Dominguez Hills Women’s Soccer Team Discovers the Winning Formula : Colleges: In their past four games, the Lady Toros have scored 15 goals and allowed only four.

Is the best offense a good defense, or vice versa? The Cal State Dominguez Hills women’s soccer team could make a case either way.

The Lady Toros, behind a recent scoring spree, are riding a four-game winning streak going into Saturday’s game against Cal Poly Pomona. After managing only eight goals in their first eight games, the Lady Toros have scored 15 times in the past four games. Sophomore Amy Rubin has accounted for seven of the goals, including a three-goal game against Chapman College.

Rubin’s scoring burst gives her 11 goals in the Toros’ 12 games.

Offense hasn’t been the only aspect of Dominguez Hills’ improvement, however. In the past five games--in which they are 4-0-1--the Lady Toros have allowed only four goals and an average of five shots per game. Freshman goalkeeper Briana O’Dowd has recorded 4 1/2 shutouts. In Sunday’s 2-0 victory over Cal State San Bernardino, the Toro defense allowed the Coyotes only five shots. O’Dowd had to record only one save.

The winning streak has thrust the Lady Toros back into contention for the West Regional title, which they won last year. This year’s team, largely revamped, has 13 freshmen and sophomores among 19 players.

“We’ve really started to play up to our potential in the past few weeks,” Toro Coach Marine Cano said. “Our biggest problem early in the season was youth, and lord knows we had the opportunities, but we lacked the experience to put the ball in the back of the net.

“Scoring goals is the name of the game. We couldn’t keep shooting blanks forever. We needed one person to be a catalyst for us and it didn’t surprise me when Amy stepped up. Our defense has been stellar all year, but we just needed one person to get the ball rolling on offense.”

The Lady Toros (7-4-1) play host to Cal Poly Pomona at 11 a.m. Saturday as part of a doubleheader. The Toro men play Pomona at 1. The Pomona women (6-6) feature record-setting forward Shannon Payne, who already has 15 goals.

Loyola Marymount’s volleyball team must be wary of the road if it wishes to stay in the West Coast Conference volleyball race.

The Lions, 10-10 and winners of four of five matches, go into today’s game 3-0 in the conference and tied with 12th-ranked Pepperdine for second place, a half-game behind 4-0 Gonzaga. Loyola and Pepperdine travel to the Northwest this week, the Lions playing at Portland tonight and the Waves are at Gonzaga. The Lions then continue on to Spokane, Wash., to play Gonzaga on Saturday and Pepperdine is at Portland.

The Northwest swing is the WCC’s toughest road trip, and Gonzaga the most far-flung outpost. Weather conditions in Spokane can sometimes make for challenging travel, and when a team arrives there, it is never sure what to expect other than a boisterous and hostile crowd. Gonzaga (13-3) has the conference’s best record, but doesn’t play the level of competition the California schools schedule. But the ‘Zags do have two of the league’s best players in setter Erica Cordy and middle blocker Lisa Petticord.

What is known is visiting teams have traditionally had trouble winning in the Northwest. In several sports, Spokane has been the burial ground of title hopes.

“Right now it looks like a three-team race between ourselves, Gonzaga and Loyola,” Pepperdine Coach Nina Matthies said. “This is an important weekend road trip. We have a chance to put some distance between ourselves and the other teams in the league standings.”

It’s a listing that hasn’t been seen for years, but this week Cal State Dominguez Hills can take pride in seeing that its women’s volleyball team is tied for the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. lead.

Granted, the CCAA season is only a game old and the tie may evaporate as early as tonight when the Lady Toros play at sixth-ranked Cal State Bakersfield.

Still, Dominguez Hills can be forgiven for feeling a certain euphoria at being 1-0 after defeating Cal State L.A. on Friday night. After all, it was the Lady Toros’ first CCAA victory since October, 1987 and snapped a 30-game conference losing streak.

The Lady Toros are ranked fifth in the West Region this week, their highest since upgrading to Division II. They have already matched last year’s victory total with seven.

It is unclear if the Dominguez Hills men’s soccer team hurt itself in the CCAA race with a 2-2 tie Wednesday at Bakersfield. The teams provided an exciting ending by each scoring in the final minute of overtime, the Toros’ Tony Grilli scoring the tying goal seconds after Bakersfield thought it had the game won.

The overtime standoff left the Toros 1-1-1 in conference play. The record may have eye-pleasing symmetry, but leaves the second-place Toros two games behind league leader Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which doesn’t play a conference game this week.

The tie left Bakersfield with the curious CCAA record of 0-0-2, which might be a fine number for a British Secret Service agent but doesn’t do much for a team trying to climb out of fourth place. Just as curious is Bakersfield’s 10-0 record outside conference play.

The Toros play host to the team battling them for second place, Cal Poly Pomona (1-1), at 1 p.m. Saturday, and Bakersfield faces last-place Chapman (0-3).

Notes

Loyola Marymount outside hitter Kerry House was named West Coast Conference volleyball player of the week. She won the award twice last year. House is third in the nation in digs (4.75 per game) and ranks in the top 20 in kill average. In two victories last week she averaged 5.6 kills per game. . . . Dominguez Hills freshman Jeanna Price needs 25 assists to break the school season volleyball record of 461. She’s averaging 10.4 assists per game. Teammate Gale Derricott is also closing in on a school mark, needing 56 kills to break the Toros’ record of 205. She’s averaging 3.6 kills per game. . . . Saturday’s soccer doubleheader at Dominguez Hills will be part of the school’s International Day. Festivities include a variety of international foods that will be served by the school’s International Students Club while the soccer games are being played.

Treamelle Taylor, a wide receiver at Nevada-Reno from Hawthorne High, returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown Saturday to give Reno a 17-10 Big Sky Conference football victory over Idaho State. It was Reno’s first kickoff return for a TD since 1975. For the game, Taylor had four kickoff returns for 164 yards, four receptions for 39 yards and four punt returns for 32 yards.