Northridge Officials Focus on Positives of 1st Year in Division I : Summary: Despite CSUN’s limited budget, several Matador teams turned in impressive showings.

Could Cal State Northridge’s first year of athletic competition at the NCAA Division I level have ended any better?

In the final 4 minutes 11.46 seconds of its inaugural year of major-college competition, Northridge’s first Division I champion was crowned. Darcy Arreola won the women’s 1,500-meter race in resounding fashion, leaving the rest of the field in her wake.

Arreola’s triumph came on the heels of a successful baseball season in which Northridge earned its first NCAA Division I playoff invitation and the team came within three outs of advancing to the College World Series.

In winning 44 games, including victories over such high-profile teams as USC, UCLA, Fresno State and Miami, the baseball team’s story took on a Cinderella quality and captured the attention of local television stations and national sports publications.

“We’re playing up the fact that everyone is saying we did such a great job, but I think we really did in baseball what we all thought we were going to do all along,” said Athletic Director Bob Hiegert, a former Northridge baseball coach.

“It amazes me that there is as much disbelief or amazement that we’re successful in Division I. This is not something tremendously different for the baseball program.”

Indeed, the baseball season simply marked the continuation of a trend. The same Northridge programs that flourished against Division II competition and helped win 34 national titles from 1968-1989, also enjoyed the most immediate success at the major-college level.

This despite the uphill climb of competing with a limited budget (Northridge grants less than half of the scholarships the NCAA allows) and without conference affiliation.

“We worked hard for a four-year period getting prepared for the transition and I think as far as making a major move in a program the size of ours, in the market we’re in, we were adequately prepared and ready to go.” Hiegert said.

“Now that it’s over and we can look back, everything probably worked out better than we expected and better than most people expected.”

Which is not to say the struggle is by any means over.

Northridge has yet to shed its image of a commuter campus incapable of developing loyalties.

While men’s volleyball led the nation in home attendance, crowd counts at most school events remain small.

Northridge, particularly in the marquee sport of men’s basketball, must continue to develop its program in order to be able to form a more marketable home schedule and expand its audience.

There has been talk of a need for a multi-purpose indoor arena for Northridge basketball and volleyball teams, but so far that need is evident only for recruiting purposes. Only twice--for men’s volleyball matches against USC and UCLA--was the school’s gymnasium stretched anywhere close to its seating capacity of 3,000.

Northridge did garner an increased amount of media coverage in men’s basketball, but it would be stretching it to say the school benefited from the attention. Lopsided losses, no matter who the opponent, never look good on the television screen.

Still, Matador teams had their moments. When Northridge defeated Miami, 13-6, in regional baseball playoff action, one local network affiliate called it “L.A.’s biggest sports upset” of the night.

For Northridge athletics to claim a position in a very competitive Southland sports market, progress must be made on several fronts.

Northridge is a far cry from most Division I schools in terms of adequately funding its athletic programs, and the state budget deficit of $14.3 billion will only make matters worse when the trickle-down forces cutbacks.

In the 1990-91 school year, Northridge spent roughly $500,000 on athletic scholarships, well below the $1.1 million allowed by the NCAA for the 16 sports (men’s and women’s) the school offers.

The difference, according to a pamphlet circulated by Paul Bubb, director of athletic development, “must come from private sources who want to see the Matadors attain funding equal to their opponents.”

The scholarships are funded by four sources: student fees, athletic revenues (including gate and concession receipts), contributions from individual donors and funds from the Cal State Northridge Foundation, an auxiliary treasury for the school.

Bubb’s goal is to have the scholarships, which currently cost $6,132 (including tuition, room and board) funded solely by student fees and contributions from donors within five years. That would leave athletic revenues and Northridge Foundation dollars to go toward recruiting, student services (such as tutoring) and an expanded coaching staff.

Currently, men’s volleyball and soccer, two of Northridge’s most successful programs, have part-time coaches.

John Price, who guided the volleyball team to a 21-6 record and a No. 3 national ranking, supplements his income by working at a sandwich shop. “I don’t think the money is there,” Price said. “I don’t think they’re holding out on me.”

Marwan Ass’ad, the soccer coach, makes ends meet by dipping into money generated by his highly successful summer camps.

Hiegert said both coaches received pay raises during the past year and that they were receiving a “competitive salary.”

Northridge’s staffing problems don’t end with part-time coaches, who customarily are utilized nationwide in non-revenue producing sports. Of greater concern is the time required of the school’s coaches in the classroom, often during peak recruiting periods.

Men’s basketball coaches were required to teach four class units last year. Softball, baseball and women’s volleyball coaches were each responsible for teaching 9.8 units.

Fortunately for Northridge, most of its coaches were able to overcome such constraints.

