COLLEGE DIVISION NOTEBOOK : Chapman’s Campus Recruiting Keeps Water Polo Team Afloat

In his six weeks at Chapman College, water polo Coach Bill Brown hasn’t had time to scout opponents. He’s been busy with major reconnaissance work on his own campus.

Brown, the former water polo and swimming coach at Fullerton College, has used creative recruiting tactics to fill out a team on a campus that doesn’t have a swimming pool.

The five team members remaining from last season’s 11-13 team are solid players, Brown said, but seven are needed to play a match. So Brown and his players set up water polo information booths at a couple of campus activity fairs and Brown also enlisted a friend in the admissions office to help with recruiting.

“He screened applications and if they said anything about water he’d direct them to me,” Brown said.

At least one player--Dan Gilmartin, a freshman who played water polo at San Mateo High School--signed up in this fashion. Brown said Gilmartin is one of the team’s top players, along with returning players Scott Law, Asher Provda, Mark Cantin, Mike Reid and goalkeeper Eric Wetzell.

Other newcomers are the fraternity brothers of some of the team members, Brown said.

“It’s water polo or the pledge paddle,” he said, joking.

Eight players were eventually added to the team, one short of the number needed to hold an intrasquad scrimmage. But it was enough to run a program.

“Several didn’t know the school had a water polo team and five had never played before,” Brown said. “But that’s great. If they played youth soccer and know how to swim they can pick up (water polo).”

That might be so, but Whittier defeated Chapman, 12-6, Wednesday. It seems the Panthers have a bit more to learn.

Chapman had little trouble winning the Naval Academy women’s volleyball tournament last weekend, breezing through six matches without losing a game.

The Panthers defeated Nebraska Omaha,which was ranked ninth in the American Volleyball Coaches Assn. preseason poll, in the quarterfinals and Juniata of Huntingdon, Pa.--runner-up in the Division III championships last season--in the final.

“I think we did really well in the tournament in what was really our first week of playing,” Chapman Coach Mary Cahill said. “With volleyball it’s hard to win three straight (games in a match) no matter what team you play against. When we played against weaker teams we didn’t play their game, we played ours.”

The trip to the tournament in Annapolis, Md., was partly intended as a way for the Panthers (10-4) to get some eastern exposure, Cahill said. Chapman has had difficulty gaining recognition in the East, Cahill said, despite playing in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn., a conference that has won five of the nine Division II championships.

After losing to UC Riverside in the regional playoffs last season and finishing 27-6 and eighth-ranked nationally, Chapman seems to be getting more respect. The Panthers were ranked 15th in the preseason coaches’ poll and moved up to 11th in this week’s rankings. They will play host to eighth-ranked West Texas State at 7:30 tonight at Chapman.

New blood: The Chapman women’s basketball team, which has no starters returning from last year’s team, has added three experienced players.

They are:

--Jennifer Ballenger, a senior point guard who started three games for Idaho last year.

--Marvette Williams, a senior post player who played two seasons for Compton College, averaging 21 points and 14 rebounds during the 1987-88 season.

--Linda Kirby, a junior guard from Ohlone College in Fremont, averaged 22 points and six assists a game last season.

College Division Notes

Pacific Christian has filled its three coaching vacancies. Mike Sutherland, who coaches soccer at La Mirada High School, will coach the men’s soccer team. Donna Krieger, a former National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics volleyball All-American at Cal Baptist in Riverside, will coach the women’s volleyball team. Krieger is the wife of Gene Krieger, women’s volleyball coach at Cal Poly Pomona. Darin Grebel, who coached volleyball at Workman High in La Puente and at a missionary high school in Kenya last year, is the men’s volleyball coach. . . . Christ College Irvine has hired Jack Robinson, who coached baseball at Southern California College for three years in the late 1970s, as softball coach. He replaces Mike McGuire, who resigned in June after leading the Eagles to a share of the Golden State Athletic Conference championship. The college also hired Darren Hoff, a former minor league player, as an assistant baseball coach. Roger Davis, Christ College’s cross-country and track and field coach for three years, has resigned.