San Diego State Gives CS Northridge Something to Shout About

Those who line “Raggers’ Rail” at San Diego State’s Charlie Smith Field mercilessly shout taunts at baseball players from opposing schools.

Unfortunately, in last weekend’s three-game series with Cal State Northridge, not all the attacks on CSUN were good-natured. Center fielder Greg Shockey, for example, was pelted with rocks during Saturday’s game, a 6-2 CSUN victory.

“The whole thing was pretty low-class,” Northridge Coach Bill Kernen said. And he wasn’t just referring to the rock-throwing incidents.

Kernen is miffed about what he termed “bush” tactics by San Diego State throughout the series--particularly during the Aztecs’ 12-1 victory Sunday. Ahead, 9-1, in the eighth inning, San Diego State was bunting and stealing.

Jim Dietz, San Diego State’s coach, told reporters he believed that an eight-run lead wasn’t safe. Only two days before, Northridge had rallied from a seven-run second-inning deficit to tie the score and force extra innings.

“You could look at it that way, that they were showing respect for our offense. But I don’t think that’s what it was,” Kernen said. “It was the bottom of the eighth, not the bottom of the fifth. We had one more at-bat.

“It was an obvious attempt to embarrass us when they got us down.”

The series marked the final regular-season meeting between the teams, but Kernen is still hoping for a rematch.

“I don’t know if they’re good enough or we’re good enough to make the playoffs, but it sure would be fun under neutral circumstances to find them in the same regional.”

Climbing the ladder: It took a while, but a Cal State Northridge athlete finally cleared seven feet in the high jump this season.

Senior Walt Stewart and junior Dave Swanson each cleared 7 feet 1/2 inch in the Meet of Champions at Azusa Pacific on Saturday.

Stewart, the 1989 NCAA Division II champion, and Swanson, the runner-up in the 1990 state junior college championships for Glendale, each missed three tries at 7-2 1/2, which would have exceeded the provisional qualifying mark (7-1 3/4) for the NCAA Division I championships.

Swanson’s previous best this season was 6-10 3/4. Stewart had cleared 6-10.

Constant reminder: Lest anyone forget the date of Rematch II, Cal State Northridge tight end Art Espino is wearing it across the back of his practice T-shirt. In green lettering, it reads: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Oct. 26, 1991.

Last season, Cal Poly SLO handed Northridge two of its four football losses. On Nov. 3, before a school-record, overflow crowd of 7,127 at CSUN, the Mustangs downed the Matadors, 6-3, in a Western Football Conference regular-season game.

Then, after tying CSUN for the conference title with a 4-1 record, Cal Poly SLO knocked the Matadors out of the NCAA Division II playoffs, 14-7.

Sidelined: Adam McKinney, a starting wide receiver at Northridge, will miss spring drills because he is a part-time student.

Under the 10-semester athletic eligibility rule, McKinney can only go to school full-time and play sports for one more semester. He will use that final semester next fall.

A transfer from Cal State Fullerton, McKinney caught 23 passes for 259 yards for CSUN last season.

The former San Diego High standout is related to Olympic boxing gold medalist Kennedy McKinney.

Lion-hearted: The Northridge men’s volleyball team already has clinched a berth in the eight-team Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament at UC Irvine next week.

The Matadors (20-6), ranked third nationally, will play host to Loyola Marymount at 7:30 p.m. Friday in their final tuneup for the postseason.

There is just one problem: Loyola’s Lions will be fighting for their collective lives. Loyola, Stanford and UC Santa Barbara are battling for the final two WIVA tournament slots.

“I’d be more worried about that if we weren’t playing at our place,” said John Price, Northridge’s coach. “You hate to enter that tournament with a loss, though.”

Statwatch: Cal Lutheran’s baseball team has won nine in a row and 13 of its past 14. The Kingsmen are 21-6 overall, 6-2 in the NAIA District 3, their only losses coming to The Master’s College. . . . Northridge’s baseball team dropped a notch to 15th in this week’s Baseball America magazine NCAA Division I poll. The Matadors, who split four games last week, fell from 15th to 22nd in Collegiate Baseball magazine’s poll. . . .

The Cal Lutheran women’s track team turned in several season-best marks in last week’s Meet of Champions at Azusa Pacific. Tania Love ran 12.99 in the 100 meters and 27.06 in the 200; Ariel James, 28.24 in the 200 meters; Charlene Kouthchick, 2:28.75 in the 800 meters; Heidi Peterson, 4:47.91 in the 1,500 meters; and Pam Beaver cleared 5-3 in the high jump. . . .

After losing four games in a row to begin conference play, Glendale has won eight of 12 conference games to pull into a tie for fifth place. . . . Jean Harvey, a sophomore from Paraclete High, took more than 2 1/2 minutes off the Antelope Valley school record in the 5,000 meters Saturday in the Bakersfield Relays, besting the record of 19:48 with a time of 17:08. She also won the 3,000.

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