COLLEGE BASEBALL : Three Bruins Invited to Olympic Tryouts

Eleven players from Southern California, including three from UCLA, are among 40 from across the country who have been extended formal invitations to try out for the 1992 Olympic team that will compete in Barcelona this summer.

Junior right-handed pitcher Pete Janicki, junior outfielder Michael Moore and sophomore first baseman Ryan McGuire helped make UCLA one of only two schools with three invitees to the week-long tryouts that begin June 8 at Millington, Tenn. Three Stanford players also were invited, including sophomore right-hander Willie Adams of La Mirada, junior outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds and junior right-hander Rick Helling.

Junior third baseman Jason Giambi and shortstop Chris Gomez of Cal State Long Beach were invited, as were junior third baseman Phil Nevin and junior catcher Jason Moler of Cal State Fullerton and junior second baseman Steve Rodriguez of Pepperdine.

UC Riverside pitcher Daron Kirkreit and Los Angeles Harbor catcher Rene Lopez are among 10 players invited from non-Division I schools.

Junior right-hander Benji Grigsby of San Diego State is the only invitee from the San Diego area.

The Team USA roster will be trimmed to 30 players after the week of tryouts and to 25 after a three-game series against Venezuela. Team USA will play a 27-game exhibition schedule, with stops at 11 major league stadiums. The final roster will include 20 players who will play Spain on July 26 during the opening round at Barcelona, where baseball will be recognized as a medal sport for the first time.

“It’s a very difficult thing to be involved with,” said Long Beach Coach Dave Snow, who is an assistant on Coach Ron Fraser’s Olympic staff. “We selected quality players, but I’m sure there are a lot of quality young men that were deserving and were overlooked.

“We’re stuck with numbers and have to do the best we can under the circumstances.”

A walk-on tryout will be held in Millington June 5-7. Players must pay their own expenses, but if they survive the three-day camp they will be reimbursed and given the opportunity to compete for a position during the invitational tryouts.

Kenny Kendrena, a senior right-hander at Cal State Northridge, is one of several Southern California players contemplating that.

“That’s an interest of mine,” said Kendrena, who is 9-4 with a 2.75 earned-run average and 153 strikeouts in 134 innings. “It’s something I’m going to think about.”

Olympic gold mine: Janicki and Nevin were high school teammates at El Dorado High in Placentia and have been friends since they were 11.

“(Janicki) moved into the area when we were in Little League,” Nevin recalled. “All I remember hearing about was that there was a guy blind in one eye who didn’t know where the ball was going. We were all scared of him.”

Nevin, who is on pace to win the triple crown in the Big West Conference, and Janicki, regarded by many scouts as the nation’s top college pitching prospect, are expected to be selected in the first round of the amateur draft in June.

Trivia time: Only one Southland university had players on both the 1984 and 1988 Olympic teams. Name the school and the players.

Down to the wire: Arizona (15-12) won two of three games against California last weekend to stay atop the Pacific 10 Conference Southern Division standings, but only 3 1/2 games separate the Wildcats from last-place USC.

Cal and Stanford, which meet this weekend in the final conference series for both teams, are tied for second at 14-13. Arizona State (12-12) is in fourth; UCLA (13-14) is fifth and USC (10-14) is sixth. USC plays at Arizona State this weekend and concludes its Pac-10 schedule next week against UCLA.

Cal, led by power-hitting first baseman Troy Penix, has recovered from a 2-8 conference start and is contending for its first Pac-10 championship since 1980.

Penix, 6 feet 4 and 230 pounds, is batting .364 with 17 home runs and 69 runs batted in. Last weekend, he hit three home runs and drove in 13 runs while going 11 for 22. Junior Matt Luke, yet another former standout at Placentia El Dorado High, is batting .355 with 47 RBIs for the Golden Bears.

Go see Cal: Coach Bob Milano, a member of the NCAA playoff selection committee, said the Pac-10 and Big West conferences might feel the pinch of a regional bias when the playoff pairings for the 48-team tournament are announced May 18.

“Over the last couple of years, many of the committee members feel the power in college baseball has shifted from the West Coast to other parts of the country,” Milano, of Cal, said. “It’s a big bone of contention. Day in and day out, I just don’t think teams in other parts of the country play the kind of schedule we do out here. It’s going to be a battle, but I think we deserve 12 teams in this year’s tournament.”

Beach vacation: Fifth-ranked Pepperdine, which clinched its second consecutive West Coast Conference championship, won 16 of its last 18 games.

Pepperdine ended spring classes April 15. Pepperdine Coach Andy Lopez said it might be an advantage because his players do not have to juggle finals with the end of the regular season and playoffs.

“You’d think that would be the case, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily true,” Lopez said.

“But let’s be honest. I was a college baseball player myself. With that kind of free time, I can think of a lot of things a player might focus on besides baseball.”

Big finish: The Big West championship could be decided this weekend. Fresno State (16-5) plays host to Long Beach (14-4) in a three-game series and Fullerton (15-6) visits San Jose State.

“I’d say we’re in a questionable position for the playoffs if we’re the third-place team in this conference,” said Snow, who has guided Long Beach to the College World Series twice in the last three years. “If we go up there and win two of three from Fresno State and Fullerton sweeps, it’s dust.”

Long Beach will play a three-game makeup series with UC Santa Barbara next week if it has a bearing on the conference’s automatic berth in the playoffs.

Trivia answer: USC. First baseman Mark McGwire and pitcher Sid Akins played in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Infielder Bret Barberie was a member of the 1988 team at Seoul, South Korea.

College Baseball Notes

Danny Lane of UC Santa Barbara is batting .360 with seven home runs and 39 runs batted in. . . . UC Irvine outfielder Steve Ott started the week batting .357 with a 14-game hitting streak.