Along with baseball, women’s volleyball was the other CSUN team sport to take part in a national postseason tournament in its inaugural Division I season.

A three-time Division II champion and eight-time conference titlist under Coach Walt Ker, the volleyball team earned a runner-up finish in the Women’s Invitational Volleyball tournament in Knoxville, Tenn., a postseason event for teams that did not qualify for the NCAA playoffs.

The success of the volleyball team and a competitive performance by a soccer team (9-7-3 record) that faced many of the West Coast’s powers gave Northridge a running start.

“It kind of kept everyone . . . upbeat and gave the winter and spring sports the idea that, ‘Those other sports could do it, and we should be ready to jump right in,’ ” Hiegert said.

An NCAA tournament berth was the only goal that eluded Northridge’s 29-9 women’s volleyball team. “In hindsight, though, that might have been better,” Ker said. “In the WIVT, we played six matches against some very good teams and finished second, which gave us a lot of national recognition. If we played in the NCAAs, we might have been paired (against) UCLA and we could have been beat in the first round.”

Still seeking any kind of national acclaim are Northridge’s “priority” sports--men’s and women’s basketball, which struggled through their first seasons and finished with respective records of 8-20 and 10-17.

Both programs lacked momentum going in. Men’s basketball had not won a conference title in the Division II California Collegiate Athletic Assn. since 1984-85, and the women’s team was coming off an 11-18 record and had to cope with the transition to a new coach.

These sports are supposed to be the school’s flagship programs and their coaches, Pete Cassidy (men) and Janet Martin, are under more pressure than any other coach to succeed.

Men’s basketball, in particular, is a potential revenue-producing sport--a term still new in the Northridge athletic vocabulary. Moreover, it is the one sport--short of football, which remains Division II--that can give the school national recognition.

The first step in terms of awareness needs to begin at home. Few of the school’s 30,000 students have discovered Northridge’s high school-like gymnasium, the basketball team’s humble home.

Despite an upgraded schedule, an average of only 721 spectators turned out for home games. Still, that was twice the average of the previous year.

Eight wins surpassed the expectations of some but was below par considering that Division I men’s basketball is a multilayered affair--from Top 20 teams and those that squeeze into the NCAA tournament field of 64 to other fledgling independents such as the Northeastern Illinois team that Northridge beat, 109-82. In between are the NIT-caliber programs such as Colorado, which blitzed CSUN, 113-89; upper-division Big Sky-quality such as Montana (a 108-73 winner over Northridge); and lower-division Big Sky teams such as Northern Arizona (with which the Matadors split).

Most disappointing was Northridge’s 2-15 record on the road and its 1-7 collapse at the end of the season when Cassidy was hospitalized because of an intestinal condition that required surgery.

Senior starters Kyle Kerlegan and Todd Bowser, the team’s top scorers, will have to be replaced but the rest of the squad is expected to return, which gives the program the consistency it lacked last season when 10 new players and two new assistant coaches came aboard.

Recruits Zak DeMatteo of Dos Pueblos High and Ryan Martin of Huntington Beach Marina High might help compensate for the loss of three-point specialist Kerlegan, and the team gained a ballhandler in James Morris of Imperial Valley College and a little size in 6-foot-6 forward John Moses of Mt. San Antonio College. But a gaping size disadvantage remains.

The program’s future depends on recruiting players taller than 6-7, but Cassidy and his staff have been unable to do that. Consequently, the Matadors will go into the season with an inconsistent and academically unreliable 6-7 center, Percy Fisher. His backups, 6-7 senior Brian Kilian and 6-8 sophomore Peter Micelli, played sparingly last season.

Like Cassidy, Martin has had difficulty in recruiting a tall center, in her case, one taller than 6-1. Her recruiting class is a mixture of athletes short on size but long on mobility, ranging from 5-6 point guard Jill Stephens of Bakersfield to 5-10 forward Rachel Ward of Costa Mesa to 6-0 center Roz Linton of Valley College.

“We have the Golden State mentality,” Martin said, referring to that NBA team’s small and quick lineup. “We went after quickness, shooters and ballhandlers.”

After falling short of her goal to finish at or above .500 in her first season, Martin has made a bold prediction, saying that her squad will win more than half of its games in 1991-92.

Martin’s optimism stems from three factors. Northridge will lose only one player to graduation, albeit Julie Arlotto, the second-leading scorer in school history; the recruits reflect an upgrade in talent, and Martin will be more effective working with a new full-time assistant coach of her choice.

While the women’s basketball program must contend with that cutback, the men’s and women’s swimming and diving program should benefit from the addition of a graduate assistant, diving Coach Dan Walter.

Last season, the program lacked a diving coach and a nucleus of divers.

