CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Snub Not Forgiven or Forgotten

It has been more than nine months since the NCAA snubbed Cal State Fullerton’s baseball team by not selecting the Big West Conference co-champion as one of 48 national tournament teams in 1991.

But as the Titans prepare for tonight’s 1992 season opener against UCLA, the injustice of 1991 is as fresh on the minds of Fullerton players as if it happened last week.

“Oh yeah, you still can’t take away the hurt,” Titan junior third baseman Phil Nevin said. “It’s on everyone’s mind. Things were going so good, and they ripped it right away from us.”

The Titans, who went 34-22 last season but won 10 of their last 12 games, including a three-game sweep of eventual College World Series participant Cal State Long Beach, hope to turn that negative experience into a positive, motivating tool this season.

“It’s something that’s in the back of your mind--it makes us work that much harder in practice,” Nevin said. “We know we can’t let games that got away from us last year get away from us this year.”

Whether it’s motivation or maturity, Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido has noticed a change in Nevin, who has appeared on several preseason All-American teams and is moving from shortstop back to third base, where he played as a freshman.

“He’s concentrating a lot more--he’s not just playing around,” Garrido said. “Things have always come pretty easy for him, and until this year, he hasn’t realized the importance of little things, like getting the first step on grounders.

“But he’ll work on that 25 times a day in practice now. He’s paying attention to details, trying to refine his technique.”

Garrido believes this year’s team owes it to last year’s teammates to carry the memory of 1991 through the 1992 season.

“Guys like Matt Hattabaugh, Chris Robinson, Frank Charles--they accomplished a lot,” Garrido said. “We can’t do anything about last year except keep them in our thoughts this year and give them the satisfaction of knowing they helped us get here.”

“Here” is on the brink of a season in which great things are expected of the Titans. Fullerton returns six starting position players and four pitchers and is ranked fifth nationally in Baseball America’s preseason poll.

This, Garrido finds flattering yet ironic.

“Unfortunately, I look in the rearview mirror,” Garrido said. “How can you go from not being one of the best 48 teams in the country, lose some quality players and be ranked fifth in the nation without playing a game? That’s a pretty big jump. So, yes, I’m still complaining about that decision last year.”

Wake-Up Call: Titan women’s basketball Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah has seen the pattern develop all too often this season:

Guard Joey Ray misses her first few shots of a game. She pouts. She gets so frustrated that the rest of her game deteriorates. She gets benched.

It happened again Saturday night at the University of the Pacific. Ray missed her first five shots and suddenly decided she wasn’t going to play much defense. Jeremiah then took her out of the game for almost 10 minutes of the first half.

This story has a happy ending, though. Ray returned late in the first half and wound up scoring 24 points to help the Titans defeat the Tigers, 69-68. This came on the heels of her career-high, 32-point performance in Thursday’s victory over San Jose State.

“She got real discouraged; she wasn’t working to get her shots and was getting eaten up on defense, so I sat her,” Jeremiah said. “I told her she has to play a whole game.”

It wasn’t the first time Ray has heard that speech.

“I tell her and tell her and tell her, but I guess the only thing that speaks to her is not playing,” Jeremiah said. “I wish I didn’t have to do that to get her going, but she came alive after that.”

Jeremiah believes some of Ray’s shooting problems stem from the absence of All-American center Genia Miller. Opponents focused so much attention on Miller inside last season that Ray had little difficulty getting open outside shots.

“She’s never quite adjusted to the focus being more on her now, and sometimes she gets down on herself,” Jeremiah said. “She didn’t have to work that hard to get the ball last season, but if she does this year and continues to play the rest of her game, it will happen.”

Logan-Bound: Marlon Sano, a Titan women’s volleyball assistant until the school pulled the plug on the program last week, has landed a job as Utah State’s head coach.

Sano, who spent three seasons at Fullerton and has run the Costa Mesa-based Pacific Coast Juniors volleyball club for six years, said he has some regrets about the timing of the move.

“It’s been an unpleasant situation that made me real unsettled,” Sano, 36, said. “Here are these players who I helped recruit at Fullerton without a program. I felt real bad for the kids and want to do what’s right for Fullerton. But I also have to do what’s right for my family.”

Sano, whose wife, Misty, coaches at Fountain Valley High School, said at least three Titan players--Stacey Blackburn, Rachel Wittliff and Lisa Parbst--have expressed interest in joining him at Utah State. Sano will have at least five scholarships available.

Football Recruit: Noel Prefontaine of El Camino High School in Oceanside, a Times second-team San Diego County selection, announced he will play football for Cal State Fullerton. Prefontaine was El Camino’s punter, placekicker and quarterback. He was recruited by Fullerton as a placekicker and punter.

Titan Notes

Junior first baseman Brian Wixom had four hits and two runs batted in to lead the Fullerton baseball team to a 9-1 victory over a Titan alumni team Sunday at Amerige Park. Among those playing for the alumni were former Fullerton standouts Sam Favata, Bob Caffrey, Jose Mota, Eddie Delzer and Mike Rubel. . . . The baseball team will appear twice this season on live SportsChannel telecasts, at home against USC Mar. 10 and against Fresno State April 3. . . . Joey Ray broke her single-season school record for three-pointers with her 51st of the season Saturday night. The previous record was 49, set by Ray last season. The senior guard will have nine more regular-season games to increase the mark. . . . The softball team, which opens the season Feb. 13 at the Arizona Tournament, is ranked fifth nationally in the NCAA’s preseason poll. . . . Gymnast Celeste Delia missed Friday’s meet against Arizona State because of a kidney infection but is expected to return for Friday’s 7:30 p.m. double-dual meet in Titan Gym. The Fullerton women’s team will face UC Davis and the men will go against UC Santa Barbara.