Scenario for Women’s Event Irks CSUN

The champion has been crowned. Now it is just waiting for the tournament to start.

Cal State Sacramento will play host to the Gold Classic--a four-team women’s basketball tournament--on Friday and Saturday and from all indications the Hornets plan to win it.

Their coaches, the husband and wife team of Sue and John Huffman, already have figured out how, according to Janet Martin, whose Cal State Northridge team will play Portland State in the first round.

Martin said she got a telephone call from the Huffmans on Wednesday in which they lamented one of the many problems that had popped up in organizing the tournament. It seems that Portland State, a Division I school, already has played the maximum allowable games against lower-division competition.

Therefore, the Huffmans said, trouble would arise when Sacramento defeated Southern Utah State and when Portland State (11-5) defeated CSUN in first-round games. Sacramento is a Division II team and Portland State would be unable to play the Hornets in the championship game.

No matter, the Huffmans said. Portland State, after beating Northridge, would simply forfeit and allow the Matadors to play Sacramento for the championship.

Martin, understandably insulted, told Northridge players that they were expected to lose. “I was starting to wonder whether we should even show up,” she said. “They sounded like they had it all figured out.”

Actually, Martin added, “I’m ready to go up there and play myself. I guess that shows we still need to achieve some things before we get some respect.”

To that end, Northridge has been fairly effective lately. The Matadors (7-11) have won three in a row, the latest a 71-50 decision over Cal State L.A.--an impressive margin of victory considering that it was CSUN’s first game in 17 days.

Dream on: If they build it, Mission College will come.

The catch phrase “Field of Dreams” has a different connotation for Mission baseball Coach John Klitsner because Mission’s home field currently exists only in his dreams.

Klitsner thought he would be able to convert a field in El Cariso Park in Sylmar into a home diamond, but the money was not forthcoming. Mission, a state playoff qualifier last season, once again will labor under a home-field disadvantage, playing most of its “home” games at Valley College.

“We’re scrounging around. After having a good year like we did last year, it’s kind of a shame,” Klitsner said. “We had a tough fall.”

Mission had to practice at Occidental until December, then moved to Alemany High where the infield was undergoing repairs. “We have not been on a field for a full practice since the middle of December,” Klitsner said.

Valley, Mission and Crespi High will share the Valley field this spring. The coaches get together to coordinate use of the field, but, “Generally, we have one scheduling snafu during the year,” Valley Coach Chris Johnson said. “That’s been our tradition.”

Euroball: With forward Aaron Smith nursing an injured ankle, the Moorpark College basketball team has been increasingly dependent on freshman forward Robin DeLaere. A native of Belgium, DeLaere has been learning about life in America as quickly as he learns about basketball.

It is not exactly the French connection, but DeLaere is the latest in a line of European athletes to play for Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist. About a half-dozen Europeans, including three West Germans, a Swiss and a Turk, have suited up for Moorpark over the years.

“I believe that every one of them that played for us has gone back to their country and done extremely well,” said Nordquist, who goes to Europe nearly every year for team tours or clinics. “I think part of it is the attitude that ‘I’ve played in America, I must be better.’ ”

Nordquist would like to see DeLaere, an athletic 6-foot-6 player with a good shooting touch, hone his skills for another season at Moorpark.

“I’m sure he can play in a good Division I program,” Nordquist said. “I think he’s as good as (former Loyola Marymount standout) Per Stumer” at the same stage.

No charity here: After missing 11 of 16 free throws in its 78-63 loss to Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Jan. 17, CSUN rebounded to make 19 of 26 in a 77-64 loss to Northern Arizona on Wednesday. Still, the Matadors are shooting only 63.5% from the foul line this season.

“It is a mystery to me,” Coach Pete Cassidy said of the Matadors’ struggles. “We shoot a lot of them (in practice), when we are tired, in a row, and under pressure. . . . One year I asked a coach whose team led its conference and was one of the top free-throw shooting teams in the nation what he did and he told me they never practiced them. I’m not going to do that.”

Ratings game: The Ventura men and Valley women lead Valley-region teams in the state basketball rankings. In the men’s rankings, Ventura is fourth, Moorpark seventh and Antelope Valley 15th.

Valley moved up from third to second in the state women’s poll, and Moorpark is holding steady at fourth. Pierce remains in 10th.

Nicole Force of Oxnard leads the state women with a 25.4 points-a-game average and Lester Neal tops the state men with 13.7 rebounds a game. J. R. Rider is second in scoring with a 30.3 average.

Injury update: Northridge forward Brian Kilian did not make the trip to Flagstaff, Ariz., because of a lower-back muscle strain that has kept him out of the past three games. Center Percy Fisher of CSUN required 10 stitches in his right eyebrow after he caught an elbow from Todd Bowser during practice Monday.

Statwatch: Northridge’s basketball team moved up 15 places in the USA Today computer poll this week after wins over Northeastern Illinois and Loyola-Chicago. The Matadors are No. 244 out of the 296 teams that play in Division I. . . . With 12 games remaining, CSUN is on pace to obliterate the school’s single-season record for three-point tries. The Matadors have attempted 325 and need only 43 more to surpass the record set during the 1988-89 season. Northridge needs to make 42 more three-point baskets to break the record of 149, also set in 1988-89. . . . Kyle Kerlegan needs 14 three-point baskets to pass Derrick Gathers as CSUN’s single-season leader. Gathers made 68 in 1988-89.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Brendan Healey and Theresa Munoz contributed to this notebook.