COLLEGE NOTEBOOK / KIM Q. BERKSHIRE : Ejections Make It Tough for Toreros Against Santa Clara

It is safe to say the University of San Diego was woefully outcoached and outmanned in a critical West Coast Conference men’s soccer game recently.

Against then-unranked Santa Clara Friday, USD, ranked 23rd at the time, played 96 of the 90 regulation minutes plus two 15-minute overtimes without Coach Seamus McFadden after McFadden protested his way to an ejection following Santa Clara’s opening goal. Twenty-six minutes later, the Toreros lost sophomore defender Scott Farley to a red card and were forced to play the remainder of the game with 10 players.

USD (11-4-0, 3-1-0) lost the game, 3-2, in double overtime.

McFadden acknowledged a referee’s job is tough and hesitated to bad-mouth officials, but admitted his disappointment in the result.

“I don’t want to appear I’m bellyaching, but it’s hard to take, especially when it’s such an important game,” McFadden said. “If we win that game, we’re definitely a shoo-in for the playoffs. We’re still in very good position. There are a lot of games to be played, but we’re not a lock anymore.”

After Santa Clara scored early, McFadden rushed to the sideline, where the lineman stood, and voiced his disapproval. As McFadden saw it, the Santa Clara scorer was offsides.

“That could have cost us a conference championship,” said McFadden, who said the lineman missed two other similar calls. “That’s the one that cost us, the first goal. It wasn’t even close. He was at least five yards offsides. That’s the hard thing to swallow.”

McFadden’s wasn’t the last dismissal of the day. Farley was booted with a red card--an automatic ejection--after Farley went after a player with the referee standing nearby. It was the first time in his 14-season tenure at USD that McFadden was ejected from a game and the Toreros’ first red card of the season.

McFadden said the referee should have reversed the decision on his ejection.

“(The referee) could have overruled, but he wouldn’t,” McFadden said. “He actually said to me that (the linesman) should have given me a yellow card. (The referee) even let me come back and talk to (the team) at halftime.”

USD, an honorable mention in the latest coaches poll, still has a chance to win the WCC, but it will take a combined effort. Santa Clara, No. 18, must lose to fifth-ranked Portland at Portland Friday, the Toreros would then have to defeat Portland in their final conference game Nov. 6, and finally, San Francisco would have to beat or tie Santa Clara on Nov. 8.

The carrot continues to dangle just out of reach of the San Diego Mesa football team.

Before Saturday’s game, Saddleback, the top-ranked community college team in the nation, had an average victory margin of three touchdowns and was on a 15-game winning streak.

Against Mesa, the margin of victory changed, but the winning streak continued.

Saddleback prevailed, 16-12, after Mesa jumped to a 12-0 halftime lead. And Mesa’s lead should have been greater.

With 12 seconds before halftime, Mesa was inside Saddleback’s 1-yard-line, but failed on two quarterback sneaks.

Then with three minutes remaining in the game, Mesa drove to Saddleback’s 17, but had a pass picked off.

“We’re coming along,” Mesa Coach Len Smorin said. “We’re a pretty good football team. We have to learn to win.”

Mesa (1-5) hasn’t lost a game by more than 13 points, and lost to Pasadena, No. 2 in the state, 21-19.

“The offense is starting to gel,” Smorin said. “I think we’ll be a good team the rest of the year. We have a good chance to win our division.”

Mesa begins play in the Southern Division of the Mission Conference in two weeks.

Best Feet Forward: Four of Southwestern College’s top runners recorded personal-best times during Friday’s Pacific Coast Conference meet against Grossmont at Lake Murray. In a meet Southwestern won, 20-39, four Apaches improved on the times they had posted at Irvine earlier in the season.

Luis Apalategui finished fourth in 24 minutes, 25 seconds, which shaved 12 seconds off his previous personal record. Other finishers and their times: Marco Cortes, fifth in 25:00 (25:23 old PR); Damon Howard, sixth in 25:04 (25:34 old PR) and Jude Hess, seventh at 25:30 (25:40 old PR).

Sort of Sunday’s Child: Point Loma Nazarene’s Sunday Renzema, a 6-foot-0 middle blocker, was born on Christmas Day, 1971. But Renzema defied her namesake. Christmas fell on a Saturday that year.