It also lacked a strong freshman class of men’s swimmers because Coach Pete Accardy lost out on several prized recruits to schools that offered full scholarships. As a result, the men’s and women’s teams, which combined for 13 Division II national titles, did not prove to be of national caliber in their initial forays into Division I.

The women’s swim team dominated the Pacific Coast Conference championship meet, but no member of the squad qualified for the national championship meet. The men’s team, which took fourth in the conference meet, also failed to produce a swimmer able to meet Division I requirements.

Accardy believes his women’s team is still two years away from making NCAA standards, but he foresees a couple of men and possibly a few men’s relay teams qualifying next season.

Eight of Accardy’s recruits for the men’s team already have made their senior national time standards, an indication that they are potential qualifiers for the Division I championships.

Sprint freestyler Morton Ibsen of Denmark is the top recruit. In the 50-meter freestyle, he has clocked 23.5 seconds, and in the 100 and 200 freestyles his best times are 51.2 and 1:52.0. Accardy also signed a transfer from West Virginia, distance freestyler James Tashek.

On the women’s side, Accardy recruited four swimmers on scholarship and expects eight others to walk on.

Softball is another sport in which Northridge perennially challenged for championships, but after briefly earning a national ranking, Coach Gary Torgeson’s Matadors just as quickly fell from the NCAA tournament picture.

Northridge, winner of four Division II championships in the 1980s, might be only a year or two from attaining a postseason bid.

Torgeson followed the philosophy of baseball Coach Bill Kernen in building a foundation by using a lineup nearly devoid of seniors.

“We had a great recruiting class last year and this year again,” Torgeson said. “Division I, it’s a different world, like going from the minors to the majors, but we’re going to be OK. We have some legitimate Division I people.”

To a nucleus of standout hitters Denise Swank, Beth Calcante and Tamara Ivie, Torgeson added pitching depth in Righetti High’s Toni Goforth and Sacramento City College’s Mary Moore.

Goforth is the product of a top amateur summer team, and Moore was an all-state selection in the junior college ranks.

Former Moorpark College standout Missy Cress completes the battery. And Torgeson is not finished recruiting. He claims to be hot on the trail of at least three more top prospects.

In April, Torgeson’s squad was on the verge of joining the nation’s elite teams. After splitting a doubleheader with Arizona, the eventual national champion, and sweeping two games from Arizona State, another Top 10 team, the Matadors broke into the rankings at No. 16.

No sooner there, Northridge squandered a 3-1 lead in the final two innings against Cal Poly Pomona and, as Torgeson put it, “the roof caved in.” Northridge lost eight of its last 11 games.

On an individual basis, track and field made the smoothest transition to Division I. Not only did Arreola win a national title, senior Kevin Hendrix advanced to the NCAA semifinals in the 100 meters and Tyrone Jeffries reached the semifinals in the 110 high hurdles.

Sophomore Charlotte Vines also qualified under strict time standards for the national meet in Eugene, Ore., but was eliminated in a first-round heat in the 100.

Track and field Coach Don Strametz viewed the team’s success at nationals as icing on the cake.

“Our goal for the next few years is to become the best dual-meet team we can possibly be,” said Strametz. This past season the men’s team went 10-2. The women’s team went 5-8 and was hampered by the early season absence of Arreola, sidelined because of illness and injury.

Strametz has signed 11 athletes to letters of intent.

In summary, Hiegert said, “We didn’t ever experience any real down cycle. Each of the teams, in their own ways, made a very difficult transition and made it well.”

Which, all and all, could soon make Northridge a winner when it comes to shopping for a conference to call home.

Fresno State reportedly is headed for the Western Athletic Conference, which would leave a vacancy in the Big West Conference. (Nevada Reno, however, is considered the school most likely to succeed.) The Big Sky Conference, meanwhile, has made overtures to Northridge regarding expansion and possibly creating a West Coast division within that conference.

“We did not only make an orderly move, but we also made a respectable move,” Hiegert said. “It was a good year. I think we’re a viable school for a conference to look at. We have some bigger and bigger doors opening up.”

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE’S DIVISION I DEBUT: THE AFTERMATH

How They Fared: Cal State Northridge’s Division I Review

Baseball (44-18-1): Earned CSUN’s first NCAA Division I playoff berth with the best record in school history. Northridge and Miami were the only two independents to make the 48-team postseason field. We ranked 10th and 11th in final national polls. Had wins over Miami, USC, Fresno State, Pepperdine and Creighton--all top 20 teams.

Men’s Basketball (8-20): New run-and-gun offense sputtered and was scrapped but not before a school record for points was set in a 129-91 win over U.S. International University. So much for the highlights. Had 6-5 record at home but won only two of 17 on the road. Split with lowly USIU and dropped a game at home to Division II Cal State Los Angeles.

