COLLEGE DIVISION / ARA NAJARIAN : 6 Newcomers Help CSLA Get to Final Eight

Cal State Los Angeles women’s volleyball players were looking for some good news this season with six new starters.

They found it.

Four freshman and two junior college transfers have put Cal State Los Angeles among the “elite eight” in the NCAA Division II championships.

With a five-game upset of Cal Poly Pomona at the regionals, Cal State L.A. will play in the eight-team tournament at Portland State to decide the NCAA champion.

Before the season started, Cal State L.A. was less than intimidating.

Its starting setter, Adriana Huerta, is a walk-on freshman. Coach Mark Massey had to convince her that she was too good to be playing in his intermediate volleyball class.

Huerta played well at nearby Roosevelt High but wasn’t sure about playing at the next level. Massey persuaded her to become a backup setter, but Huerta ended up being a starter when one player became ineligible and another decided not to transfer from a junior college.

“I think she was scared at first,” Massey said. “She just hoped to play originally, and then she was starting.

“I told her ‘You are good enough, you just have to learn to handle the pressure.’ ”

That was significant considering that the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. might play the best volleyball in Division II.

“She handled it exceptionally well,” Massey said. “Our offense is varied to take advantage of our quickness--we have a short, quick team that can really jump. In high school, Adriana had three (offensive) sets with maybe three options. Now she has nine sets with a minimum of three options. So she went from three to 50 very fast and earned second-team all-conference honors. That says a lot.”

And Cal State L.A. (24-9) finished second in the CCAA to Cal State Bakersfield and faced UC Riverside in the first round of the regionals.

Riverside, despite having what some considered an off-year, qualified for the playoffs for the 12th consecutive time to set a Division II record. But defeating Riverside (15-19) was not a major surprise, the question was whether Cal State L.A. could take the next step and defeat Pomona.

Saturday, the questions were answered.

In its match against Pomona, Cal State L.A. played to its strengths with quick passing, blocking and rotating to try to dig everything. Cal State L.A. finally won, 15-10, 7-15, 15-5, 5-15, 15-10.

Freshmen Nikki Drullard and Andrea Ferchaw played particularly well whether they were giving or getting. Drullard had a team-high 23 kills and a game-high 23 digs. Ferchaw had 17 kills and 21 digs.

The two weren’t alone. Kaili Kimura had 20 kills and Wendy Dreher added 14, allowing Cal State L.A. to attack from all angles.

Pomona was, as usual, led by Mitsue Tomoyasu, who had 27 kills in 66 attempts and 16 digs. Pomona finished the season 26-7.

In the quarterfinals Saturday, Cal State L.A. will play fourth-ranked North Dakota State (35-6). Looming is host Portland State.

“They’re a big powerful team--the opposite of us,” Massey said of Portland State. “We have a small, quick young team and you wouldn’t expect us to be in the hunt for the national championships. If you had predicted that before the season you would have been crazy. But when the team gets down they just seem to pick it up.”

Maybe, just maybe, a few people snickered when they heard that Point Loma Nazarene would be in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics national volleyball tournament.

Maybe, just maybe, a few people said, “Oh yeah, that’s because they’re hosting it and they have an automatic bid.”

But maybe they will be surprised.

Point Loma Nazarene qualified for the tournament, which runs Thursday through Saturday, because it is the host school. But the Crusaders are no pushovers.

Point Loma Nazarene has been impressive, finishing 20-8 and second to Westmont in the Golden State Athletic Conference.

Outside hitter Roberta Smith, the only senior on the team, leads the Crusaders. She had 139 kills and led District 3 in hitting percentage (41.1%). Teammate Sunday Renzema was second in hitting (40.5%).

Occidental had two All-American performances while its men’s cross-country team finished 14th at the NCAA Division III national championships at Saratoga.

Jose Garcia, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference runner of the year, finished seventh with a eight-kilometer time of 25 minutes 2.2 seconds and Kindreich Konstantine was just behind him to finish eighth (25:08.9).

Two Cal Lutheran football players, Chris Sestito and Tom Pellegrino, were selected District VIII Academic All-Americans in the College Division for the second consecutive year.

Sestito, a senior linebacker majoring in business, has a 3.33 grade-point average. He was chosen All-SCIAC this season and was No. 2 in career tackles at Cal Lutheran with 328. He had 115 of those in nine games this season, including 18 against Occidental and 19 against Menlo College on successive weeks.

Pellegrino, a defensive lineman majoring in English, has a 3.27 GPA and was also named All-SCIAC. He had 49 tackles from both the defensive end and tackle spots.

College Division Notes

Redlands fullback Sean Cheatham was selected the SCIAC’s offensive player of the year and teammate James Shields, a defensive tackle, was chosen the conference’s defensive player of the year. . . . In men’s soccer, Cal Lutheran midfielder Preban Krohnstad was chosen the SCIAC’s most valuable player. In women’s soccer, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps forward Maril Davis was the conference MVP. Cal Lutheran midfielder Vanessa Martin and defender Stephanie Gainey were selected first-team All-Far West Region. Cal Lutheran Coach George Kunz was selected co-coach of the year along with John Leaney of Macalester College.