COLLEGES : This Loyola Crew Makes the Cut

Loyola Marymount’s baseball and basketball teams may have missed postseason play for the first time in four seasons, but there is one Lion team still playing--the men’s crew heavyweight shell.

The foursome of senior Steve DeBever, juniors Allan Walsworth, Dan Boyle and Steve O’Donnell and senior coxswain Alexandra Elliot is participating this weekend in the Intercollegiate Rowing Assn. championship on Onondaga Lake at Syracuse, N.Y. They are grouped in the heavyweight four shells.

In Thursday’s heats, Wisconsin and Navy won to qualify for Saturday’s final. The Lions placed fifth out of the five teams Thursday but get a second chance in today’s heat for runners-up. The Lions will be grouped with Georgetown, Cornell and Boston University. They must place in the top two to advance.

It is the first postseason appearance for the men’s team, led by second-year Coach Lee Miller, and a coup for a group that gets minimal financial support from the school.

“We’re strictly walk-ons, all recruited on campus,” Miller said.

Where does a coach find nonscholarship athletes who will commit to train for the entire school year?

“Steve O’Donnell’s brother, Pete, rowed at Loyola,” Miller said. “The rest were swimmers or guys who gravitated to the sport, looking for something to do at Loyola. They’re all big, tall guys, typical rowers. They’re all experienced and they’ve rowed together for a long time.”

The Lions have had successful women’s teams in the past, including a national championship lightweight shell in 1981, but this is the best men’s heavyweight team ever at Loyola and the first to qualify for the IRA championship, which selects 10 shells from around the country for the competition.

The quartet placed second in the California championships and third in the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships to reach the national regatta. The other California qualifier is their chief Southland rival, UC Santa Barbara. All IRA races are at the Olympic distance of 2,000 meters. The course record is 5 minutes, 45.5 seconds.

The Lions have been in Syracuse all week to get acclimated to the humid weather and the choppy water conditions, which is considerably different from placid Ballona Creek, where they usually train.

“We haven’t gotten beat off the line all year,” Miller said. “I’m hoping we can get off to a good start and then hold them off.”

Miller was a coxswain at Washington and coached at UCLA for three years before joining the Loyola program last year. UCLA recently announced it will discontinue the sport after this season. Through the years crew has been a low-profile but viable sport at Loyola and remains in good standing with the athletic department.

“UCLA wasn’t a real pleasant place to work,” Miller said. “We got no support. At Loyola there’s not enough support (financially) for a dynasty, but we feel we’re on the right track.”

The Loyola assistant basketball coaching position remains open after a last-minute defection last week.

Lion Coach Jay Hillock wanted to hire longtime Creighton assistant Dick Fick, who was on campus and filling out the necessary paperwork for the job when he got a call from Morehead State. He was named the Morehead State coach on May 23.

Hillock, who has been searching for a No. 1 assistant since he became coach in September, said he has “a list of six or seven names on my desk” but isn’t pursuing anyone.

“I’d like to get a guy by June 15 because of the recruiting (period) in July, but I’m gonna get a good guy,” Hillock said. “I’m not gonna feel pressured (to hire someone quickly).”

Hillock said trying to find an assistant for three-quarters of a year “has been an unbelievable scenario. We’ve had a few guys take it for a day or two but nobody lasts.”

Loyola sophomore shortstop Chris Gomez is one of six finalists for the college division Latino Athlete of the Year Award to be given by the Hispanic Public Relations Assn.

Nominees along with Gomez, the All-West Coast Conference first-team shortstop, are USC kicker Quin Rodriguez, UCLA soccer player Ray Fernandez, Cal State Los Angeles pole-vaulter Dean Galaz, Occidental College distance runner Marcial Beltran and Arizona golfer Dave Berganio.

Another South Bay nominee is Harbor College baseball player Ricardo Gutierrez, who is among seven community college men nominated for the award.

Former USC and Bishop Montgomery track standout Mike Gonzales, the 1987 Pan American Games gold medalist and a 1992 Olympic hopeful in the decathlon, will receive a special award.

Winners will be announced at a luncheon in Los Angeles today.

Notes

Cal State Dominguez Hills first baseman Darrell Conner and pitcher Mark Tranberg were named to the Division II All-America team selected by the American Baseball Coaches Assn. Outfielder Mike Stevenson of Lewis University in Illinois was named player of the year. . . . One person who wasn’t surprised when Cal State Long Beach advanced to this week’s College World Series is Loyola Marymount Coach Chris Smith, who was an assistant when then-Loyola Coach Dave Snow led the Lions to Omaha five years ago. As soon as he saw the regional field in Austin, Tex., where the 49ers were sent, Smith predicted that Snow’s team had a good chance to win. Smith has maintained all season that the 49ers had the deepest pitching rotation of any team in the Southland. . . . Lion first baseman Joe Ciccarella and reliever Joe Caruso were named to the all-district second team.