CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Wrestlers, Pinned by Travel Delays, Struggle in NCAAs

The Titan wrestling team took a page out of football Coach Gene Murphy’s travel guide last week, turning what was expected to be a five-hour trip to Iowa City, Iowa, for the NCAA Championships into a 21-hour odyssey.

Coach Dan Lewis, one assistant and seven wrestlers left school at 1 p.m. last Tuesday and flew from Ontario to Denver, where a power outage forced passengers to remain on board for about an hour after landing.

The delay caused the Fullerton contingent to miss its connecting flight to Cedar Rapids by eight minutes. With no other scheduled flights to Iowa, the Titans had to wait five hours before catching a flight to Chicago, which arrived at about 3 a.m. local time Wednesday morning.

The airline put the wrestlers up at a hotel, but there was little time to sleep before their 7:30 a.m. flight to Iowa City, which arrived at 11 a.m., four hours before weigh-ins.

The first round didn’t begin until Thursday, so the wrestlers were able to get one good night’s sleep, but Lewis said several were still sluggish when competition started.

“It was a nightmare,” Lewis said. “It obviously didn’t help us, and it probably hurt us a little. You get in a routine, and once you’re thrown out of it, it causes problems.”

Only one Titan, heavyweight David Jones, placed among the top eight at the nationals. Jones finished fourth for the second consecutive season. Ramon Diaz, a 177-pounder, advanced to the third consolation round after losing his first match, and 118-pounder Michael Grubbs and 150-pounder Marty Kouyoumtijian advanced to the second consolation round.

But Lyndon Campbell (134 pounds) and Laszlo Molinar (167) lost their only two matches, and Jeff Maes (126) was eliminated after losing in the first round. Lewis was hoping the Titans would finish among the top 15 teams, but they placed 22nd.

“In one sense, it was an accomplishment to have seven wrestlers qualify for nationals,” Lewis said. “In another sense, it was disappointing how we did. I like how far we’ve come in the last three or four years, but we had higher goals this year, so it’s more disappointing.”

Lewis learned at least one thing from the experience, though.

“Next year, we’re going to leave a day earlier in case something like this happens again,” he said.

School President Milton A. Gordon has named an 11-member search committee to find an athletic director to replace Ed Carroll, who resigned to become an assistant athletic director at UC Irvine in late February.

The two athletic department representatives on the committee are Steve DiTolla, currently the interim athletic director, and Maryalyce Jeremiah, the women’s basketball coach. There are four faculty members on the committee, Bert Buzan, Barbara Stone, Steve Estes and Ron Hughes.

Rounding out the committee, which will meet for the first time later this week, are Titan Athletic Foundation member Bob Ling, Vice President of Administration Sal Rinella, Associated Students President Joe Ahn, Alumni Assn. President Mike Weiss, and incoming faculty athletic representative Lee Gilbert.

Stewart Long, a professor who is chairman of the academic senate, will be a non-voting member of the committee. Gordon said he hoped to have a replacement by July or August.

Three more football players have left the Fullerton program, bringing to 10 the number who have departed since the school nearly dropped the sport in January.

Kevin Hicks, a freshman receiver/running back who sat out the 1990 season because he did not meet Proposition 48 guidelines, Xavier Foreman, a redshirt freshman defensive back, and Rod Aguire, a redshirt sophomore linebacker, are the latest defections, Coach Gene Murphy said.

Five other redshirt freshmen--Lenard Mayweather, a defensive end from Sunny Hills High, cornerback Donyea Lee and linebackers Jack Bewley, Chris Peery and Ben Drati--have also left the program, as have two players who saw action last season, junior defensive lineman Robert Taylor and freshman kickoff returner Dwayne McAfee.

Murphy said Taylor simply quit the sport and McAfee, a walk-on, left because he was not awarded a scholarship. The others, Murphy said, left because they didn’t think the program was stable. Of those, the coach said Hicks was the most promising prospect.

“But that’s fine,” Murphy said. “We want guys who want to play. We’re not going to beg guys to play.”

Murphy has also received two more signed letters of intent, bringing to 21 the number of recruits expected by this fall. Luka Vasilj, a 6-3, 248-pound offensive guard from Mt. San Antonio College, and Ennis Howard, a 6-1, 205-pound defensive back from Glendale College, have signed with Fullerton.

Kurt Bloedorn, a 1988 Fullerton graduate who has spent the past two years at the Naval Flight Training School in Pensacola, Fla., has re-enrolled at Fullerton as a postgraduate student and will challenge Phil Nevin for the Titans’ punting job this fall.

Bloedorn, who played high school football at Brea-Olinda, had one year of eligibility remaining when he left for Florida and has retained it while he pursues a master’s degree in business administration.

He’ll be one of two postgraduate student-athletes on the Titans’ roster this fall. Linebacker Teddy McMillan, the team’s second-leading tackler last season, is on course to graduate this spring and will begin work on his MBA this fall, Murphy said.

Six of the nation’s top 10 softball teams--second-ranked Fresno State, third-ranked Arizona, fourth-ranked Oklahoma State, fifth-ranked Nevada Las Vegas, seventh-ranked Fullerton and ninth-ranked Texas A & M--will participate in this week’s PONY Softball Tournament at the Titan Softball Complex.

Pool play for the 15-team tournament begins Wednesday afternoon and will continue until Friday night, at which point the teams will be seeded and begin play in a double-elimination bracket.

Action continues all day Saturday, the semifinals are scheduled for 9 and 11 a.m. Sunday, and the championship game will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday. The other eight participants are 16th-ranked Oregon, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Northridge, Kent, Akron, Colorado State, Oregon State, Rutgers and Minnesota.

Titan Notes

Designated hitter Frank Charles went on a tear last week, hitting .471 (eight for 17) with two home runs, three doubles, 11 runs batted in and five runs to help Fullerton win three of four games. Charles lifted his batting average to .320 and took over the team lead in RBIs with 26. Shortstop Phil Nevin leads the team in batting (.351) and doubles (11) and has knocked in 23 runs. Second baseman Steve Sisco is hitting .330, and catcher Matt Hattabaugh is hitting .326 with 17 RBIs. The Titans, who have won 11 of their last 14 games to improve to 14-12, have added a home game to their schedule and will play Cal Lutheran at 2 p.m. Friday at Amerige Park in Fullerton. . . . Pitchers Tiffany Boyd and Ann Van Dortrecht have led the Fullerton softball team to a 24-7 record entering this week’s PONY Tournament. Boyd is 13-2 with a 0.94 earned-run average and has struck out 84 in 97 innings, and Van Dortrecht is 9-1 with a 0.98 ERA and has struck out 84 in 71 innings. . . . Three former Fullerton basketball coaches got some air time on national television Sunday. Former head Coach George McQuarn, now an assistant at Arizona State, and former Titan assistants Donny Daniels (Utah) and Keith Starr (UNLV) were participants in the NCAA Tournament. . . The men’s basketball banquet, originally scheduled for Wednesday night, has been canceled.