USC Golfers Try to Rally in Regional

USC men’s golf Coach Randy Lein will try to salvage a disappointing season at the NCAA Division I West Regional Thursday through Saturday at the Tucson National Golf Club.

Although 1991 was one of the best seasons in Lein’s nine-year career, 1992 is one of the worst so far.

All-Americans Bryan Pemberton and James Kim, both seniors last year, led the Trojans to a seventh-place finish in the 1991 NCAA national tournament, Lein’s best finish. USC also finished third at last year’s Pacific 10 Conference championships, Lein’s best finish except for 1984 and 1986, when USC won the Pac-10 title.

But the Trojans, ranked 29th by Golfweek magazine, did not win any tournaments this season and finished seventh at the Pac-10 championships in Corvallis, Ore., on May 3, Lein’s worst Pac-10 finish.

Joon Lee, a junior, led USC in seven tournaments, including the Pac-10 championships, when he finished 19th. John Gilles was USC’s highest finisher three times. Jimmy Chang and Chris Zambri, who played on Westlake High’s 1988 Southern Section championship team, round out the top four.

Although USC has never won a national championship in golf, the Trojans have 24 top-10 finishes in the past 52 years.

The West Regional consists of 18 teams, plus three individuals who earned at-large berths. The top nine teams and two at-large individuals will qualify for the NCAA championships June 3-6 at University of New Mexico South Golf Course in Albuquerque. Nine of the teams in the West Regional are ranked in the top 25, including top-ranked Arizona State, second-ranked Arizona and third-ranked Nevada Las Vegas.

The Pepperdine men’s golf team will make its NCAA postseason debut when it competes in the West Regional.

Two Pepperdine sophomores, Lars Herne and Todd Andrews, led the Waves to a top-30 national ranking and their second consecutive West Coast Conference championship.

Herne transferred to Pepperdine this year after he had little playing time at top-ranked Arizona State the past two years. Herne, originally from Kalmar, Sweden, also played with Swedish men’s national team the past three years.

Andrews played for Torrey Pines High in San Diego before attending Pepperdine.

UCLA pitcher Lisa Fernandez and catcher Kelly Inouye first met on a softball field as 10-year-olds.

Fernandez pitched and Inouye caught in a pickup game in Long Beach. Eleven years later, the two form one of the nation’s top batteries.

“She (Inouye) could practically sit on the bench and call my game,” said Fernandez, who was voted Pac-10 player of the year for the second consecutive year.

Fernandez and Inouye came on in relief in the ninth inning Saturday at UCLA to lead the Bruins to a 7-2 victory over Utah in an NCAA tournament regional.

With the victory, UCLA advances to the national tournament at Oklahoma City. The Bruins will face Massachusetts in the first round of the double-elimination tournament Thursday.

UCLA’s Sharron Backus was voted coach of the year. Three other Bruins are on the Pac-10 first team: Joanne Alchin, Kathy Evans and Yvonne Gutierrez.

UCLA (49-2, 14-2) finished second in the Pac-10 to Arizona (55-5, 16-2).

The Pac-10 title was Arizona’s first. UCLA had won the previous four.

The conference awarded the championship to the team with the best percentage because several doubleheaders were postponed because of recent civil disorder in Los Angeles.

The Cal State Long Beach women’s softball team defeated Cal State Fullerton twice on Sunday, 2-1 and 4-0, in a three-team regional at Fullerton in the NCAA Division I tournament.

With the victory, Long Beach (39-30) becomes one of eight teams to advance to the national tournament. The 49ers will face Arizona on Friday.

Long Beach was the last team selected for the tournament’s original 20-team field.

Long Beach players Linda Lunceford and Stacey Van Essen were selected to the Big West Conference first team.

No. 5-ranked UCLA and No. 12 USC were selected to be among the 18 teams that will participate in the NCAA women’s golf championships, which will be held May 27-30 in Tempe, Ariz., at Karsten Golf Course.

Leif Peterson will lead the UCLA men’s crew team in the Pacific Coast championships Saturday and Sunday in Sacramento. Peterson, who grew up in Falkenberg, Sweden, had competed in two world rowing championships before coming to UCLA in 1990.

Although crew is not an NCAA championship sport, several athletic departments, such as Loyola Marymount’s, include crew in their budget.

University funding is being phased out of the perennially powerful UCLA crew program, which was cut from the athletic department and became part of the school’s Cultural & Recreational Affairs program after last season.

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