COLLEGE BASEBALL / GARY KLEIN : For This Cowboy, One Title Isn’t Enough

Dennis Burbank went to Oklahoma State intent on helping the Cowboys win a national championship.

And Burbank, a 6-foot-6 right-hander from Anaheim, nearly succeeded last season when he started and pitched well in a 2-1 loss to Georgia in the championship game of the College World Series.

This year, Burbank is hoping to win two national titles.

Tonight, he will take the court with the Oklahoma State basketball team when the Cowboys play Temple in the semifinals of the East Regional at East Rutherford, N.J.

A reserve forward, Burbank has averaged about five minutes a game for the Cowboys, the co-champions of the Big Eight Conference who have defeated New Mexico and North Carolina State in the tournament.

In what has thus far been a limited role, he has also compiled a 2-1 record for the 11th-ranked Cowboy baseball team.

“I planned on being here for one year, having a great (baseball) season and winning the (College) World Series and then getting drafted high and leaving,” said Burbank, who was not drafted after going 10-2 with a 3.19 earned-run average in 1990. “But I can’t complain about the way things have worked out. To get a chance to to go to the Final Four is something I didn’t anticipate.”

A standout in baseball and basketball at Valencia High, Burbank went to Pepperdine on a basketball scholarship. But after compiling an 11-2 record for the Waves his freshman year, he asked to be put on a baseball scholarship, which would have allowed him to concentrate on baseball full time.

Burbank said that Pepperdine eventually agreed. By the end of the season, however, he decided to transfer to Cypress College, where he would be eligible for the draft after his sophomore year.

Burbank went 12-5 with a 2.70 ERA at Cypress and was drafted in the 10th round by the Dodgers. But he turned down their offer and transferred to Oklahoma State.

Last season, Burbank was 10-1 at the time of the draft but was not selected. He passed on free-agent contracts that were offered after the season and decided to return to school and resume his career as a two-sport athlete.

“I knew no matter how well I did my senior year, the signing bonus wasn’t going to be there,” he said. “The reason I quit basketball at Pepperdine and transferred was to prove to scouts that the only thing on my mind was baseball.

“Once they, in my eyes, let me down, I chose to do something that made Dennis Burbank happy, and that was to play basketball.”

Ironically, in a move to free funds for the baseball program, Burbank is on a basketball scholarship.

Earlier this season, Burbank played in a basketball game at Kansas, then hopped a plane to Louisiana where he pitched the next day against Louisiana State.

Burbank said basketball has improved his flexibility and increased his leg strength, allowing him to throw harder. The diversion also has afforded a new attitude.

“Before, I wanted to do everything to impress the scouts--not for myself, not for my team, I wanted the scouts to be happy,” he said. “I’m not throwing for the radar guns anymore. I’m throwing because I love pitching, and that’s what I want to do.”

Sooner the better: Larry Cochell took Cal State Fullerton to the College World Series twice in his three years as coach of the Titans.

Now in his first season at Oklahoma, Cochell is trying to become the first coach to have taken three schools to Omaha.

Cochell’s Oral Roberts team made it in 1978, and his Fullerton teams advanced in 1988 and 1990.

Last season, Oklahoma finished 31-26 and in seventh place in the Big Eight Conference. But this season, with a lineup that features seven players from Southern California, No. 24 Oklahoma is off to a 15-4 start.

“At Oral Roberts it was a matter of starting the program and at Fullerton it was maintaining one,” said Cochell, who also has coached at Emporia State, Creighton, Cal State Los Angeles and Northwestern. “We thought we were going to have to do some rebuilding here, but the team is farther along than I thought it would be.”

Cochell is enjoying the difference in pace--and scenery--between Fullerton and Norman, Okla.

“It’s nice to look out the window of my office and see a farmer working in his field instead of the freeway,” he said.

Rivalry renewed: USC and UCLA resume a rivalry that began in 1928 when the second-ranked Trojans meet the Bruins in a three-game series starting Saturday at Dedeaux Field. USC leads the series, 190-78.

USC leads the Pacific 10 Southern Division with an 8-1 record.

The Trojans are followed in the standings by No. 4 Stanford, 4-3; UCLA, 5-4; No. 12 Arizona State, 4-5; California, 3-6, and Arizona, 1-6.

Independent-minded: Cal State Northridge, competing as an independent in its first season at the Division I level, appears to be on track for one of the 48 berths in the NCAA tournament.

“I can’t imagine them not being among the top 48 teams in the country,” Creighton Coach Jim Hendry said after the Fresno State tournament last week.

The No. 20 Matadors finished second behind No. 8 Creighton in the tournament and emerged with a 19-9-1 record one game from midpoint of their schedule.

Northridge has been buoyed by the performance of Craig Clayton, a junior who is batting .391 and has a 20-game hitting streak. Clayton, a right-hander, pitched two complete-game victories in Fresno, improving his record to 5-2 and lowering his ERA to 1.88.

“They don’t act like they’re in (Division I) for the first time,” Fresno State Coach Bob Bennett said. “They don’t act like new guys on the block who are just happy to be here. They play with confidence.”

College Baseball Notes

Sophomore right-hander Steve Montgomery is 5-0 with a save and an 0.86 earned-run average for No. 7 Pepperdine, which leads the West Coast Conference with an 11-3 record. In 42 innings, Montgomery has 42 strikeouts and has yielded only 29 hits and eight walks. Scott Talanoa of No. 16 Cal State Long Beach is batting a team-high .468 and set school records last week by getting hits in eight consecutive at-bats and reaching base in 11 consecutive plate appearances. . . . Loyola Marymount outfielder Mark Tillman, a junior who had only nine hits in his first two seasons, is batting .444 and has four three-hit games.

UCLA’s David Tokheim has at least one hit in all 25 games this season. The senior outfielder is batting .355 with five home runs and 19 runs batted in. . . . Jeff Antoon of UC Santa Barbara set a school record by extending his hitting streak to 22 games.