Kernen Curbs Enthusiasm for WAC Plan : Affiliation: Although proposal would improve home baseball schedule, CSUN coach expresses concern about fairness of conference’s divisions.

By 1993, Cal State Northridge will be playing home games against the likes of Fresno State and Hawaii on a regular basis if plans to join the Western Athletic Conference in baseball and softball come to pass.

This, by Bill Kernen’s reckoning, is looking at the bright side. The flip side is another matter.

Kernen, Northridge’s baseball coach, has mixed emotions about the prospect of competing in what might be the toughest division in college baseball.

Under a proposal tentatively adopted by the WAC last Tuesday, in 1993, Northridge and Cal State Sacramento will join Fresno, Hawaii and San Diego State in a Western Division, and an Eastern Division would consist of Air Force, New Mexico, Brigham Young, Utah, Colorado State and Wyoming.

Of the Western Division teams, only Sacramento, which won 42 games last season, failed to qualify for the 48-team NCAA regionals last season.

After the regular season, winners of the divisions will meet in a best-of-three playoff to determine the conference champion and automatic qualifier for the regionals.

“Really, the only thing I don’t like about it is the inequality of the divisions and having to play another series with the other divisional winner to determine a champion,” said Kernen, whose team was 44-18-1 last season, its first against Division I competition. “That doesn’t seem quite fair.”

Kernen acknowledged that a team that does not win its conference might not deserve to be a national champion.

“Really, I think (joining the WAC) is mostly positive,” Kernen said. “I just don’t know how big it is. It really doesn’t make making the playoffs any easier because of the teams in our division. But at least you have a chance to get an automatic bid if you win your division and the playoff, which is better than leaving it up to the (selection) committee.”

From the standpoint of improving its home schedule, Northridge also would benefit from the conference affiliation.

“Fresno State would never have played us here and Hawaii never would have played us here,” Kernen said. “Now they have to.”

Under the proposed format, Western Division teams will play each other six times in two three-game series--one at home, and the other on the road. There is no intra-divisional play.

Unfortunately for Northridge, it lacks a baseball facility that would allow the school to take full advantage of what will become a high-powered home schedule. Matador Field has neither permanent seating nor lights.

A yearly trip to Hawaii probably won’t hurt recruiting either, although Kernen said he “wasn’t real pumped” about going there. “It sounds exotic, but it’s not,” he said, citing tales of woe from other coaches about partisan umpiring.

Northridge has two major trips on its schedule this season--to the Fresno tournament, March 9-15, and the North Carolina tournament, May 23-24. With its new conference affiliation, the Matadors would not be able to participate in either tournament in 1993.

Fresno will not include another conference member in its tournament field and the North Carolina tournament would conflict with the WAC divisional playoffs.

Northridge’s second-place finish in last season’s Fresno tournament helped the Matadors secure their place in the national rankings early. It also helped late when St. John’s Coach Joe Russo bolstered CSUN’s playoff chances by reporting to the NCAA selection committee that the Matadors were legitimate contenders.

“He wouldn’t have known us from Adam except we both were in the Fresno tournament,” Kernen said.

“That’s how the word gets out.”

As a member of the WAC, Kernen said, Northridge would concentrate its efforts on conference games.

“We’re going to be ranked and seen,” Kernen said. “The most highly visible baseball place in the world is Southern California, so we’re going to be seen enough.”

Conversely, in softball, Northridge would continue to compete in tournaments. The Matadors played in five last season and six are scheduled this season.

Coach Gary Torgeson said that in 1993 the Matadors probably would play in four tournaments in addition to a trip for a weekend of doubleheaders against Arizona and Arizona State.

Unlike baseball, the softball team would need to travel extensively within its conference.

The WAC is designed as one, eight-team conference in softball, with Northridge and Sacramento joining Fresno, San Diego, New Mexico, Colorado State, Utah and Southern Utah. The games would be played in a double round-robin format. Torgeson estimated the extra travel might cost Northridge between $7,000 and $8,000.

If Northridge accepts the WAC offer to join, conference members would formally vote on the matter at the NCAA Convention in January.