Long-Awaited Matchup but a Mismatch

It wasn’t so long ago that Cal State Northridge basketball player Janine Caldwell and Loyola Marymount counterpart Jamie Jesko were senior teammates at small-town Clayton (N.M.) High, winning their third consecutive state championship.

Tuesday night they started opposite each other as college seniors.

Sheer coincidence? Anything but.

Caldwell sent her highlight tape to LMU, hoping to land a scholarship with the Lions. While watching the tape in a Phoenix hotel, LMU Coach Todd Corman found himself studying Jesko, New Mexico’s player of the year in 1988, and recruited her instead.

“She had never even heard about the school,” Caldwell said of her former teammate.

Caldwell played at New Mexico Junior College but as a sophomore suffered a knee injury that scared off recruiters, so she decided to come west.

“I just came out here and picked a school that played against Loyola Marymount,” Caldwell said.

She walked on to the Northridge team last season, hoping to play against Jesko, but Jesko missed the game because of a back injury.

“It was kind of funny. (Jesko) was talking a little bit out there to me,” Caldwell said of Tuesday’s encounter. “She always acts like she’s the best. She always has. I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.”

LMU romped, 67-36. Caldwell started but played only four minutes and did not score.

Jesko played 27 minutes and had nine points, eight rebounds and seven assists.

But that’s all right, Caldwell said, laughing.

“We’re best friends.”

WORTH THE WAIT

The Cal State Northridge women’s volleyball team concluded its regular season with a rush, winning 12 consecutive matches. Coach Walt Ker--and several of his players--thereupon said what they had been thinking: The 27-7 Matadors deserved to be one of the 32 teams selected to compete in this year’s NCAA Division I playoffs.

And when the NCAA selection committee announced at a closed-circuit press conference that the Matadors were indeed in and would play USC in a West regional match on Saturday night, Ker and his players were ecstatic. The team and the coaching staff were watching the proceedings in a room adjacent to the school’s gymnasium.

“Walt told us to not act surprised if they announced our name, but I was still clutching my desk with my hands until they called our name,” senior outside hitter Shelly Swalec said. “I felt for sure that we played well enough to get in, but that still doesn’t mean you’re going to get in.”

Junior setter Alison Wool, a three-year starter, added: “I had a good feeling coming in here that we were going to make it, but it’s a relief that we got in. I’m very happy.”

After winning three Division II titles during the 1980s, Northridge will make its first trip to the Division I playoffs, a fact not lost on Swalec.

“I think (being selected to the playoffs) will help put us on the map,” Swalec said. “There are probably a lot of teams out there saying, ‘Who’s Cal State Northridge?’ In the future, they’ll know.”

GLOBETROTTERS

The Northridge men’s basketball team will play nine of its first 10 games on the road, and Tuesday, after Fresno State had defeated Northridge, a Fresno reporter asked CSUN Coach Pete Cassidy about that part of his team’s schedule.

Cassidy paused, then replied: “We’re into geographical education.”

DEJA VU

For the second time in three years, The Master’s College men’s soccer team came within a whisker of advancing to the NAIA semifinals.

Despite tying the No. 1 team in the nation, undefeated West Virginia Wesleyan, 2-2, and then beating Green Mountain (Vt.) the next day, 1-0, Master’s was eliminated because Wesleyan beat Green Mountain by a bigger margin, 4-1.

In 1990, The Master’s also tied Wesleyan in the tournament’s first round but was eliminated because of goal differential.

The Mustangs were hoping for some luck this time around, and on Nov. 25 they sat in the stands cheering for an improbable Green Mountain upset of Wesleyan that would have pushed them into the semifinals.

“It was frustrating to lose without your uniform on,” forward Steve Janho said. “Because you didn’t lose, but you don’t advance. It was sort of tough.”

The Mustangs are the first team from their district to advance to the 12-team national tournament for three consecutive years since Westmont in 1976-79.

Mustang Coach Jim Rickard, who traditionally schedules difficult games early in the season to toughen his team for the league schedule, said the resultant poor record (9-11-1 in the regular season) caused the team to be seeded last in the 12-team field in 1990 and this year.

“I’m going to tone it down for next year,” Rickard said. “There comes a point of diminishing returns.”

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, John Ortega and Kennedy Cosgrove contributed to this notebook.