Area Well Represented at Series

A San Diego softball reunion took place in Oklahoma City last week. That’s where the NCAA World Series was played. Eight of the nation’s best teams squared off in the double-elimination tournament. Six former high school standouts from San Diego were there.

Things started with a bang Thursday, when defending champion UCLA, with shortstop Kristie Howard (Monte Vista), beat Florida State, with pitcher Rebecca Aase (Santana) and first baseman Jennifer Olow (Mt. Miguel). The Bruins won, 1-0.

Later that day, Long Beach State, with catchers Lisa Wilson (Chula Vista) and Gia Wilkerson (Monte Vista), defeated Missouri, 1-0.

Utah, led by Mt. Miguel alumna Charmelle Green, didn’t fare so well. The Western Athletic Conference and Western Regional champions were eliminated early with 2-0 losses to Fresno State and Missouri.

The Utes beat San Diego State, 9-0, in the final game of the regular season then went on to beat Creighton for the WAC Tournament title in what likely was the longest two-game championship series ever. Creighton beat Utah, 1-0, in 31 innings and forced a second game in the final, which the Utes won, 4-3, in 25 innings. The two games took 12 hours and eight minutes and didn’t end until 6:08 on a Sunday morning. Green patrolled the outfield from sundown till sunup.

But after Utah beat Texas A&M;, 3-0, to win the West Regional, but Green, a senior, said her team went flat in the World Series.

“We’re a great team, but we’re also really young,” she said. “The team was a little boggled by it. We weren’t playing our best. We made errors when we shouldn’t have. We went there with so much intensity, but we had to wait four days before our first game. It died after we sat around for all week.”

Green led the Utes with a .387 batting average, 33 RBIs, six home runs, five triples and 11 doubles. She was 10 for 10 in stolen bases. Green said she plans to play in New Zealand for six months in the fall.

Aase and Olow hit .275 and .227, respectively, for Florida State, and Aase (pronounced Ace) was 8-1 with a 0.69 ERA as the Seminoles’ third pitcher. Howard, a sophomore, hit .295 for the Bruins, who lost to upstart Arizona twice in the World Series. Arizona, which finished fourth in the Pac-10, beat UCLA, 5-1, in the final and ended the Bruins’ three-year domination. Wilkerson hit .265 for Long Beach, which was eliminated by UCLA, 1-0 in 11 innings, late Saturday.

Near misses: One team that should have made it to the series but didn’t was Arizona State, which finished second in the Pac-10 behind UCLA and was ranked fourth at the end of the regular season. The Sun Devils beat rival Arizona three out of four times before being swept in two games by the Wildcats in the regionals.

“Oh, my gosh; I can’t believe it,” said ASU pitcher Dawn Wood, who had back-to-back perfect games for Castle Park and holds four San Diego Section records, including career strikeouts (751). “I think our team was just as good as any in the World Series, better than some. It was sad to see our season end the way it did (with 4-2 and 2-0 losses to Arizona).”

Wood, a sophomore, was 13-5 with a 1.36 ERA and beat three World Series teams during the regular season.

Christy Serritella (Madison), who hit .323 for the Sun Devils, also was surprised at Arizona’s surge, saying, “Things didn’t drop in when we needed them. They got the breaks. We struggled.”

Draft hopefuls: There will be no fire sale of four-year college baseball players in San Diego this year in the major leagues’ June free agent draft. As well as SDSU did, reaching the NCAA regionals, scouts won’t be gutting Coach Jim Dietz’s roster as they’ve done after less successful seasons. No more than four Aztecs should be picked in the draft, which is June 3-5.

The candidates from SDSU are outfielder Bill Dunckel from Fallbrook (.332 average, 42 RBIs, 8 triples), second baseman Scott Dennison from Valhalla High (.326, 43 RBIs, preseason All-American), left-handed hitting catcher Marcelino Garcia from Madera (.273, 35 RBIs) and right-handed pitcher Brian Holliday from Redmond, Wash. (6-3, .338 ERA).

The talent pool also is shallow at the University of San Diego, where Coach John Cunningham considers John Ferguson, a 6-foot-6 right-handed pitcher, as his best prospect. Ferguson, a senior from Anaheim Servite, finished 1991 with a 4-7 record, 5.46 ERA and 44 strikeouts and 41 walks in 89 innings. Catcher Sean Gousha from Orange Glen High (.243, 13 RBIs in 111 at bats) likely will be passed over because of his bout with Hodgkin’s disease.

U.S. International has pitchers Jeff Matranga (6-11, 125 strikeouts in 125 innings, 3.70 ERA) and left-hander Mike Whisonant (1-10 with a save, 4.80 ERA). Matranga and Darrin Forster (.335 average) won’t be left out in the cold if they’re passed over. They have picked up scholarships to Arizona State and Grand Canyon College, respectively.

UC San Diego’s top prospect, senior infielder Steve Nowlan from El Capitan High, injured his knee but still managed to hit .340 as a DH. Junior right-hander Brent Hansen (6-6, 2.99 ERA) could be a middle-to-low round pick.

The real sleepers could be at Point Loma Nazarene, where Rich Miller led NAIA District 3 with 12 home runs and a .366 average. He also had 44 RBIs in 49 games. Right-handed pitcher Mark Ratekin (6-9, 2.72 ERA) struck out 114 batters in 122 1/3 innings and, on a couple of occasions, had a gallery of 10 scouts watching him.

Defeated but decorated: The fact that USD’s Jose Luis Noriega has lost to the eventual champion in the NCAA Singles Tournament quarterfinals two years in row now hasn’t tarnished his image as a sportsman. Noriega, a junior and a three-time Division I All-American, received the Rafael Osuna National Sportsmanship Award at the national tourney in Athens, Ga. This came after he was given the Division I Head/Arthur Ashe Junior Sportsmanship Award by Region 5.

Noriega played the champion--Stanford’s Jared Palmer--tougher than Georgia’s Patricio Arnold, who lost in the final, 6-2, 6-0. Noriega pushed Palmer to three sets before falling, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

PLNC SID embarks: Dan Van Ommen, a one-time baseball assistant and current sports information director at Point Loma Nazarene, has announced that he’s leaving. Why? Because he is about to publish the first known book on his profession: The Sports Information Director’s Encyclopedia, 420 pages how to deal with athletes, coaches and the media and meet all deadlines.

Van Ommen, 45, has 11 years in the business, but his book should bring him pioneer status. This pioneer will be heading in an eastward direction, however, to do seminars and help other departments set up shop. But he also wants to stay on with the Crusaders in some capacity.

“I wish there would have been a manual for me when I started,” he said. “There really isn’t anything out there for the sports information director. I’ve had schools call me, wanting me to set up their SID departments. But I’ve never had the opportunity to do it, because I was tied down to a job.”

Two of Van Ommen’s former interns, Amanda Houlton (Christ College Irvine) and Chip Monck (Asbury College, Willmore, Ky.), are now SIDs. He spent three years researching and writing the book, which he will publish in July.