Women’s Basketball (10-17): Won only one of 11 road games for first-year Coach Janet Martin. Team’s personnel didn’t fit Martin’s style, which is to run and press. Bridgette Ealy, a senior-to-be, average 11.2 points a game and led squad in rebounding (7.2 rpg), assists (4.3), field-goal percentage (50.2), steals (63).

Cross-country (No mark): Sasha Vujic and Jorge Castro, 1989 Division II All-Americans, redshirted, leaving Derik Vett to carry the team’s hopes. Vett came through with a 15th-place finish in the NCAA Region 8 championships. He also was an Academic All-American.

Women’s Cross-country (No mark): Darcy Arreola became the first athlete in Northridge’s Divison I era to qualify for a major-college championship race. She placed 12th in the NCAA meet in Knoxville, Tenn., running 16 minutes 44 seconds over the 5,000-meter course. As a team, the Matadors were 10th in the Region 8 championships. Arreola was fourth among individuals.

Football (7-4): Only sport that remains in competition at the Division II level. Won share of Western Football Conference championship for first time since 1983. Lost to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the first round of playoffs. Tailback Albert Fann was WFC offensive player of year for second year in a row. Regular-season homes game against San Luis Obispo drew a record crowd of 7,127.

Golf (No mark): Bob Burns, 1990 Division II champion, turned professional just before the season. Still, CSUN placed in the top 10 in six of seven spring tournaments and had three top-four finishes. San Hwun (77), Wayne Merich (77.05) and Jamie Forsyth (77.4) waged a tight battle for low-stroke average.

Soccer (9-7-3): Danny Daniels scored 10 goals and had five assists to rank among NCAA scoring leaders in the West. Matadors lost only one of nine games at home. Northridge had a 4-5-2 record against Division I opponents but outscored them 20-13.

Softball (34-32): Cracked the top 20 by splitting a double-header with Arizona, the eventual national champion, and then sweeping Arizona State, another playoff team. However, Northridge followed that by losing eight of its last 11 games and didn’t make the postseason field. Freshman Beth Calcante was an all-district selection. She led the team in batting average (.345), home runs (three)and runs batted in (22).

Swimming (3-7): Placed fourth in the Pacific Conference Championships, despite winning half of the 18 events. Depth was a problem. John Kunishima was a conference champion in the 50, 100 and 200-yard freestyles, but his times were not fast enough to qualify for Division I nationals.

Women’s Swimming (8-4): Won 11 of 18 events in the Pacific Conference Championships to win the team title. Michelle Sulak was conference champion in the 200, 500 and 1,650-yard freestyles and Kathy Ruiz won the 100 breaststroke and 200 individual medley. Team had a 6-3 dual-meet record vs. Division I opponents.

Women’s Tennis (8-16-1): Team was 4-5 against Big West Conference competition. Freshman Gabriela Knizek was 15-9 overall and led the team in victories. Senior Kathie Teobaldi, CSUN’s top singles player, was 13-12 overall, 9-9 in No. 1 singles matches.

Track (10-2): Only dual-meet losses were to UCLA and Stanford. Most significant victory came in the Long Beach State Collegiate Classic over a field that included Long Beach, San Diego State and Air Force. Kevin Hendrix (100-meter dash) and Tyrone Jeffries (110-meter high hurdles) both qualified for NCAA championships but were eliminated in the semifinals.

Women’s Track (5-8): Dual-meet would have been a lot better had Darcey Arreola been healthy early in the season. She came back to become CSUN’s first major-college track champion since 1980. Arreola won the Division I title in the 1,500 meters in a school-record time of 4:11.46. Sophomore Charlotte Vines (100-meter dash) qualified for the NCAA meet but was eliminated in a first-round heat.

Volleyball (22-7): Finished season ranked third in the nation, behind only national champion Cal State Long Beach and runner-up USC. Led the nation in home attendance, averaging 855 per home match. Senior Nell Coffman and sophomore Coley Kyman became the school’s first Division I first-team All-Americans. Team set school records for wins and winning percentage (.759).

Women’s Volleyball (29-9): In the fall, became the school’s first Division I team to qualify for a postseason tournament. Won five of six playoff matches to finish second to Houston in the Women’s Invitational Volleyball championship--the women’s volleyball equivalent to the NIT in men’s basketball.

1990-91 totals (16 athletic programs): Overall record, 197-151-4; vs. Divison I, 166-141-3; vs. Division II, 21-8-1; vs. Division III: 5-2, vs. NAIA: 5-0. At home, 82-39-2; away, 66-81; neutral site, 49-31-1. Versus Big West Conference, 37-44; Pacific 10, 18-27-1; West Coast, 26-9-1; Western Athletic, 11-12; Big Sky, 13-11; Big Eight, 1-3; Big 10, 7-3; Independents, 29-18; Others, 24-14-1.

Staff writer John Ortega contributed to this story.