COLLEGES : Pepperdine Senior Lloyd Is a Winner in Second Race

In only the second race of her career, Pepperdine senior Jill Lloyd finished first in a cross-country meet with USC on Saturday.

Lloyd covered the 5-K Malibu course in 19 minutes 56 seconds and led the Waves to a 18-41 victory. The Pepperdine men’s team defeated USC, 22-25.

“It’s something I’d never done before,” Lloyd said. “It felt great.”

In April, the sports medicine major approached Coach Dick Kampmann about competing.

“They told me, ‘If you’re even thinking about it, you’ve got to do it,’ ” she said. “I’d never been on any team before and I missed having something to train for.”

Lloyd was also excited about the possibility of working with middle-distance runner Suzy Hamilton, the Pepperdine assistant who competed in the Barcelona Olympics.

For Kampmann, who retired briefly after 26 years of coaching at University High and is now in his third year at Pepperdine, the situation with Lloyd exemplifies the spirit of the school’s non-scholarship program.

“Those who decide to compete are highly dedicated to the sport,” Kampmann said. “And to get somebody as a senior who has never raced before--at Pepperdine, that’s normal.

“But Jill runs like she’s been racing for three or four years. She has a great sense of pace and the ability to run negative splits. Most others start out too fast and pay for it in the end.”

Lloyd appreciates the evenhanded treatment from the coaching staff, which also includes assistant Laurie Andrews.

“Afterward, Coach Kampmann came up and said, ‘Nice run,’ ” Lloyd said. “He pointed out a few things. He’s very low-key about it all.”

Lloyd has thrived under Hamilton’s motivational input.

“Jill is a very disciplined runner,” Hamilton said. “It’s only sometimes you come across people with that special ability, who have that special gift.

“At Pepperdine, though, they’re all running because they enjoy it. They’re already motivated as it is.”

The UCLA men’s soccer team was defeated by Davidson College, 3-1, on Friday, and tied Southern Methodist, 1-1, on Sunday in the UCLA Pacific Classic tournament.

Davidson defeated Cal State Fullerton, 4-0, to win the championship, which the Bruins had won the previous four years.

UCLA (9-2-2, 2-1 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Conference) plays league matches against Cal State Northridge on Spaulding Field at 8 p.m. Friday and UC Santa Barbara on the North Soccer Field at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Bruin Coach Sigi Schmid believes his team has been improved with the return of junior midfielder Jorge Salcedo, who had been out because of a stress fracture in a foot.

UCLA junior midfielder John O’Brien is out for two to three weeks because of a slight fracture at the base of a tibia.

UC Santa Barbara (2-8-0, 0-3-0 in league play) has only four seniors among its top 13 players, according to first-year Coach Mark Ayra.

Cal State Northridge (8-6-0, 2-3-0 in MPSF) is led in scoring by senior forward Danny Daniels, who has eight goals and six assists.

“You measure yourself by playing the best,” Northridge Coach Marwan Ass’ad said. “And, in my opinion, UCLA is the class act of the nation. But this year, I heard they don’t score much. I just hope they keep up the trend.”

Notes

The Pepperdine men’s and women’s cross-country teams and the respective B teams from UCLA will compete in the Bronco Invitational Saturday at Bonelli Park in San Dimas. The women’s race will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the men’s race starts at 9:15.

The Pepperdine women’s volleyball team (7-11, 3-2 in West Coast Conference play) travels to Loyola Marymount (13-7, 5-0) for a match at 7 p.m. Saturday. The No. 1 Bruins (15-0, 9-0 in Pacific 10 Conference play) travel to No. 22 Washington State on Friday (14-5, 5-4) and Washington (7-6, 4-5) on Saturday.

The sixth-ranked UCLA (5-6) and fourth-ranked Pepperdine (10-6) water polo teams will compete this weekend in the 49er Invitational. The tournament winner earns an automatic Mountain Pacific Sports Federation bid to the NCAA Championships. Pepperdine begins play on Saturday against Iona at the Belmont Plaza Pool. UCLA will meet UC Riverside on Saturday at the Cal State Long Beach pool. Sixteen teams will compete in the two-day event.

The fifth-ranked UCLA women’s golf team travels to the Georgia Previw Invitational this weekend, held at the University of Georgia golf course. The three-day tournament field includes 15 teams in the Top 20, including No. 2 Arizona, No. 3 Oklahoma State, No. 4 Georgia and No. 7 Arizona State.

Members of the No. 9 Pepperdine women’s tennis team are scheduled to play this weekend in Santa Barbara for prequalifying for the upcoming Riviera All-American Championships. The No. 4 Pepperdine men’s team will compete at the ITA Regional Championships on Nov. 4-8 at UC Irvine.