UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Reynolds Takes His Sprinting Seriously Now

It seemed as if everybody was talking about the other sprinters at the Big West Conference track championships in Irvine last spring, and then Sonny Reynolds beat them all.

He outran Fresno State’s James Stallworth. He outran UC Irvine teammates Will Stolpe and Dustin James. It was Reynolds who won the 200 meters in 21.21 seconds, surprising even himself.

“I thought, ‘I guess I have some talent,’ ” Reynolds said. “Let’s see what I can do.”

This year, instead of skipping the fall workouts, he took part.

“It’s supposed to be mandatory,” Reynolds said. “I guess I wasn’t too serious about being as good as I can be.”

This year, he says he is. That didn’t make the fall any more fun.

“A lot of distance running,” he said. “I really don’t like distance running. We ran like 20 miles a week, maybe more.”

Reynolds’ career has been slowed somewhat by injuries. He once was out six weeks with a hamstring injury, and broke his right foot as a freshman during fall workouts.

“One of the rare days I was there,” he said. “I guess I stepped in a hole.”

Reynolds, a runner from Long Beach Wilson High School who is an Irvine senior this season, was fourth in the Big West 100 meters last season and ran on the 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams. Both Irvine relay teams won Big West titles.

But Stolpe was a senior, so Irvine’s corps of sprinters this season is basically Reynolds and James, now a sophomore, and Ben Cesar, also a sophomore.

“We’re like a three-man crew,” Reynolds said. “We push each other real hard in practice.”

Having three guys is a problem when it comes to relays, though. The sprinters have to recruit someone else, a hurdler or a jumper.

“We need to pick somebody up,” Reynolds said.

Inspired by last season’s victory, Reynolds casts his eyes toward the qualification standards for the NCAA championships--20.55 seconds--and even the Olympic trials time of 20.47.

“Right now, this is the best I’ve ever started off,” he said.

The men’s basketball team, which finished the regular season 6-21, plays top-seeded UC Santa Barbara at 7 p.m. Friday in the first round of the Big West Conference tournament at the Long Beach Arena.

One indication that the field has more parity than usual is Irvine’s performance against Santa Barbara this season. The Anteaters lost to the Gauchos, a 20-7 team, by two points in Irvine (61-59) and by six at Santa Barbara (80-74).

“The eighth-(seeded) team is about to play the (top-seeded) team, and I’m not sitting here going, ‘Oh, no, what are we going to do?’ ” Baker said. “I think one through four are probably a lot more concerned than five through eight.”

The women’s basketball season is over, after Irvine finished in a tie for ninth in the Big West with San Jose State, failing to make the conference tournament.

The team’s record, in Colleen Matsuhara’s first season as coach, was 5-22, identical to last season’s record under Dean Andrea.

The loss of senior guard Kathy Lizarraga to a season-ending knee injury was a crucial blow. Lizarraga, who holds most of the school’s three-point shooting records, was the leading scorer when she was injured in the 11th game.

The brighter side of the season were the performances of four freshmen:

--Beth Beers started nine games, averaged 6.4 points and 4.4 rebounds, and scored a season-high 16 points against UCSB.

--Cher Scanlon started 14 games, averaged 5.3 points and 3.1 rebounds, and scored a season-high 13 points against Lafayette.

--Jinelle Williams, a former Brea-Olinda High standout, tied a Bren Center record for most points in a half, with all 21 of her season-high 21 in the second half against Fresno State. She started six games and averaged 7.1 points and 4.4 rebounds.

--Michelle Kahler averaged 3.5 points and 1.9 assists.

Letter of Recommendation: UCLA baseball Coach Gary Adams was the first baseball coach at Irvine. In Monday’s edition of the New University, the Irvine student paper, there is an open letter from Adams to Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, applauding the Irvine program--particularly Irvine’s split of a two-game series with UCLA Feb. 22-23 and an accompanying clinic for high school coaches.

Irvine considered dropping baseball last spring because of budget problems, but instead made cuts throughout the athletic department and saved the program. Though a spokesman said there is no renewed proposal to discontinue baseball, Adams wrote to praise the program--and to needle Peltason for not attending the events.

“I don’t know how much it cost your university for those two days of baseball, but I do know it was worth every penny and more in what it did for your school in terms of public relations, image, school spirit and school pride. Chancellor, I know you would agree if you had been there to see all this firsthand as I did. . . . I only hope that you and the UCI Athletic Department will not quit on your baseball team--none of your players nor any of your coaches have quit on you.”

Anteater Notes

The men’s tennis team, ranked 25th nationally, plays host to No. 19 Duke at 1 p.m. Saturday. Irvine sophomore Brett Hansen-Dent is ranked 30th. . . . The men’s golf team won the opener of its spring season last week, defeating runner-up Cal State Stanislaus in the Sacramento State Invitational. Adam Horodyski, an Irvine junior, and teammate William Yanagisawa, a sophomore, tied for second place with three-round totals of 224, eight over par.