SAN DIEGO COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Volleyball Coaching Changes Bring Improvements

Coaches’ names are not the only things changing in the women’s volleyball programs at the University of San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene College.

Attitudes, outlooks and positions in their conference standings are changing too. Drastically.

USD, 2-26 a year ago, is 10-10 this season, including a current four-match winning streak. The Toreras are fourth in the West Coast Conference.

PLNC, which had its first winning season last year at 14-9, is 18-6, 11-0 in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District III and 8-0 in the Golden State Athletic Conference.

There are many reasons for such turnarounds, but players on both teams point most often to their head coach.

Sue Snyder--Sue Hegerle before she was married this summer to Ky Snyder, a former defensive back for San Diego State’s football team--came to USD from SDSU, where she was an assistant coach for four years.

Snyder, reknowned for her intensity as an SDSU player, has carried that over in her coaching. Her first task, she said, was making the players believe in themselves.

“I knew we could do it,” Snyder said. “But what good does that do? They’re the ones that have to believe. It took awhile. But now we go into a match expecting to win. That mind-set has definitely changed.”

Barbara Wnek--Barbara Rozendal before she was married this summer to Mike Wnek--is in her third season at PLNC. The Crusaders have improved each year under Wnek and have a legitimate shot at qualifying for the NAIA national tournament this year.

With five key matches left, PLNC leads the district by 3 1/2 games. Should the Crusaders win the regular-season title, they would play host to the district tournament and receive a first-round bye. The winner of the tournament will probably get a bid to the national tournament.

Regardless, it’s unusual even to mention such things in regard to PLNC. The student body, Wnek said, is starting to take notice.

“The enthusiasm on campus has just been great,” Wnek said. “There is really a lot of excitement around here.”

Add USD volleyball: Angie Rais, a senior from Anchorage, Alaska, is second in the conference in hitting, fourth in blocks and sixth in kills.

Teammate Shannon Mutch, a sophomore setter, set a WCC record with 89 assists in a five-game match Saturday against San Francisco.

Last add USD volleyball: License plate on the car of Kristi Harris, a setter: SET2KIL.

The USD men’s soccer team was set to play at Loyola Marymount last Wednesday when the match had to be canceled because there were no referees. It appears Loyola Coach Peter Novak neglected to inform the officials that the match had been switched from Nov. 10. No one seems to know for certain since . . . Novak is on his honeymoon.

The match has been rescheduled for Tuesday at USD. Torero Coach Seamus McFadden could have taken a forfeiture, but he elected to play the match since the tight West Coast Conference race could come down to a goal-differential tiebreaker.

USD, ranked 17th in the nation, is 10-1-4. Loyola is 2-11 and has lost 10 in a row.

“It was a long way to go up, but at least we got to eat at In-N-Out Burger,” McFadden said.

Apparently, McFadden is unaware that the fast-food chain has outlets here as well.