COLLEGE DIVISION NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Chapman Women May Soon Escape Their Streak of Bad Luck

Just when it seemed the situation couldn’t get worse for the Chapman College women’s basketball team, it almost did.

In addition to the team’s top two scorers being declared academically ineligible, Jackie Saunders’ knee give out during practice Tuesday afternoon. The knee, which required reconstructive surgery three years ago, has been a chronic problem and when it buckled it gave Chapman Coach Lindsay Strothers a scare.

Saunders, who also is hobbled by an ankle she twisted this season, was examined by a doctor and is expected to play today when the Panthers travel to UC Riverside for a 5:45 p.m. game.

Saunders, a 5-foot-11 senior forward, had been picking up the slack since Linda Kirby and Marvette Williams were declared ineligible two weeks ago. In four games without them, Saunders averaged 21.3 points for the Panthers, who have lost four in a row and six of their past seven.

Saunders was named the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. player of the week for her performance in losses to Cal State Los Angeles (27 points, 19 rebounds) and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (16 points) Friday and Saturday. Her scoring average of 16.3 is second-highest in the conference.

But even with Saunders, Chapman (8-10, 0-2 in the CCAA) was hurting. The Panthers were forced to play with four players in the final minutes of a nonconference game at Grand Canyon and suited up only seven for their first two conference games. Opponents are taking advantage of the team’s lack of depth.

“Teams that normally don’t run as much as we do are trying to run a lot to wear us down, and it’s working,” Strothers said.

But help is forthcoming. Williams, who was averaging 15.1 points, was declared eligible Thursday and Kirby, who was averaging 15.9, could be declared eligible today and return to the lineup tonight for the CCAA game at Riverside.

John McKay, the former USC and Tampa Bay Buccaneer football coach who will speak at a banquet on Wednesday honoring the inductees to the Chapman Hall of Fame, left his home in Tampa, Fla., this week happy to be escaping the circus atmosphere surrounding the Super Bowl.

“I don’t like the hoopla of the Super Bowl,” McKay said. “I’m tired of listening to athletes get interviewed. You can only take so much of the game.”

McKay and his wife, Corky, are staying in Indian Wells, where they have been spending their winters the past few years.

Asked what he’ll address at the banquet at Anaheim’s Doubletree Hotel, McKay said, “You’ll have to be there, because I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

No doubt he’ll say something about his friendship with Bob Boyd, Chapman’s basketball coach. McKay and Boyd were on staff together at USC for eight years before McKay left the Trojans to become the Buccaneers’ first coach.

McKay said Boyd coached Trojan basketball at an inopportune time, when Wooden’s UCLA teams were winning 10 NCAA championships. In the 1970-71 season, Boyd’s USC team lost only twice--both games to UCLA--but only the then-Pacific 8 Conference champion qualified for the playoffs.

“Everybody knows that Wooden was one of the finest coaches in the business, but I think Bob is too,” McKay said.

Three former Chapman athletes will be inducted into the school’s hall of fame: Kathy Copelin (1978-81), an NCAA Division II All-American softball player who had a career batting average of .321; Donald Herzeler (1967-70), who was an All-American sprinter for Chapman’s now-defunct track and field team, and John Young (1968), a first baseman on the school’s only NCAA championship baseball team.

Add Chapman: The men’s basketball team will continue CCAA play at 8:05 tonight at UC Riverside. Riverside (14-3, 3-1) dropped seven places to 11th in the Division II poll this week after losing to Cal State Bakersfield Saturday. Previously unranked, Bakersfield (13-4, 4-0) is No. 13 and seems to be well on its way to defending its conference championship.

Chapman returns home to play Cal Poly Pomona (10-8, 2-1) at 8:05 Saturday night in the Hutton Center.

Gitte Mejer, a freshman center on the Christ College Irvine women’s basketball team, was named the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3 player of the week after averaging 19 points and 12.7 rebounds in three games. Mejer, from Aarhus, Denmark, helped the Eagles (11-4) win two of the three games.

College Division Notes

The Chapman baseball team will open its season with two exhibition games Saturday at Hart Park in Orange. The Panthers will play a team of Chapman “old-timers” at 11 a.m. and face an alumni team at 1 p.m. The regular season starts Wednesday with a 2:30 p.m. game at USC. . . . Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Stuart Thomas, a Mater Dei High School graduate, was named CCAA men’s player of the week. He scored a career-high 34 points against Cal State Dominguez Hills Friday and 19 against Chapman Saturday.