McCaw Helps Pepperdine Get Back on Track in Volleyball Standings

Chip McCaw, a freshman from Tulsa, Okla., joined the No. 4 Pepperdine men’s volleyball team this season and quietly helped the Waves on a 14-game winning streak, which was ended by Stanford on Feb. 23.

Pepperdine ran into trouble after that, losing to No. 5 UCLA, No. 3 Cal State Northridge and top-ranked Cal State Long Beach.

But McCaw had 84 assists to help Pepperdine (19-4) regain first place in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn.’s Burt DeGroot Division Friday night during a 15-10, 16-17, 15-2, 16-14 victory at Cal State Northridge before a WIVA season-high crowd of 2,591.

Although McCaw is Pepperdine’s starting setter, his solid performances often are overshadowed by the Waves’ outside hitters. Tom Sorenson averages 7.23 kills and Alon Grinberg averages 4.31.

“I have great hitters to set to, so that makes me look better, and it makes me feel more confident, so that helps my game,” McCaw said.

Pepperdine Coach Marv Dunphy, too, downplays the extraordinary debut of his freshman. “He just has a role and his role is to put up hittable balls and, for the most part, I think he did that,” Dunphy said.

McCaw learned volleyball from his mother, Peggy, who was his coach on the Stuffit volleyball club in Tulsa for the past seven years.

He chose Pepperdine because it was the only school that recruited him to be a setter. McCaw also considered USC, but said that Trojan Coach Jim McLaughlin recruited him as an outside hitter or a passer. The Waves needed a setter because last year’s setters, David Martin and George Thompson, left the program.

No. 17-ranked Jill McGill is one of three sophomores, including Heidi Voorhees and Camie Hoshino, upon whom the USC women’s golf team’s comeback depends.

Although USC had one of its worst seasons a year ago, when it finished ranked 39th in the nation and last in the Pacific-10 Conference, McGill doesn’t mind the challenge. “It has been really good to be part of a team that is on the building blocks,” she said.

She attended Cherry Creek High in Denver, which didn’t have a girls’ golf team. So, McGill tried out for the boys’ team. She didn’t make it her freshman year, but tried again her sophomore year and the coach let her on, even though she wasn’t one of the better players.

But after Cherry Creek established a girls’ team, McGill won all 20 tournaments it entered during her junior and senior seasons, including the 1989 and 1990 Colorado state girls’ high school championships.

McGill chose golf because her parents had tired of her lounging around the house and going to the pool as a teen-ager. They gave her the ultimatum: get a job, pull weeds in the garden or go play golf. “I’m glad I decided not to get a job,” McGill says, laughing.

USC is glad, too.

Brett Schroeder has been a jack-of-all-trades for the No. 1 Cal State Long Beach men’s volleyball team. Unfortunately, that is usually not such a good thing in this age of specialization, and Schroeder has also spent plenty of time on the bench the past three seasons.

Schroeder’s problem is that he can do everything fairly well, but nothing extremely well.

“Brett is just an in-between type player,” Coach Ray Ratelle said. “He’s just not big enough to be a (middle blocker). He’s not quick enough. He’s not one of two best passers to be one of our primary passers. . . . But he’s good all the way around.”

Schroeder finally found a starting role at middle blocker this season. Long Beach (22-1) began the season with 6-foot-8 Mike Nelson in their starting lineup, but recently made the move to the 6-4 Schroeder.

“We figured we played better with him out here, so we kind of created a position for him,” Ratelle said.

Petra Schmitt, a freshman from Budapest, has played well.

USC has struggled since the 1989 resignation of coach Dave Borelli, who led the team to seven national titles in twelve years. Under Borelli’s replacement, fourth-year Coach Cheryl Woods, USC had its worst season a year ago, finishing 7-18, 0-10 in the Pac-10, and failing to make it to the NCAA tournament.

Schmitt could form the foundation of a better era for USC (7-8, 1-4 in the conference). Playing No. 1 singles, Schmitt often plays the nation’s top players, and she has held her own. Schmitt twice has defeated UCLA’s Mamie Ceniza and defeated No. 19 Stephanie Reece of Indiana on Feb. 7. Also, Schmidt defeated Arizona State’s top player, Krista Amend, on Friday.

Schmitt, who was accustomed to clay courts and had to change her game for the much faster hard courts in the United States, seems destined to be a star. Her mother, Katalin Makray, won a silver medal in gymnastics in the 1964 Olympics, and her father, Pal Schmitt, was a two-time Olympic gold medal winner in fencing (1968 and 1972).

The UCLA men’s gymnastics team finished second this weekend at the Pac 10 men’s gymnastics championships at Stanford, and the Bruin women finished third at the conference women’s championships at Arizona.

Scott Keswick repeated as Pac-10 all-around champion with a 115.10 score, but the Bruins were unable to defend their team title, scoring 279.4 to Stanford’s 286.6. California finished third with 276.2. Keswick also won the rings with a 9.90, the parallel bars with a 9.9 and was in a three-way tie for third place in the vault with a 9.60 with teammate Brad Hayashi and Stanford’s Jair Lynch.

The UCLA women scored 193.65 for their highest team score of the year. Oregon State won the team competition with a 194.85. Arizona finished second with a 194.70.

The UCLA men’s and women’s gymnastics teams will compete next in the NCAA West Regionals on April 11. The women’s regional will be held at California, and the men’s will be held at New Mexico.

This is a twice-monthly column focusing on non-revenue Division I sports at UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, Cal State Long Beach and Loyola Marymount.