COLLEGES / ALAN DROOZ : Now Lowery Is Making Points With Baseball Scouts

Don’t call Terrell Lowery Loyola Marymount’s answer to Bo Jackson.

Jackson, the pro baseball and football star who is currently recovering from a serious hip injury, once referred to football as his “hobby.”

Lowery, the Lion junior who blossomed into the basketball team’s top player, recently picked up a baseball bat and has demonstrated enough ability to interest major league scouts.

For Lowery, a potential NBA draft choice next year, the feeling is mutual. He says his second sport is no hobby.

“I don’t want any scouts--NBA or baseball--to think I’m playing with (either sport),” Lowery said. “I’m serious about it.”

Lowery was a baseball standout at Oakland Tech High, where he was also Oakland’s prep basketball player of the year in 1988. He earned four letters as an infielder.

Lion baseball Coach Chris Smith is a friend of Lowery’s high school coach, so he knew Terrell could play. Lowery wanted to play last season, but the basketball team advanced to the final eight of the NCAA tournament. By the time he started practicing with the baseball team, most of the season was gone.

This year Lowery, a right-hander, has worked his way into the lineup as an outfielder.

“I like it, it’s going pretty well,” Lowery said. “The feeling is starting to come back.

“I get more publicity in basketball but my true love was always baseball. (Smith) knew I could play all along.”

Smith, known for his heavy-hitting teams, said Lowery is unpolished but “has a ton of ability. He hasn’t been out there much but . . . he has legitimate skills. He’ll make mistakes but hopefully we can live with the mistakes while he learns. He’s banging the ball all over the field and he’s gonna get better every day.”

Lowery said he had scholarship offers to play baseball, but felt more secure opting for basketball.

“I knew if I went to school on a baseball scholarship I wouldn’t be able to play basketball, because they play fall baseball,” he said.

As a freshman, Lowery watched teammate Enoch Simmons play both sports. Although Simmons played sparingly for the baseball team, he showed enough talent to be a relatively high choice in the 1989 major league draft. He’s now playing in the Oakland A’s farm system.

Smith says Simmons “may have been a little bit further along, but Terrell has better skills.”

As a basketball player, Lowery averaged 28.5 points and 9.1 assists and earned All-West Coast Conference and All-Far West honors. He is expected to make some preseason All-America teams, but said he would like to consider offers from both sports.

After appearing in six games and starting three for the baseball team, Lowery is batting .375, and hasn’t struck out in 16 at-bats. Alongside Rick Mediavilla and Mark Till, he gives the team one of its speediest outfields in years.

“Don’t get me wrong--I’m not gonna stop (playing) anything,” he said. “This summer, basketball will still be on my agenda. Next June, whichever one looks better to me (as a career) I’ll take seriously.”

Otte to be Good: Cal State Dominguez Hills junior outfielder John Otte is on a batting tear that has carried him past teammate Darrell Conner into the team lead at .443. Conner hasn’t exactly slowed down, with an average of .435, but since March 16, Otte has raised his average 64 points by going 13 for 21 with 10 runs batted in.

The transfer from El Camino College has been especially tough in clutch situations. He leads the Toros with 10 two-out RBIs and he’s batting .609 (14 for 23) with runners in scoring position.

Otte, who has 11 doubles and 20 RBIs, leads the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. in batting. Conner is a close second and leads the Toros with 25 RBIs. He also has an eight-game hitting streak.

After taking the Easter weekend off, the Toros resume CCAA play with games Monday and Tuesday against Cal Poly Pomona.

The 1-2 Pitch: The Toros also have a winning combination on the mound, where the team is trying to set a school record for earned-run average. With junior Mark Tranberg and sophomore Armando Plascencia, both right-handers, throwing shutouts weekly, the Toros have lowered the team ERA to 3.55. The school record, set in 1987 when the Toros went to the Division II World Series, is 3.78.

Tranberg has won seven consecutive games, two of them shutouts, to improve his record to 7-1 and lower his ERA to 1.25. Plascencia threw his second shutout of the season last week, beating Montclair (N.J.) State, 9-0, while striking out a career-high nine. Plascencia is 3-1 with a 2.63 ERA.

Together they have limited opposing batters to a .202 average.

Suspicious Minds: Toro infielder David Blum phoned a Times reporter last week and asked, “Did I talk to you?” Blum knew something was fishy when the reply was, “I don’t know, who are you?”

Blum, a reserve infielder from San Francisco who plays sparingly, apparently was the victim of a well-planned prank by teammates, one of whom did a phone interview with him posing as a reporter.

The caller told Blum that a photographer would take his picture the next day at practice, so he should “make himself look good” by wearing a turtleneck and blacking his cheeks below his eyes.

“There was lots of enthusiasm at practice following day,” Toro Coach George Wing said. “The guys were waiting to see how Blum would look when he showed up.”

The suspicious Blum, however, didn’t wear a turtleneck or eye black.

Wing identified catcher Steve Whipple and pitcher Tom Hurst as the pranksters.

“It had a loosening effect on the team when we really needed it,” Wing said. “We needed a good laugh.”

Notes

The Dominguez Hills softball team received its first Top 20 ranking since 1982. The Lady Toros are 17th in the nation and the fifth-highest Division II team in the West. Conference rival Chapman is No. 1 and Cal State Bakersfield is No. 2. The Lady Toros compete today and Saturday in the 16-team Cal State Hayward tournament. . . . Toro pitcher Anne Ibarra had her school-record 10-game winning streak snapped last week, losing, 1-0, to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on an unearned run in the last inning. . . . Prep League volleyball most valuable player Shannon Davenport has signed a letter of intent to play at St. Mary’s College. The 6-foot outside hitter, an All-CIF selection at Chadwick School, is the daughter of volleyball referee Wink Davenport, a well-known figure in California volleyball circles who was a member of the 1968 U.S. National Team.

Pepperdine first baseman Dan Melendez learned last weekend that he has been invited to try out for the U.S. National Team this summer. The sophomore from St. Bernard High leads the seventh-ranked Waves with 26 runs batted in. . . . Wave right-hander Patrick Ahearne has the best record among West Coast Conference starting pitchers at 8-1. The junior from Harbor College has a 3.17 earned-run average.

The surprise home run leader in the WCC is St. Mary’s outfielder James Mouton, who has been known more for speed and high batting averages. Mouton has averaged only six homers per season, but the senior has muscled nine home runs going into this week’s action. Even more impressive, three of the homers have been grand slams, one of them against Loyola Marymount. Mouton is trying to break the St. Mary’s season record of 15 held by Von Hayes, an outfielder with the Philadelphia Phillies.