Loyola Women Regain Success in Volleyball

Like a sleeping Lion, the Loyola Marymount women’s volleyball program seemed harmless during the past five years. This season, however, it has awakened.

Loyola is enjoying its best season since 1986, when it won the West Coast Conference championship. That year, the Lions defeated UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament and finished 24-8 overall, 10-2 in the West Coast Conference.

They have not played in an NCAA tournament since.

Loyola (15-8 overall, 6-1 in WCC) is in second place in the conference behind UC Santa Clara (17-7, 9-0).

The Lions defeated conference rival Pepperdine, 15-8, 15-11, 15-7, at Loyola on Oct. 24. The victory ended a 10-match losing streak against Pepperdine that dated to 1986. On Saturday, however, the Waves upset Loyola, 15-12, 15-11, 15-11, at Pepperdine.

For Dana Bragado, the only four-year player on Loyola Marymount’s roster, the victory over Pepperdine was especially sweet.

“It was really a big game for me, and the whole team was just ecstatic when we won,” Bragado said. “It was probably one of the biggest wins of the season for us, just because of the fact that they’ve beaten us for so long.”

Amy Moeller, a freshman outside hitter, has provided some of the new talent that has sparked the Loyola program. Moeller is second on the team in kills, with 212, behind Deanna Doolittle’s 218. Moeller was an all-CIF Southern Section pick as a senior at Mater Dei High last season.

Robin Ortegiesen, Loyola’s sophomore setter, ranked second in the nation in assists last week, averaging 13.91 per game. UCLA’s Julie Bremner, a former U.S. national team player, ranked first, averaging 14.10.

Steve Stratos, third-year Loyola Marymount coach, rekindled a program that won only 17 matches in the two years before his arrival.

In his first season, Stratos led the Lions to the second postseason appearance in the program’s history, the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. Stratos is 53-36 at Loyola.

“The thing that I’m really proud of is that I was told when I first took over that we were going to lose for a while,” Stratos said. “(But) we came in here and were successful right from the start. That allowed us to get the type of recruits that came into the program. Now, when we recruit, we’re able to say we are successful.”

Stratos had coached the boys’ and girls’ teams at Irvine’s Woodbridge High for nine years. The girls’ program was ranked in the nation’s top 20 during Stratos’ last four years at Woodbridge.

Five-time defending WCC champion Pepperdine is 95-7 overall since league play began seven years ago. This season, however, the Waves have not been as successful.

Pepperdine’s three-game loss to Loyola on Oct. 24 was only the second time it has been swept in a conference series. Gonzaga defeated Pepperdine in three games earlier this season.

Although the Waves rebounded to defeat Loyola this weekend, they remain in fifth place in the WCC with seven conference games remaining.

Pepperdine has not had a losing season in the past eight years, but they are 8-13, 4-3 in the WCC.

“We just are not having a very good year,” said Nina Matthies, 10-year Pepperdine coach. “I guess that happens. One out of ten.”

Most college-bound high school students would jump at the chance to win a $25,000 scholarship. Mardell Wrensch did. She won more than $68,000 in cash and prizes--including the scholarship--on the Wheel of Fortune game show last year.

But Wrensch, a freshman middle blocker for the Lions, did not need the money for college because she received an athletic scholarship from Loyola Marymount.

A spokesman for Wheel of Fortune said that Wrensch can use the money any way she pleases.

Notes

The women’s volleyball season worked out evenly for the Eberhart sisters, Joli and Mary, because Pepperdine and Loyola split matches. Mary is a junior defensive specialist for the Waves and Joli is a senior outside hitter for the Lions. . . . In the women’s Riviera All-American Tennis Championships at Pacific Palisades this weekend, Keri Phebus, a UCLA freshman, advanced to Saturday’s singles semifinals, where she lost to eventual champion Paloma Collantes of Mississippi, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3. Phebus, from Corona del Mar High, was ranked second nationally in the girls’ 18-and-under division in 1990, but was unranked in juniors last season. . . . Asked if Phebus has worked her way into the Bruins’ starting lineup, UCLA Coach Bill Zaima said: “She has already worked her way to the top. We don’t need to have a lineup now, but certainly she has been our most impressive player.” . . . Jenny Hilt and Jenny Baker, a UCLA doubles team, advanced to Saturday’s quarterfinals, where they lost to eventual champions Laxmi Poruri and Heather Willens of Stanford, 6-1, 6-2.

In the men’s Volvo Tennis/Collegiate Championships, which were held at the University of Texas on Oct. 15-18, Cary Lothringer and Ari Nathan of Pepperdine advanced to the doubles semifinal, where they lost to Daniel Courcol and Laurent Miquelard of Mississippi State. Last year, Lothringer and Nathan were ranked fourth in the preseason collegiate rankings, but finished the season with a 1-5 record. Their first round victory in the collegiate championships was the first match they won since their first match last season. . . . Charles Auffrey of Pepperdine struggled to get himself back in shape for tennis after a summer spent at his home in Paris. “(Auffrey) was living the good life in France,” said Pepperdine Coach Allen Fox. “He was eating too much of that good French food all summer and living too pleasant a life and (was) not on the court enough.” Auffrey won the consolation singles in the collegiate championship.

The 1992 NCAA men’s water polo championship, which will be held Nov. 27-29 at Belmont Plaza Pool, could be a tossup between the top five teams. Consider this season’s three games between third-ranked USC (14-6) and fifth-ranked Pepperdine (13-8). USC won two, but all three games were decided by one goal. The latest was an 8-7 sudden-death victory for the Trojans at Pepperdine on Friday. . . . California became the first champion of the new Mountain Pacific Sports Federation when it won the Long Beach water polo invitational on Oct. 25. The highest-placing MPSF team at the invitational was named champion.

Brad Friedel and Joe-Max Moore, juniors on the UCLA men’s soccer team, were named two of 10 candidates for the Missouri Athletic Club collegiate soccer player of the year award.

The UCLA men’s and women’s golf teams play host to the Bruin Classic, beginning today. Eighteen women’s teams, including Arizona State, Louisiana State, Stanford and Texas, are competing at Menifee Lakes Country Club. Fourteen men’s teams, including Pepperdine, Stanford and Cal State Northridge, are competing at Red Hawk Country Club in Temecula.