Cal Lutheran Stays Unbeaten

Coach Rich Hill of Cal Lutheran had every reason to have high expectations for his baseball team at the start of the season.

For starters, the Kingsmen had many of their top players returning from last year’s 32-8 team. And Cal Lutheran was moving from the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3 into NCAA Division III and competing in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for the first time.

Cal Lutheran has responded with a 19-0 record and is ranked No. 3 in Division III. The pitching staff has a 1.38 earned-run average and the hitters have a .354 average. There are nine players batting .320 or higher, including second baseman Jason Wilcox at .422, outfielder Darrell McMillin at .406 and catcher Eddie Lample at .400.

The team’s slugging percentage is .626, and its 40 home runs include 12 by McMillin, who also leads the squad with 27 runs batted in.

“Some teams get hot at one time or another during the season, but we’ve been hot right out of the chute and we haven’t cooled off,” Hill said.

The most runs Cal Lutheran has given up was in an 8-5 victory over The Master’s on Feb. 14.

“Going into the season, we knew we had a pretty strong offensive team and we would be good defensively,” Hill said. “The real surprise has been our pitching. But our pitching coach (Marty Slimak) has done a great job.”

The winning streak is the longest in school history, and the Kingsmen have outscored their conference opponents, 124-11, while winning their first nine SCIAC games.

“There’s a concern that this team will (let down), but that’s my job to worry about,” Hill said. “But (a letdown) is usually a mental thing, and this team has shown no signs of that. If we get beat, it will have to be on the field. A team will really have to beat us.”

He said the Kingsmen have been cautious not to get too far ahead of themselves.

“We talked about the feeling of being immortal, and we said there’s no way we can feel that way,” Hill said. “We have to be careful not to feel that way because as soon as we do, we’re going to get shot down.”

Hill is hoping to take the Kingsmen all the way to the Division III World Series in May but realizes that the most difficult games lie ahead.

The field for the UC San Diego tournament today through Saturday at La Jolla includes Wisconsin Whitewater, ranked No. 12 in Division III, and San Diego, No. 8. Cal Lutheran will open tournament play against Wisconsin Whitewater today.

“I feel real good about where we are in terms of being prepared,” Hill said. “I really like the team’s chemistry. I think we have the ability to go a long way.”

The Biola men’s basketball team lost to Pfeiffer (N.C.), 99-83, in the quarterfinals of the NAIA tournament last week.

Biola, which finished 33-4, had advanced with victories over Union (Tenn.), 71-70, and Northwestern Oklahoma, 64-51. The Eagles took a 42-38 halftime lead against Pfeiffer, which had a 25-4 run during the second half.

In reaching the quarterfinals, Biola had the best finish in the tournament of any NAIA District 3 team since the Eagles advanced to the final in 1982. It was the school’s seventh appearance in the national tournament in the last 12 years, all under Coach Dave Holmquist. During that span, Holmquist is 334-70, an .827 average.

This season, the Eagles were sparked by the balanced scoring of center Emilio Kovacic, swingman Keishaun Darthard, forward Rodney Camper and guard Doug Newby. Darthard played particularly well in the tournament, scoring 27 points against Pfeiffer.

It isn’t often that a player from the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference earns NCAA Division III All-American honors in men’s basketball.

So it was especially surprising that the SCIAC landed players on the first and second teams selected by the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches. Senior guard Chris Greene of Claremont-Mudd is on the first team, and Cal Lutheran senior guard Jeff deLaveaga made the second team.

“This is a great honor for (Claremont) because it’s our first Division III first-team All-American,” Coach David Wells said. “Todd Thomas, our outstanding guard, was named to the Division III All-American second team in 1988.”

Greene, who led the Stags to two SCIAC titles and berths in the NCAA playoffs, averaged 22.3 points and topped his team in 10 other offensive categories. He is the team’s all-time leading scorer with 1,757 points.

DeLaveaga was the leading scorer in Division III as a senior with a 29.5-point average and completed his three years at the school with a 28.1 average. He is also second on the school’s all-time scoring list with 2,248 points.

The Cal State Bakersfield men’s basketball team will make its third consecutive appearance in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division II tournament when it opens play Thursday at the Springfield Civic Center in Springfield, Mass.

The Roadrunners (25-6) will play Jacksonville State of Alabama (28-1) in the quarterfinals. If Bakersfield wins, it will face either Kentucky Wesleyan (23-7) or Virginia Union (27-3) in the semifinals Friday.

The title game will be played Saturday. The other teams in the tournament are Bridgeport (Conn.), Central Oklahoma State, South Dakota State and California (Pa.).

Bakersfield, which advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating California Collegiate Athletic Assn. rival UC Riverside in the Division II West Regional final on March 14, reached the semifinals last season and finished second the previous season.

College Division Notes

The California Collegiate Athletic Assn. is well represented in this week’s NCAA Division II baseball rankings, selected by Collegiate Baseball magazine. UC Riverside (16-9) is ranked No. 3, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (13-8) is tied with Missouri Southern for No. 5 and Cal State Dominguez Hills (11-11-1) is No. 11. . . . Defending NCAA Division II women’s tennis champion Cal Poly Pomona is 8-0 and ranked No. 1 in the division heading into a nonconference match against Air Force at 10 a.m. Saturday in Pomona. The Broncos, led by singles standout Julie Slattery, are 4-0 in CCAA matches. . . . The Cal State Bakersfield men’s swim team easily won its seventh title in a row at the NCAA Division II championships on March 14 in Grand Forks, N.D. The Roadrunners beat runner-up Clarion (Pa.), 910-481. Bakersfield’s Ondrej Bures and Jim Hassett each won three events, and Bures was voted male Division II swimmer of the year.