premiums would be reduced because there would be less threat of injuries.

Among the coaches who responded to the survey, 72 predicted that more injuries would take place without contact because some players might ease up during drills while others were still going all out.

“It was not good legislation,” said Bob Hiegert, athletic director at Cal State Northridge. “I know it wasn’t in the best interest of our program.”

While many Division II teams will open the fall season against opponents who have practiced under similar restrictions, Northridge will play at Northern Arizona, a Division I-AA school from the Big Sky Conference.

Rough return: This has been a disappointing season for the returning NCAA Division II All-Americans on Cal State Northridge’s women’s track and field team.

Six of The Lady Matadors’ seven All-Americans in 1989 were underclassmen, but only one (Lolita Pile in the long jump and triple jump) has automatically qualified for the Division II meet in Hampton, Va., May 24-26.

Darcy Arreola, two-time defending Division II 3,000-meter champion, is redshirting this season, but the rest of the Lady Matador returnees have failed to qualify for a variety of reasons.

Mary Coleman, eighth in the 400 in 1989, has missed the season because of pregnancy.

Gena Jauregui, sixth in the 1,500, has been unable to run because of thyroid-gland problems.

Laural Isles (runner-up in the 100) and Lisa Gill (fourth in the heptathlon) have each been slowed by injuries, although Isles has qualified for nationals as a member of the 400-meter relay, and Gill has posted provisional qualifying marks in the heptathlon, high jump and long jump.

“It’s just been one of those seasons,” Coach Don Strametz said. “We’ve got a good 1,600 relay, but we would have been that much stronger with Mary.”

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