Winless Ventura Falling Behind Schedule

A clearly challenging schedule has proven even more difficult for the winless Ventura College football team than had been anticipated.

Presumably, the Pirates’ lone early-season break was supposed to be a Sept. 22 game against West Los Angeles, which entered the season with a 21-game losing streak.

However, West L. A. beat Ventura, 34-17, and this week moved into J.C. Athletic Bureau state rankings at No. 17 with a 3-0 record. The combined record of Ventura’s opponents is 8-2. And the schedule doesn’t get any easier.

On tap Saturday is 3-0 Bakersfield, the top-ranked team in the state.

Off the charts: With five touchdowns in nine passes, Moorpark quarterback Del Marine has built a phenomenal passing-efficiency rating of 474.8.

Figuring out the NCAA passing-efficiency formula used by junior colleges is about as easy as understanding special relativity, but suffice it to say that relative to other quarterbacks, Marine’s rating is rather special.

By comparison, among the top 30 passers on the state junior college list, the highest rating is 180.3. The NCAA leader, Quinn Grovey of Arkansas, is at 194.1 and the Pacific-10 Conference leader, Jason Palumbis of Stanford, has a 136.8 rating.

Add stats: Granted, it came against Ventura, the Western State Conference’s worst defense, but Valley College’s 300-yard rushing performance on Saturday quadrupled the Monarchs’ yardage total from the first two games of the season.

Valley (1-2, 1-1 in conference play) had a combined 75 yards in 63 carries in losses to Mt. San Antonio (50-18) and Moorpark (41-10).

Hot hitters: Pierce won its first seven women’s volleyball matches of the regular season and middle blockers Andrea Banducci and Lori Mertes have had a lot to do with the Brahmas’ success.

Banducci, a sophomore from Notre Dame High, and Mertes, a freshman from Chatsworth, have hitting percentages of .561 and .444, respectively.

“They’re both playing great volleyball right now,” Pierce Coach Steve Gazzaniga said. “Hitting over .400 in volleyball is like hitting over .400 in baseball. It’s very rare.”

Add Pierce: Although Gazzaniga lists Pierce’s record as 7-0, the Brahmas have been beaten this season.

It happened against Riverside in the championship match of the Cypress College tournament on Saturday. But because it was a one-set loss, 17-15, Gazzaniga doesn’t include it in the Brahmas’ record.

“I don’t count matches in our records unless it’s two of three, or three or five,” Gazzaniga explained. “To me, a one-set match doesn’t necessarily prove which team is better.”

If Gazzaniga were to include tournament matches, Pierce would be 17-1, as the Brahmas went 10-1 in the Cypress tournament, including an 8-0 record in pool play.

Burwell beats the blitz: Former Cleveland High standout Sean Burwell turned a swing pass into a 31-yard touchdown Saturday in Oregon’s 32-16 upset of Brigham Young.

“I don’t even know who had me, but he dropped off and the free safety let me go,” Burwell said. “I was just hoping Bill (Musgrave, the Duck quarterback) would see me before the blitz got there.”

Burwell, a 5-foot-11, 181-pound redshirt freshman, also ran for 104 yards on 28 carries. It was his second 100-yard rushing performance in four games.

Looking ahead: The Cal State Northridge men’s cross-country team won its first invitational title in more than a decade at the UC Riverside Invitational last season, but Coach Don Strametz wasn’t expecting the same this year.

Sasha Vujic and Jorge Castro, Northridge’s top two runners at the meet last season, are redshirting and Strametz held this year’s ace, Derik Vett, out of Saturday’s rematch at Riverside. Strametz also pushed the squad through three hard workouts during the week in preparation for this weekend’s Stanford Invitational.

So the results from this season’s invitational weren’t surprising: The Matadors finished 16th out of 24 teams.

Togetherness: The Occidental men’s cross-country team was the top Division III team at Riverside, placing fourth behind defending California Collegiate Athletic Assn. champion Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the Jamal Toads club team, and Arizona State.

Marcial Beltran placed fourth in 25 minutes 36 seconds over the 8,000-meter course, 26 seconds ahead of the Tigers’ No. 2 runner, Jose Garcia, who placed 17th.

Beltran has been Occidental’s pacesetter all season, but Coach Bill Harvey was pleased with the 1-minute 11-second gap between Garcia and his fifth man, Mike Anker (64th).

“We’re starting to come together,” Harvey said about the differential.

The team gap had been more than 90 seconds at the Fresno Invitational on Sept. 14.

Staff writers Brendan Healey, Kirby Lee, Theresa Munoz and John Ortega.