Former Mate Puts Bite on Cal Lutheran

A former ally came back to haunt the Cal Lutheran men’s soccer team last week.

Dan LaFond, a former Kingsmen standout who transferred to San Diego State, scored both goals as the Aztecs downed Cal Lutheran, 2-1.

Cal Lutheran led, 1-0, when LaFond fired a shot that deflected off a Kingsmen defender and into the goal.

The senior defender scored the match winner with 17 minutes to play.

Despite the loss, Cal Lutheran Coach George Kuntz was diplomatic. “It’s great that he’s doing well there and I wish him the best of luck,” Kuntz said.

Kuntz said LaFond simply didn’t fit in at Cal Lutheran. “The relationship wasn’t good between him and the school. A lot of it was cost,” Kuntz said.

This time, Cal Lutheran paid.

Truth in Advertising

Belete Bekele returned to the Northridge soccer team’s lineup against Cal State Dominguez Hills on Wednesday night after missing a match with a bruised ankle.

All things considered, the one-match absence was mild considering that Bekele’s injury was the result of being struck by a hammer.

The hammer in question is Curtis Jimerson, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound sweeper for UC Santa Barbara. Jimerson, nicknamed “The Hammer,” collided with the 5-8, 141-pound Bekele during the first half of CSUN’s 1-0 victory at Santa Barbara last week.

Jimerson made an impression early.

“When they introduce the teams, everybody jogs out on the field. This guy walks very slowly,” said CSUN Coach Marwan Ass’ad. “He’s very intimidating. I like that.”

But after watching the videotape of Jimerson’s collision with Bekele, Ass’ad changed his mind.

“That guy, he didn’t want to block (the ball). He wanted to take the player out,” Ass’ad said.

It could have been worse. Santa Barbara reportedly has another player known as the “Hit Man.”

A Late-Arriving Crowd

A recount of the attendance figures for last Saturday’s soccer match between Northridge and The Master’s revealed that a regular-season soccer attendance mark of 2,789 had been set at North Campus Stadium.

The initial attendance figure was listed as 1,703.

Practice Makes Perfect

There are coaches who believe teams play like they practice. Others find it more convenient to subscribe to a distinctly different theory.

When Walt Ker, the Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball coach, mentioned how well his team was practicing last week, Matador men’s Coach John Price wondered out loud if that shouldn’t actually be considered bad news.

“I was going to throw him out of the room,” Ker joked.

After slumping to a 1-3 start this season, the women’s team has won four of its past five matches, thanks in no small part to some intense workouts.

“The key for us last week was that we had a great week of practice,” said Ker, whose team will play its annual alumni match Friday at 7 p.m. before returning to nonconference action Tuesday at Loyola Marymount.

Junior outside hitter Nancy Nicholls turned in one of her best performances of the season Friday with 11 kills and 11 digs in a three-game sweep of Cal State Bakersfield.

Department of Records

It appears that Jean Harvey of Antelope Valley College will soon be officially recognized as the national junior college record-holder in the women’s 10,000 meters.

Harvey ran 35 minutes 39.10 seconds to place second in that event at The Athletics Congress Junior (19 and under) championships in June.

Antelope Valley Coach Mark Covert was told then that Harvey’s time was a national junior college record, but it could not be verified until recently.

“No one seemed to know for sure what the previous record was,” Covert said.

The delay occurred because there is no national governing body for junior college athletics.

The National Junior College Athletic Assn. listed Andrea Kern of Macomb (Mich.) Community College as the record-holder in the 10,000 (37:00.27 in 1985), but the NJCAA does not include marks from the Pacific Northwest or California in its record books because those regions have separate governing bodies.

“We knew (Jean’s) time was faster than the NJCAA mark,” American River (Sacramento) women’s Coach Jean Snuggs said. “But it took some time to see if anyone from California had ever run faster than that.”

No Pushovers Here

Pierce wanted a tough early nonconference schedule for its women’s volleyball team, but Coach Steve Gazzaniga might have overdone it.

The Brahmas opened the season by being swept by defending state champion Golden West on Wednesday. Today they play host to Pasadena City--sixth in the state championships--at 3:30 p.m., then they will travel to Glendale for a Western State Conference opener Friday night.

“I planned on scheduling tougher nonconference matches and this is what I came up with,” Gazzaniga said. “It’s not perfect, but you’ve got to go with what’s available.”

Ron Twersky and staff writers John Ortega and Wendy Witherspoon contributed to this notebook.