THE COLLEGES / MIKE HISERMAN : Injured Pitcher Leaves CSUN

A year ago, Monte Jones was considered Cal State Northridge’s brightest pitching prospect. Now he no longer is a member of the baseball team.

Jones, a right-hander who lit up radar guns while pitching for Tustin High, never showed the same zip on his pitches during his freshman season at CSUN. After struggling to a 7.94 earned-run average in 22 2/3 innings, Jones refrained from throwing last summer, hoping the rest would heal his aching arm.

It didn’t. Dr. Frank Jobe, a noted orthopedic surgeon, recommended that Jones undergo surgery to replace a piece of tendon on the inside portion of his right elbow. Jones would need to redshirt a season while undergoing extensive rehabilitation.

But he declined to have surgery and transferred to Saddleback College where he will attempt a comeback.

Northridge Coach Bill Kernen surmises that Jones pitched too many innings because of a strenuous summer of tournaments and all-star games after his senior season of high school.

“All last season he was just not the pitcher everyone saw in high school,” Kernen said.

As a senior at Tustin, Jones had a 12-2 record and was Orange County’s strikeout leader with 135.

Lean but not mean: With Jones at Saddleback and reserve infielder E. J. Pape having transferred to Master’s College, Northridge is down to 20 players--a lean roster by Division I standards, but the same number the Matadors had last season when they advanced to the Division II championship game.

Said Kernen: “It saves us some money on road trips with rooms and that kind of stuff, but if we get in a fight we’re in trouble.”

Ratings game: Kernen has been told by a representative from a national baseball publication that the Matadors probably will be ranked among the nation’s top 25 teams as they embark on their inaugural Division I season.

“I think we belong in there, maybe in the top 20 based on who we have,” Kernen said.

Marty Killian, David Eggert and Kenny Kendrena, recruits brought in by Kernen to shore up CSUN’s pitching, all looked strong in fall action.

Kendrena, a 5-foot-10, 165-pound right-hander from Cypress College, might become the Matadors’ bullpen ace. He throws hard enough and has a good split-finger fastball.

Kendrena originally signed with Texas A&M; as a shortstop out of Bishop Amat High. He transferred to Cypress in 1989 and was the Chargers’ most valuable player last season. He was 4-1 with two saves and an earned-run average of 3.01.

In good standing: Jeff Barrett aspires to play quarterback for an Ivy League team and it looks like the interest is mutual. The University of Pennsylvania has shown interest in the former Burroughs High star, and a representative from Brown scouted Barrett last Saturday as he led Santa Monica College against Moorpark in the Western State Bowl.

Santa Monica lost, 69-34, but Barrett passed for 325 yards and impressed Moorpark Coach Jim Bittner, who already thought highly of the 5-foot-11 left-hander.

“He’s got a quick release, he moves well and he’s smart,” Bittner said. “To me, all that stuff about a quarterback’s height is overrated.”

That might be true in the Ivy League, but could Barrett be successful at a higher level of Division I football?

“He could play at any level,” Bittner said. “If I was a Division I coach, I’d take him right now.”

Briefly: If Northridge upsets Montana State tonight, the Matadors will creep that much closer to cracking Division I basketball’s Top 200. USA Today’s computer ranked CSUN 256th (out of 296) this week; Montana State was ranked 225th. . . .

Speaking of rankings, why would Southland sports information directors place Moorpark ahead of Glendale in the final football poll? Both teams finished 9-2 and Glendale defeated Moorpark, 45-21, a month ago. . . .

Attention Cal Lutheran Coach Mike Dunlap: On Monday, Tennessee-Martin announced that it had hired Cal Luther as interim basketball coach. Sounds like the perfect nonconference opponent. . . .

Prime Ticket is planning live television coverage of the Northridge-USC men’s basketball game Feb. 4 at the Sports Arena. . . .

Moorpark succeeded in winning its own men’s basketball tournament last week, but rival Ventura dealt a blow to the Raiders’ fortunes even though it lost in the semifinals. Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist said a championship match between the Ventura County rivals might have netted the host school as much as an extra $1,500. . . .

So much for the flashy pump-it-up advertising slogans of high-tech and high-priced basketball shoes. Sam Crawford, the top player on the Moorpark men’s team, plays in running shoes. . . .

A couple of former Buena High standouts have been reunited on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo basketball team. Guard Jeff Oliver, a freshman, has started the Mustangs’ past two games and scored 21 points in a 118-90 victory over Missouri-St. Louis last week. A few days earlier, center Shawn Kirkeby, a sophomore coming off shoulder surgery, scored 11 points and had five rebounds in a 93-83 loss to Nebraska Omaha. . . .

Looking up down under: Steve deLaveaga, former scoring machine for the Cal Lutheran basketball team, appears to have adjusted well to life down under. Now playing for a professional team in Australia, deLaveaga recently signed a contract that tripled his salary from his rookie season.

Exact terms were not disclosed but he probably deserved a raise. In his first season, deLaveaga averaged 41 points a game and was second in the league in assists.

Pedal to the metal: Add Cal Lutheran to the list of college basketball teams pressing a little heavier on the accelerator this season.

The Kingsmen averaged 73 points a game last season but have averaged 85 a game through the first four games this season.

“We just moved it up a notch because the players we have are better,” second-year Coach Mike Dunlap said. “Let’s face it. At this level fans want basketball that is really exciting to watch. They don’t want to see a slugfest. They want a little excitement, some run and gun and up-tempo things. It’s important for recruiting that we play that way.”

Money talks: Dunlap knew he had his work cut out for him when he resigned his position as an assistant at USC to take over Cal Lutheran’s program before last season.

“It’s been a war for the last 1 1/2 years,” he said. “We started from scratch and we’re still about another year away.”

Cal Lutheran is caught in transition between conferences. The Kingsmen belong to the NAIA District 3 but are recruiting by NCAA Division III rules.

In other words, the competition has an important component that the Kingsmen lack: players on scholarship.

“We probably lost 10 kids on teams we play against because of money,” Dunlap said. “They like the school, they like the program, but we can’t offer them anything so they go somewhere that can. It comes down to dollars and cents and you can never blame a kid when it comes down to that.”

Fortunately for Cal Lutheran, parity might be only a season away. The Kingsmen are expected to join the ranks of Division III next season as a member of the non-scholarship Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.