COLLEGE DIVISION NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Chapman Team Spends Its Holiday on the Road

On Thanksgiving, the Chapman College women’s volleyball team is thankful to be on the road.

The Panthers were scheduled to board a 6:55 a.m. flight from Orange County to Amarillo, Tex., this morning for the first leg of their journey to Canyon, Tex. There, they will play West Texas State on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.

A restaurant meal in Canyon will replace the traditional family gathering, but the team is focused on the day after--the match with West Texas State (34-1), the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.

“I think it’s worth it,” Chapman junior Debi Waller said. “I think the families understand.”

The match will decide the South Central Region champion, which will advance to the Division II final eight.

Chapman (22-13), which finished in a third-place tie with UC Riverside in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn., was one of four CCAA teams that qualified for the playoffs. The others--Riverside, Cal Poly Pomona and defending champion Cal State Bakersfield--will meet in the Southwest Regionals Friday and Saturday at Bakersfield.

The Panthers (22-13), ranked 14th nationally, are spared playing conference opponents in regional competition. In the 1980s, a team from the CCAA won the NCAA title five times. And Chapman has to win only one match to qualify for the final eight, to be played on the home court of one of the survivors Nov. 30-Dec. 2.

That one match is against West Texas, which has lost only to Cal Poly Pomona. The Buffaloes, led by the Pereira sisters of Brazil--6-foot-4 Ana Carolina and 6-1 Ana Cristina--defeated Chapman in three games in September.

But Chapman’s players are confident they have improved enough to challenge West Texas.

“The last time we played them, we didn’t play very well, but that was early in the season and we’ve improved a lot,” Waller said.

Reunion of sorts: Seattle University is Chapman’s first-round opponent in the Chapman/Doubletree men’s basketball tournament, which begins Friday.

The first coaching position at a four-year school for Chapman’s Bob Boyd was at Seattle, from 1963-65. He led the Chieftains to a victory over Oregon State in the first round of the NCAA Division I playoffs in 1964 but was beaten by UCLA, 95-90, in the second. The Bruins went on to win John Wooden’s first NCAA championship. Boyd left Seattle after the next season and eventually coached at USC for 13 seasons.

After the Panthers (1-0) play Seattle (1-3) in the tournament opener at 7 p.m. Friday, Southern California College (2-0) and Grand Canyon (1-0) play at 9. The winners will play for the championship at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Kent Schlichtemeier, the women’s basketball coach at Christ College Irvine, hopes his third season as coach will turn out better than his first two. The Eagles were 7-22 and 4-23, but Schlichtemeier is encouraged by his new recruits.

“I’m pretty optimistic,” he said. “We hope to move up into the middle of the pack and challenge for a playoff spot this year.”

The Eagles split their first two games this season, defeating Cal Lutheran Saturday and losing to NCAA Division II Cal State Dominguez Hills Monday.

Three of the team’s starters--guard Stacy Kirch, forward Nancy Geisler and center Gitte Mejer--are new to Christ College this year and another--Lauren Rich--missed most of last season because of a knee injury.

Sophomore Genevieve Graff, who averaged 13.9 points a game last season and was a first-team all-Golden State Athletic Conference selection, is the only returner who had significant playing time last season.

The newcomers have impressive credentials. Kirch, a 5-7 guard who was an all-Colorado player at Denver Lutheran High School, transferred after playing one season at Wyoming on a full scholarship. Geisler, a 5-9 community college transfer, averaged 14.8 points a game for Highline College in Des Moines, Wash., last season. Mejer is a 6-2 freshman post player who was one of the last players cut from Denmark’s national team.

The first player off the bench has been Julie Workman, who played at Fountain Valley High School last season and is the daughter of Orange Coast College football Coach Bill Workman.