CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Volleyball’s Fortunes Rest With Howlett

It wasn’t the most memorable season for Cal State Fullerton volleyball Coach Jim Huffman. The Titans went 8-30, finished last in the Big West Conference and were the subject of an athletic department inquiry that uncovered minor NCAA rule violations.

But in a few years, Huffman hopes he can look back at 1990 as the year Fullerton began its move from conference also-ran to contender; the year Becky Howlett sparked a rise to respectability.

Howlett, a 6-foot-4 freshman from Aurora, Colo., was a dominating player in the nation’s most dominant conference. She finished with 633 kills, breaking the previous school single-season record of 517, set by Susan Herman in 1988.

She also set a school record for kills in a match with 36 against UC Irvine, breaking the previous mark of 33, set by Herman in 1987 and Laurie Jakemer in 1980.

Howlett’s kills-per-game average of 4.72 is the 12th-highest in the nation, and her 103 block-assists were the second-highest in school history behind Stephanie Scofield’s 108 this season.

For her efforts, Howlett was named Big West Conference freshman of the year Monday, an award Huffman hopes will be noticed by standout high school players.

“She’s my franchise kid, my Magic, and we want to build on that,” Huffman said. “When we bring in a recruit, I tell her, ‘Look at who you’ll be playing with.’

“She’s shown that a freshman can have a big impact. If we get another player like that, maybe we can be like the San Antonio Spurs and turn things around.”

Six baseball players, two from community colleges and four from high schools, have signed letters of intent with Fullerton.

The Titans signed pitchers Eddie Guardado, a left-hander from San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton; Jeff Scarpitti, a right-hander from Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, Calif., and Chris Gambs, a right-hander from Monte Vista High School in Richmond, Calif.

Guardado was an all-Alaskan League pitcher last summer, Scarpitti was the most valuable player in the Golden Gate Conference, and Gambs was the Northern California high school pitcher of the year.

The other signees are Dante Powell, a shortstop/infielder from Millikan High School; Mike Sweeney, a catcher from Ontario High School, and Bryan Dunagan, a third baseman/pitcher from La Serna High School. Powell is a two-time, all-Southern Section 5-A selection, and Dunagan was the 3-A Player of the Year last season.

“We’re real excited about them,” Titan assistant coach George Horton said. “You never know if you’ll get them all because of the (professional) draft, but they’re all highly recruited players.”

Fullerton recently completed its fall baseball season with a 7-2-1 record against nine community college teams and the San Bernardino Pride, a senior league team.

Catcher Matt Hattabaugh led the Titans with a .556 average, seven doubles and 12 runs batted in. First baseman Frank Charles hit .385, outfielder David Ayala hit .368, and outfielder Frank Herman hit .353 with three doubles and six RBIs.

James Popoff (0.90 earned-run average in 10 innings), Bill Fitzgerald (1.69 ERA in 16 innings) and Chris Robinson (1.80 ERA in 10 innings) were the most consistent pitchers.

But on the whole, Fullerton wasn’t that impressive, Horton said.

“Hattabaugh was our best everyday player and Herman had a good fall, but the rest were spotty,” Horton said. “They didn’t hit or play defense at times as well as we think they can.”

Horton and Augie Garrido, Fullerton’s head coach, weren’t that impressed by the numbers the players put up this fall, and the Titans’ letters haven’t been too good, either. A recent mid-semester grade check revealed that 17 players were making unsatisfactory academic progress.

“There were several Ds and Fs and we’re concerned with the direction that’s going,” Horton said. “That might become a problem, but hopefully they’ll rally with the time off (from practice) and the fire we’ve put under them.”

Student-athletes can be disqualified at the beginning of each semester if they don’t maintain a 2.0 grade-point average in 12 units and make satisfactory progress toward their degree. The Titans open the 1991 season Jan. 29, a day after the spring semester begins.

It won’t be easy stopping the Fullerton women’s basketball team’s fast break this season, but a two-foot-high toddler found a sure way to shut down the Titans Saturday night.

Three minutes into the game against Oregon State, with Fullerton attempting to run on the Beavers, a young boy made a mad dash from the first row of the bleachers to Fullerton’s foul line.

Whistles blew and players stopped, putting the Titans’ transition temporarily out of commission. Fortunately, a referee was able to grab the toddler just before he would have been trampled by several players.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Titan Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah said. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen in a game. That kid almost got stepped on. That would have been terrible.”

Titan Notes

Two Fullerton wrestlers and one former Titan wrestler each finished second in their respective weight classes in Saturday’s Northern Open, an invitational meet at the University of Wisconsin, that included some 400 college and open-division wrestlers. Fullerton senior heavyweight David Jones, ranked third nationally, lost to sixth-ranked Jon Oostendorp of Iowa, 6-4, in overtime of the championship match. Titan junior Lyndon Campbell, ranked 14th at 134 pounds, lost to top-ranked Tom Brandes of Iowa, 24-8, in the finals. Fullerton assistant coach Ardeshir Asgari, a former Titan wrestling in the 167-pound division, advanced to the championship match, where he lost to Iowa’s Mark Reiland, 16-0. Reiland is ranked third in the nation. The Titans will compete at this weekend’s Las Vegas Invitational.