NOTEBOOK : Occidental’s Clarke a Hit on the Outside

Cathy Clarke spent three years developing her setting technique for the Occidental College women’s volleyball team.

Last summer, in preparation for the college season, she attended a camp at USC and set 1,000 balls a day.

But after Occidental started the season with three losses at the Mills College tournament in San Francisco, Coach Alec Peters moved Clarke, 5-foot-5, to outside hitter.

Since then, the Tigers have gone 13-3, including a sweep of the field at last weekend’s Occidental Invitational.

Occidental, which has only eight players, is 2-0 in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play and meets defending conference champion La Verne (7-6, 1-1) Friday night at La Verne.

“We’re still one year away from being a dominant team in Division III,” Peters said. “We’re a good team, but we’ll see how good on Friday.”

Net return: Peters returned a few weeks ago from China, where he assisted the U.S. women’s national volleyball team at the world championships.

The United States defeated Cuba for the bronze medal, and the Soviet Union and China took the gold and silver medals, respectively.

Peters, who is an assistant coach for the defending national champion USC men’s volleyball team, is hoping to be part of the staff that accompanies the U.S. women’s team to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

“We’ll see what happens,” Peters said. “I’ve been invited back to be with the team next summer. I’m taking it one step at a time.”

One down: It took nine tries, but the Occidental soccer team finally won its first match of the season Sept. 26 in the Tigers’ SCIAC opener against Caltech.

“Thank God for Caltech,” said Occidental Coach Lowell Thomas, whose team scored a 4-0 victory behind two goals from senior forward Carl Burmeister.

Occidental lost to Cal Lutheran on Saturday to enter the week 1-8-1. The Tigers had been shut out seven times and outscored, 48-8, but Thomas was optimistic as his team prepared for a match against Whittier on Wednesday.

“We played well in the second half against Caltech and did some good things against Cal Lutheran,” Thomas said. “Hopefully, that will be indicative of how we play against the rest of the conference.”

Togetherness: Marcial Beltran placed fourth at the UC Riverside cross-country invitational Saturday, running 25 minutes 36 seconds over the 8,000-meter course to lead Occidental to a fourth-place finish in the team standings with 128 points.

Emmet Hogan (13th), Jose Garcia (17th), Konstantine Kindreich (30th) and Mike Anker (64th) rounded out the Tigers’ scoring in what Occidental Coach Bill Harvey called the best showing of the season.

“This is the closest we’ve had our five runners by a lot,” Harvey said. “Anker has really closed the gap tremendously.”

Occidental’s Laurie Schuster, the defending SCIAC champion, placed eighth in the women’s 5,000-meter race and the Tigers placed fifth in the women’s team standings with 233 points.

The Occidental men’s and women’s teams, which defeated Redlands and Pomona Pitzer in SCIAC competition two weeks ago, return to their respective conference schedules against Caltech and La Verne on Saturday.

Head start: Sara Dien, who placed third at 1,500 meters (5:11.8) this summer in the ARCO/Jesse Owens national championships at UCLA, has continued her success at the high school level this fall.

The La Canada High freshman placed third in the small schools race at the Agoura Invitational on Saturday, covering a three-mile course at Paramount Ranch in 20:44.

La Canada finished second behind San Luis Obispo in the team standings.

Record-setter: Glendale College cross-country runner Hugo Allan Garcia set his third course record in four races this season at the Bakersfield Invitational on Friday.

Garcia, ran 19:26 for four miles, breaking the record of 19:38 set by Robert Nelson of Pasadena City College last year.

Nelson transferred to Glendale this fall and will compete for the Vaqueros in track.

Staff writer Kirby Lee contributed to this notebook.