CSUN Resurgence Sets Up Volleyball Rivalry With Pepperdine

John Price, Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball coach, says his team has developed a rivalry with Pepperdine that is stronger than any of those with the other teams in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn.

However, he is not quite sure why.

History might have something to do with it. Before last season, Pepperdine had defeated Northridge in 17 of 18 matches.

But how quickly things have changed. Northridge (4-1 in the WIVA) swept Pepperdine (3-2) in two conference matches last season. Included was a 15-12, 15-12, 16-14 victory at Firestone Fieldhouse before a large crowd and a cable television audience, marking CSUN’s first road victory over the Waves.

“That was nice timing on our part, I think,” said Price, whose Matadors will renew the series at Pepperdine tonight. “We’ve gone from a team they used to just walk all over to a team that has beaten them the last two years. That more than anything else can develop a rivalry real quick.”

A coach’s roots: Price attended Pepperdine for two years before transferring to Pierce and then to Northridge.

His first exposure to volleyball came at Pepperdine in a class taught by Wave Coach Marv Dunphy.

“I hadn’t even played volleyball, not even touched it at that point,” Price said. “It was something different and fun.”

Price got more serious about the sport when two of his friends tried out for the Pierce team. He practiced with them each day over a summer before deciding to give it a try himself.

After two seasons at Pierce, Price completed another season at Northridge, where he played for Walt Ker, current coach of the CSUN women’s volleyball team.

Cooling trend: Bill Kernen, Northridge’s baseball coach, is known for using any means available to give his players a mental edge.

A Tucson newspaper provided him with plenty of ammunition early this week.

In a story previewing the two-game Arizona-Northridge series, Arizona Coach Jerry Kindall noted that the Wildcats’ Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division opener against USC was coming up this weekend. Northridge, he said, would provide a good warm-up.

Kindall’s words were passed on to Northridge players by Kernen before Tuesday’s opener. The response: “That didn’t go down real well with the boys,” Kernen said.

Northridge won the first game, 8-4, and came back Wednesday to beat the Wildcats, 7-1.

So much for the warm-up theory.

Nest-less Condors: Remy McCarthy, Oxnard’s basketball coach, knows recruiting can be a jungle when one does not have a gym. The problem is not so much drawing recruits to a gym-less school as it is shoehorning scouting trips to high school games around his team’s usual 7 p.m. practice time.

Oxnard practices at Santa Clara High and often has to wait until 7 p.m. before the gym is available. That leads to conflicts with the typical Ventura County varsity high school 7:30 tipoff time.

“That’s the only gripe I have about our setup. (Santa Clara High Coach Lou Cvijanovich) has been a great guy,” McCarthy said. “I don’t want to harp on it too much, but it does hurt in the fact that I don’t get out to see the kids in the county as much as I would like.”

McCarthy said he hopes construction of a planned gymnasium will begin this summer, but until it is completed, home sweet home will remain a home away from home at Santa Clara High.

Rallying: After barely hitting Willie Shoemaker’s weight, senior Frank Charles, a Cal State Fullerton baseball player from Montclair Prep, now is approaching his own weight. Charles, a 215-pound senior first baseman, was batting .122 going into a Sunday game against Northridge, but he since has pulled his average up to .204.

“I’m a chronic slow starter, but this year I’m off to a real slow start,” Charles said Saturday. “I still have confidence, but now I’m not hitting.”

Charles, who batted .327 last season, is not the only slumping Titan. Junior second baseman Steve Sisco of Thousand Oaks High and Moorpark College is mired at .244, and the team batting average is .254.

“We’re doing a lot of soul-searching,” Charles said.

Statwatch: Jeff deLaveaga made four three-point baskets Monday in Cal Lutheran’s 102-51 victory over Caltech, giving him a single-season school-record 81 with two games remaining. The previous Cal Lutheran long-distance record was held by deLaveaga’s brother Steve, who made 79 during the 1988-89 season. . . .

With nine consecutive wins, the Canyons men’s basketball team is one short of the school record. . . .

The Northridge men’s basketball team is averaging 72.8 points during its six-game losing streak, six below its season average. . . .

A recent rash of injuries has increased the number of games Northridge basketball players have missed to 19. . . .

Kyle Kerlegan continues to be the lone Northridge player with a scoring average in double figures (12.5). Todd Bowser (9.8), Andre Chevalier (9.6) and Keith Gibbs (9.1) are close. . . .

The biggest differences between the team totals of Northridge and its opponents are in field-goal shooting percentage (CSUN 42%, opponents 47.4%) and blocked shots (CSUN 39, opponents 70).

Ms. Versatility: Melanie Clarke of Valley College, the defending state junior college champion in the heptathlon, put her versatility to good use in a seven-team non-scoring track and field meet at Northridge on Saturday.

Clarke won three events, running 24.7 seconds in the 200 meters, 54.65 in the 400, and leaping 18 feet 5 3/4 inches in the long jump.

Flying high: Jay Borick of UCLA, the 1986 City Section pole-vault champion from Taft High, won that event in the Northern Arizona Invitational in the Walkup Skydome on Saturday.

Borick, a junior, set an indoor personal best of 17-4 1/4 to exceed the provisional qualifying mark (17-1 1/2) for the NCAA Division I championships in March.

Near misses: Northridge sprinters Chris Pippins and Charlotte Vines, and hurdler Kim Young fell just shy of NCAA Division I championship provisional qualifying marks in their respective events in the Northern Arizona Invitational.

Pippins finished third in the men’s 55-meter dash in 6.33, 0.05 seconds off the provisional qualifying mark in that event.

Vines won the women’s 55 in 7.04, short of the provisional qualifying mark of 6.98, and Young placed second in the women’s 55-meter hurdles in 8.04, 0.08 seconds off the provisional qualifying mark.

Common thread: Perhaps the comments of Cal State Los Angeles Coach Henry Dyer stung--no member of the Northridge men’s basketball team wants to be called a borderline Division I-Division II player.

With the exception of transfers Sean Davis (San Jose State), Shelton Boykin (Texas El Paso) and Kyle Kerlegan (Southern University), however, none of the upperclassmen were signed to a letter of intent out of high school by an NCAA Division I school. Moreover, Boykin and Kerlegan had to go the junior college route (Valley College and Canada, respectively), before they could get back to Division I.

Junior college ball was required of most Northridge players because they lack experience. Several of them did not play the game competitively until high school. David Keeter and Percy Fisher, for example, were busy with baseball until their sophomore years, and although Martin Smith had enough junior high experience to make varsity as a sophomore at St. Bernard in Playa del Rey, he missed his junior year because of a broken left knee cap.

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