3 Ventura County Colleges Continue Rivalry on Recruiting Trail

Their battles on the court have passed for another season, but the basketball programs at Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura colleges are all currently pursuing the player they consider the top recruit in Ventura County--Stephane Brown.

At Channel Islands High this past season, Brown, a 6-foot-2 senior guard, averaged 21.4 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists.

Brown said he has heard from NCAA Division I schools UC Santa Barbara, New Mexico State and Nevada Las Vegas, but he also says that he is almost certain he will have to go to a junior college because of academic reasons.

Moorpark is a longshot because of the distance from Brown’s Oxnard home, but Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist continues to recruit Brown. Ventura and Oxnard are Brown’s top choices. He likes both schools’ coaches but said that he is leaning toward Ventura. Each school wants him badly.

“We’ve spent a lot of time with the kid,” Oxnard Coach Remy McCarthy said. “I bet I’ve watched him play no less than 10 times this year.”

In the absence of a binding commitment that would tie Brown to one school, Brown’s destination will be unclear virtually until the time the player actually suits up with a team. However, there are uniforms waiting at all three schools.

“I think it’s no secret that the guy we all need is Stephane Brown,” McCarthy said.

Add Oxnard: Four freshmen started extensively last season and McCarthy appeared to be in an enviable position for next season. However, McCarthy has learned that Don Mitchell, Oxnard’s second-leading scorer (14.9 points), plans to transfer to another junior college and that Tim Thomas, a freshman in eligibility but a sophomore academically, hopes to transfer to a four-year school.

Mitchell was a first-team All-Western State Conference Northern Division selection, and Thomas was an honorable-mention choice.

McCarthy noted that Thomas planned to stay only one season but said of Mitchell’s decision: “I’m disappointed because I like Don and I think he’s a good player, but a guy has to want to be here.”

Debut postponed: Darcy Arreola of Cal State Northridge, a two-time NCAA Division I All-American, is listed as doubtful for Saturday’s multiple-team track and field meet at Cal State Long Beach.

Arreola, who has not raced since finishing 12th in the Division I cross-country meet in November, has not raced this season because of a lingering chest cold.

She had been expected to open the season in a four-team meet at Northridge on March 2, but the illness prevented her from running.

“I don’t see her racing this week,” Northridge Coach Don Strametz said Wednesday. “She’s having a hard time getting rid of the cold she’s got.”

Friendly rivals: Scott Sharts was the losing pitcher when Northridge dropped a 3-1 decision to Creighton in the championship game of last week’s baseball tournament in Fresno, but he fared well against a trio of former teammates.

Creighton’s Scott Stahoviak, Chad McConnell and John Pivovar all were on the same Wichita Broncos team for which Sharts played last summer.

In the championship game, the trio was a combined one for nine, although Pivovar walked three times. Stahoviak was one for four, McConnell 0 for four with three strikeouts and Pivovar was hitless in one official at-bat.

Ratings game: Despite losing to Creighton in the title game, Northridge broke into this week’s rankings in Collegiate Baseball magazine.

The Matadors (19-9-1) were rated No. 21. Creighton (14-2) moved up seven places to No. 13. Fresno State (17-9), which finished fifth in the tournament, tumbled from No. 14 to No. 22, and North Carolina (15-6), which placed third in the tournament, fell from 16th to 23rd.

Fitting test: The Moorpark basketball players are acting as test pilots for what a major shoe company hopes will be a high-flying style of new shoe.

The shoe, known as the Catapult, has a plastic ball embedded in the heel with a strip of metal above the ball.

The Moorpark players are testing the basketball shoes for several weeks and are required to fill out questionnaires on them before returning them to the company. Moorpark Coach Al Nordquist does not have a shoe contract, but his players tested shoes for the same company last year and the team was given 15 new pairs for their trouble.

Worldly affair: Former Cal State Northridge guard Barry Voorhees will be playing for the Barcelona Dragons on Sunday in New York in a game against the New York-New Jersey Knights in the World League of American Football debut.

Voorhees (6-foot-4, 289 pounds) was a second-team All-Western Football Conference selection in 1989, his senior season at Northridge.

The New York Giants drafted Voorhees in the eighth round of the 1990 National Football League draft.

Mr. Consistency: Cal State Northridge sophomore Garrett Noel, who began the year with a personal best of 210 feet 4 inches in the javelin, has bettered that mark in every meet this season.

Noel, who placed ninth in the 1989 NCAA Division II championships and redshirted last season, has thrown 220-8, 216-3, 214-7 and 213-3 in meets this year.

The 220-8 surpassed the provisional qualifying mark (219-10) for the Division I championships in Eugene, Ore., on May 29-June 1.

The more things change: Last season, Coach Ken Wagner led Moorpark to a share of the WSC baseball championship in his first year at the school. Eight games into the conference schedule this season, another first-year coach, Oxnard’s Dave Taylor, has led his team to a share of first place.

The lone constant is Canyons, which was one of the tri-champions with Moorpark in 1990 and currently is tied for first with Oxnard.

Statwatch: In Craig Clayton’s past five pitching starts for the Northridge baseball team, he has given up only 19 hits in 44 innings while striking out 40 and walking eight. . . .

Mark Root’s total of 15 kills against Pepperdine on Tuesday was a season-high. . . .

Neil Coffman’s match-high total of 21 kills against Pepperdine was his lowest in Northridge’s 11 Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. matches. . . .

Oxnard has an earned-run average of 2.22 in WSC play. Tim Salado leads the staff with a 1.57 earned-run average in conference play. . . .

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