Police Aid Wounded Comrade : Shootings: Fellow officers line up to donate blood and former college softball teammates gather to support a policewoman who was attacked by robbers.

Former college softball teammates and fellow Los Angeles police officers rallied Monday to give blood and pull for the survival of Stacy Lim, a police officer seriously wounded in a deadly gunfight with a robber, hoping that she will display the stubborn determination that won her the nickname “the mule.”

Other officers lined up at the Northeast Division station, where she was assigned, to give blood for her.

At Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia--where the two-year patrol woman, 27, underwent at least two operations to remove a bullet and stop internal bleeding--former teammates on the Cal State Northridge women’s softball team maintained a vigil, recalling instances when she insisted on playing despite injuries. That determination won her the nickname in praise of her refusal to give up.

“She’s very strong, she’s doing good. She’s a fighter,” said Debbie Ching, assistant coach of the Lady Matadors, on which Lim played for four years and was a co-captain her senior year.

“She’s got a lot of friends here, a lot of people who care. We’re all pulling for her,” she said.

Ching and Matadors coach Gary Torgeson said about 20 of Lim’s former teammates, including two who flew in from San Francisco, gathered at the hospital. Torgeson said Lim was a champion catcher who was ranked second in the country in the Matadors’ division during her senior year at CSUN, where she majored in sociology.

A hospital spokeswoman declined to release information at the request of Lim’s family. But Sgt. Paul Hermann of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Northeast Division said she was “still in a seriously guarded condition” but improving after a weekend he described as “touch-and-go.” Hermann said doctors were going to take Lim off a respirator, and that she had responded to their voices.

At the Northeast Division, a routine blood drive at the station drew more than twice as many donations as normal from officers who said that Lim’s experience reminded them how soon they too could need blood.

By 4 p.m., about 60 pints had been drawn at the Red Cross bloodmobile parked in front of the station.

“Normally, we’ll get 25 to 30 pints of blood,” said Sgt. Ted Ashby. “Today we’ve had calls and officers coming in promising 150 to 200 pints of blood.”

“A lot of these officers don’t know Stacy. It’s just a fellow officer needs blood, and they are coming through,” he said.

“We are also getting calls from citizens who want to know how they can donate. Stacy is well liked,” Ashby said.

Lim was shot about 1:40 a.m. Saturday, allegedly after four youths followed her home on the freeway because they liked the custom rims on her Ford Bronco and planned to steal the truck and her purse, detectives on the case said. The four did not realize that Lim was a police officer and considered her an easy target because she was driving alone, said Detective Mike Scott of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

One of the suspects, 16-year-old Joel Garcia Valenzuela of Highland Park, was killed during the confrontation outside Lim’s house on Nadal Street, in the Canyon Country section of Santa Clarita.

Three surviving suspects--Arvin Mani, 20, and two juvenile girls--were scheduled to be arraigned today. They have been in custody of the Sheriff’s Department on suspicion of murder, attempted murder of a police officer and robbery.

Scott said Monday that he had their confessions but declined to disclose details. How the shooting between Lim and Valenzuela began remains unclear, he said, because “we haven’t been able to talk to her, and the other guy took it to the grave.”

Ching, Torgeson and police spokesmen described Lim as a superb athlete. According to a police department spokesman, she played on a policewomen’s softball team and has received four commendations for her work during her two years in the Police Department.

Dana Vasquez, a former teammate, recalled a game in 1985 in which Lim badly hurt her ankle but insisted on playing.

“The coach wanted to take her out, but she was determined to stay and it was a really tight, crucial game,” Vasquez said. “The score was 0-0, and Stacy was the batter. All along, she’d been favoring the ankle and hobbling around. Stacy knew she had to get on base, so she hit the ball to the left side infield. . . . She dove for the bag, and held on to it for dear life and she was safe.”

Staff Writer Phil Sneiderman contributed to this story.