NCAA DIVISION II WORLD SERIES NOTEBOOK : Trader Sharts Becomes Man of Troy While Soliciting New CSUN Allies

When Scott Sharts pitches against Jacksonville (Ala.) State in the NCAA Division II championship baseball game today, he will be carrying the hopes--and colors--of two schools.

The Cal State Northridge right-hander acquired a Troy (Ala.) State T-shirt Thursday in a deal that he hopes also will result in additional fan support.

Troy State is host school for the championship tournament, so when a scoreboard operator offered Sharts a T-shirt in exchange for his baseball cap, the Northridge sophomore jumped at the offer--on one condition.

“I told him to call all his buddies and have them come up and root for us at the game,” Sharts said. “Troy State hates Jacksonville, anyway, and they have about 1,000 fans to our 20.”

Indeed, Troy State, which won back-to-back titles in 1986 and ‘87, was eliminated by Jacksonville in regional action.

Sharts said Friday that he might even wear the Troy State shirt under his game uniform today.

Fred Sington, a student at Troy State, said that he will wear Sharts’ cap to the game and then add it to the other 4,002 caps he has lining the walls of his bedroom.

Sharts’ headgear already has become a favorite, Sington said, because of what appears on the underside of the cap’s bill: a star for each of the 28 home runs Sharts has hit this season.

Sharts added the most recent one Thursday evening, after his three-run, eighth-inning homer gave Northridge an 8-6 win over Lewis (Ill.) University.

“I told him if I hit another one that he’d have to bring it back so I could mark it down,” Sharts said.

Crazy eighth: The eight runs Northridge scored in the eighth inning against Lewis on Thursday marked the Matadors’ highest-scoring inning of the season.

Twice before--in February against Cal Poly Pomona, and in March against Cal State Los Angeles--Northridge had recorded a seven-run inning.

Northridge has scored three or more runs in an inning seven times in its first three World Series games and 56 times this season.

The Matadors seem to prefer the third and eighth, scoring three or more runs 11 times in each of those innings. Northridge has scored three runs on seven occasions in each of the second and seventh innings.

Name of the game: Rudy Abbott, Jacksonville State’s coach, has to be careful what he yells at his catcher.

It could get him in trouble with an umpire.

Jacksonville’s catcher is Randy Belyeu, whose last name is pronounced BA-loo.

Taking Abbott’s Southern twang into consideration, BA-loo easily could be mistaken for Blue, a nickname for an umpire.

“It’s a problem,” Abbott said. “An umpire says to me, ‘I’m tired of hearing you talk to me.’ I said, ‘I haven’t said a word to you all day.’ ”

That Belyeu is a catcher only makes matters worse.

Should Belyeu err in his pitch selection, Abbott must make sure it is clear exactly whose “brutal call” he was referring to.

Two-liners: Abbott is the winningest coach in Alabama sports history. He has guided the Gamecocks since 1970 and has a record of 658-257. . . .

Jacksonville has advanced to the Division II World Series six times, including the past three in a row. The Gamecocks are in their second title game, having lost to Cal Poly Pomona, 13-6, in 1983. . . .

Northridge, making its seventh trip to the championship tournament, has advanced to the title game four times. In 1970, CSUN defeated Nicholls State, 2-1; in 1972, Florida Southern defeated the Matadors, 5-1; and in 1984, Northridge defeated Florida Southern, 10-5. . . .

Florida Southern has been the nation’s dominant team in the 23-year history of Division II baseball tournament. Florida Southern has won seven national titles and was runner-up three times. . . .

Cal Poly Pomona is the only team to win as many as three Division II championships. Northridge, Troy (Ala.) State and UC Irvine--which now plays at the Division I level--have all won two. . . .

Right-hander Tim Vanegmond scattered 11 hits to beat University of Tampa, 3-0, Thursday, putting Jacksonville in the title game. It was his second consecutive shutout. . . .

Ratings game: Jacksonville is the top-seeded team in the World Series even though it advanced as the lowest-ranked team to advance to the tournament.

The Gamecocks were ranked 18th in the Collegiate Baseball Poll. Top-ranked Armstrong State lost in its regional playoff to No. 17 Columbus (Ga.) College. Columbus was eliminated from the championship tournament in two games.

Second-ranked New Haven was gone in three games. Second-seeded Northridge was ranked eighth in the final regular-season poll, two places behind Tampa and one ahead of Lewis.

“Those rankings were a mess,” Abbott said. “We weren’t ranked at all until we ended up winning our conference, then they just threw us in there near the end.”

The NCAA committee that seeded teams for the World Series obviously saw the field differently from the pollsters.

In order to advance to the title game, Jacksonville had to defeat Tampa right-hander Sam Militello, the Division II Player of the Year.

The Gamecocks got nine hits in a 3-0 win over Militello, who finished the season with a 15-2 record.