CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : When Things Looked Bad, Campbell Went to His ‘Weasel’ Move

The move Arizona State wrestler Marco Sanchez put on Cal State Fullerton’s Lyndon Campbell Saturday night almost always results in a two-point takedown.

With 15 seconds left in the Pacific-10 Conference, 134-pound championship match, Sanchez pulled what’s known as a double-leg shoot and wrapped Campbell in a bear hug.

The crowd in the University of Oregon’s gym, rooting for Campbell because he was going against a Pac-10 rival, sensed the battle was lost. Soon Sanchez, ranked fifth in the nation, would throw Campbell to the mat, erase a 6-5 deficit and win the match.

“It looked like a sure takedown,” Titan Coach Dan Lewis admitted.

Not from Campbell’s vantage point. The senior, who is ranked ninth nationally, somehow used what little leverage he had left to fend off the move.

Campbell escaped Sanchez’s grasp with seven seconds left, remained on his feet until the final buzzer and held on for a 6-5 victory and the Pac-10 championship, stunning those in attendance, including his own coach.

“Everyone in the gym thought he would be taken down, and 99 times out of a 100, a guy will get taken down after that move,” Lewis said. “But Lyndon was so fired up, he wouldn’t go down. It was a real upset. None of the coaches expected it. Of course, Lyndon did.”

Campbell said his ribs are still sore because of the grip Sanchez had on him.

“It was weird,” Campbell said. “I kind of weaseled out of it. If he got me down, he would have won the match.”

The victory avenged Campbell’s 5-4 loss to Sanchez on Feb. 22 and will likely move him up in the seedings for the NCAA Championships, which are scheduled for March 19-21 in Oklahoma City.

Campbell (22-5) was one of three Titans to qualify for the national meet along with 167-pounder Laszlo Molnar and 177-pounder Dwayne Buth, who both placed third in the Pac-10 match.

With top-seeded Tom Brands of Iowa and second-seeded Alan Freid of Oklahoma State considered heavy favorites to reach the 134-pound final, Campbell’s chances for a national championship seem slim. But Lewis believes he’s capable of reaching the finals.

“He’s got to have the attitude to win it. If he goes in hoping for third, he’ll finish third or lower,” Lewis said. “But he’s wrestling better now than I’ve ever seen him.”

Underachievers: The Titan women’s basketball team has a strong Big West Conference player of the year candidate in Claudette Jackson and the freshman of the year favorite in Kisa Hughes, but is mired in eighth place with an 11-14 record, 6-10 in conference.

“That’s absolutely unbelievable, isn’t it?” Fullerton Coach Maryalyce Jeremiah said. “The only thing we haven’t done is win. I don’t know what it means, maybe that we have a good future, or maybe we have poor coaching.”

Jackson and Hughes are the Titans’ two success stories of 1991-92. Jackson, a 5-foot-11 senior forward, leads the conference in scoring with a 20.6 average and is fifth with a .437 shooting percentage. She also averages 9.2 rebounds.

Hughes, a 6-4 freshman center from Riverside North High, leads the conference in blocked shots (2.0 per game) and ranks second in rebounding (10.6) and field-goal percentage (.577).

But Fullerton has suffered from poor shooting and mistakes. The Titans are shooting 39.5% from the field and average 19.3 turnovers per game. Guard Joey Ray has had a particularly rough season, shooting 34.6% from the floor and 31.2% from three-point range.

The Titans close out the regular season this week with games at Cal State Long Beach and UC Santa Barbara and will likely enter the conference tournament seeded eighth, meaning they’ll face the conference champion in the first round.

“We’ll do the best we can to spoil someone’s party,” Jeremiah said. “We’re not going in thinking we can’t win it, but a lot of things have to fall into place. We have to find the basket and we can’t make mistakes. But stranger things have happened, right?”

Add Jeremiah: The seven-year Titan coach has had the added responsibility of serving as the school’s senior women’s administrator this year, but she said she won’t be doing both jobs next year.

“I don’t know which one I’ll give up,” she said. “I’ll wait until the season is over to decide.”

Although she hasn’t missed a basketball practice, Jeremiah said her role as associate athletic director has caused some distractions to her team.

She was involved in the athletic department’s decision to drop women’s volleyball in January and has had to spend many hours preparing for an upcoming court case, brought on by volleyball Coach Jim Huffman’s suit against the school.

“The difference is the hours are much longer and there are so many more days without breaks,” Jeremiah said. “I think my patience has been affected, and so has the amount of time I have to spend with players off the court, which is an important part of the game.”

Budding rivalry: With a 10-4 record after four weeks, the Fullerton baseball team has shown it is worthy of its national ranking--sixth in the Collegiate Baseball Magazine poll Monday and ninth in Baseball America.

The question to be answered this week: Are the Titans the best college baseball team in Orange County? Wednesday’s game against Chapman University at Amerige Park should tell.

The Panthers, who moved from Division II to Division I this season, beat Fullerton, 6-4, last Tuesday, and a sweep of the Titans would greatly enhance their reputation and legitimacy as a Division I program. Chapman is ranked 29th by Collegiate Baseball.

“Maybe we underestimated them a little bit last week, but they’re a pretty good team,” Fullerton third baseman Phil Nevin said. “It’s going to be a real important game for us. They knocked us off and now it’s pay-back time.”

Titan Notes

Agee Ward and Joe Small became the 12th and 13th Fullerton basketball players to surpass the career 1,000-point mark Saturday night, but Small became only the third Titan to reach that level in two seasons. The others were Cedric Ceballos and Mark Hill. . . . Fullerton has 28 more field goals than its opponents this season but has been outscored, 2,008-1,990. The reasons? Opponents have made 143 three-pointers compared to the Titans’ 84, and 435 free throws compared to Fullerton’s 420. . . . The Titans rank fourth in the Big West Conference in scoring offense (76.5 points per game) but ninth in scoring defense (77.2). Ward is fifth in scoring (18.3) and rebounding (7.6) and second in field-goal percentage (.564). Small is ninth in scoring (15.1), seventh in assists (3.5) and first in free-throw percentage (.882). Aaron Sunderland ranks second in assists (6.8). Sean Williams ranks second in blocked shots (1.6) and Bruce Bowen is sixth in steals (1.8). . . . After 12 games, freshman utility player Rose Garces leads the Titan softball team with a .400 average, two triples and seven RBIs. Fullerton (6-6) won the consolation championship during this past weekend’s Nevada Las Vegas Spring Fling tournament. . . . The Titan men’s and women’s track teams will compete in the Cal State Long Beach Classic Saturday, March 21, on the 49ers campus.