3-Man Rotation Enough to Spin CSUN Through Baseball Season

The dog days of summer are approaching, not to mention the end of a lengthy regular season of baseball for Cal State Northridge.

With hotter weather and a possible NCAA playoff berth upcoming, Northridge’s lack of a consistent fourth starting pitcher has become a topic of conversation around Matador Field.

Can CSUN finish strongly with only three reliable starters?

Coach Bill Kernen thinks so, and he believes the Matadors probably could get by with even fewer should they manage to get to the College World Series.

“If we get that far, it will be no factor,” Kernen said. “You get two days of rest between games if you keep winning. You can even do it with two guys.”

In the six-team regional format, only three starters are needed, Kernen said, adding, “I’d bring one of my top three guys back on two days’ rest if it came down to it.”

For the remainder of the regular season, Kernen said, Northridge’s trio of right-handers will remain intact.

Scott Sharts will open this weekend’s series at Cal State Sacramento on Saturday. Ken Kendrena will pitch the second half of Saturday’s doubleheader, and Craig Clayton will close out the series Sunday.

“I’ve got it all mapped out for those three guys the rest of the way,” Kernen said. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t need some (relief) help from someone else.”

Add pitching staff: Besides taking their turns on the hill every third game, Clayton and Sharts also are everyday position players, having started in all 50 Northridge games. But do not expect the hard-driving Kernen to make any allowances for fatigue.

“If anything, we’re having them run more right now to stay in condition,” Kernen said.

Road warriors: Oxnard will play at Canyons today for the championship of the Western State Conference’s Shaughnessy baseball playoffs, and the Condors are happy to be away from the unfriendly and spacious confines of their home field.

Oxnard won its Shaughnessy opener at Glendale on Tuesday and won seven of 10 games on the road during the WSC regular season.

“We haven’t executed well in our park,” Oxnard Coach Dave Taylor said. “We need to execute. We haven’t done the little things here.

“As far as a psychological standpoint, the guys are a little more relaxed (on the road).”

The game site is also good news for Canyons, which won its first Shaughnessy game at home and took seven of 10 conference games there this season.

Fearless forecast: Northridge’s Darcy Arreola is picked to finish fifth in the 1,500 meters in the NCAA Division I championships by Track & Field News magazine.

Arreola finished third in the Division I meet in 1989 but has been slow rounding into shape this season because of early-season injury and illness.

Track & Field News, which made predictions for the top 10 finishers in each event in the NCAA meet in Eugene, Ore., from May 29-June 1, also tabbed former Valley-area standouts Quincy Watts of USC and Angela Burnham of UCLA in its form chart.

Watts, a three-time state high school sprint champion at Taft High, is picked to finish third in the men’s 400. Burnham, winner of five state sprint titles for Rio Mesa, is picked to place 10th in the women’s 100 and ninth in the 200.

Back in action: Paul Peters averaged 28.6 yards a catch as a wide receiver for the Cal State Northridge football team last season. OK, so he was limited to only two receptions because of injury, but Coach Bob Burt is eager to see if Peters can sustain that sort of excellence over a full season.

Just before halftime in CSUN’s opener against Northern Arizona, the fleet-footed Peters sustained a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder while making a spectacular catch. While recovering from surgery for those injuries, he suffered a dislocation in his other shoulder and required additional surgery.

Peters, a junior college All-American at Rancho Santiago, is back at full speed but, as a precautionary measure, he will not take a hit until the fall.

“He could be as good a wide receiver as we’ve ever had at this school,” Burt said.

Fresh troops: Counting walk-ons, 82 players are out for spring football at Northridge, including 29 newcomers. A mix of freshmen and junior college transfers will increase those totals next fall.

New NCAA rules limit contact drills to 10 of the 15 spring practices. Spring drills end Saturday with the annual intrasquad game. A pregame barbecue will be held at 5 p.m. at North Campus Stadium. Kickoff is at 7.

Injury update: Northridge safety Eric Treibatch will not play in the spring game at North Campus Stadium on Saturday because of a partially collapsed lung he suffered in practice Friday.

Treibatch spent the weekend at Encino Hospital under observation.

“He’s fine now,” Burt said. “But we just don’t want to take any chances in the game on Saturday. It’s not worth the risk.”

Honor roll: Neil Coffman, the top hitter on the Northridge volleyball team, has been selected first-team All-Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. in a vote of conference players.

Coffman, a senior from Chatsworth High, is the Matadors’ career kill leader with 1,541. He had 655 this season, breaking the single-season record held by Bob Samuelson, now a member of the U. S. national team.

Middle blockers Raphael Tulino, a teammate of Coffman’s at Chatsworth, and Coley Kyman, a sophomore, were third-team all-conference choices.

Statwatch: The Northridge baseball team is 15-1-1 at home where the Matadors have defeated USC, Cal State Fullerton, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA. CSUN’s loss, and the tie, came against the University of San Diego.

Climbing the ladder: Ryan Vierra of Northridge continues to work his way up the Matadors’ all-time top 10 list in the hammer throw and he is on the verge of breaking into the top 10 in the shotput.

Vierra, a junior from Modesto Community College, finished fifth in the hammer and third in the shotput in the UC Irvine Invitational on Sunday with personal bests of 193 feet 4 inches and 55-10 1/2, respectively.

His effort in the hammer moved him to third on the all-time Northridge performer list and the shotput mark moved him within 9 1/2 inches of 10th on that list.

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