Christ College Irvine’s Upsets Perk Up a Forgettable Season

Christ College Irvine pulled the upset of the Golden State Athletic Conference baseball season, sweeping a doubleheader from Azusa Pacific Saturday, but it probably won’t be enough to make the NAIA District 3 playoffs.

“I would say it’s too late,” CCI Coach Jackie Schniepp said. “I guess there is a next-to-impossible shot for us to make it.”

With four conference games remaining, the Eagles (15-23-2, 4-12 in conference) are in last place, 3 1/2 games out of third. Point Loma Nazarene and Cal Baptist are 7-8 and Westmont is 7-9 and even if Christ College wins its final four games--doubleheaders against Southern California College (8-6) and Westmont--it’s likely at least two teams and Azusa Pacific (13-3) will finish ahead of the Eagles.

“I think our guys finally realize we’re good enough this year to do well, if not win the GSAC,” Schniepp said. “Those two games against Azusa weren’t too different than the rest of the games this season.

“I think the team was kind of waiting for us to blow the lead in both games. I think it surprised the guys that we didn’t but it didn’t surprise me.”

Schniepp said he was especially proud of how the team scored twice in the bottom of the seventh--of the second game, scheduled for seven innings--to tie the score, 5-5. They then won the game with a run in the ninth when Jason Smith singled with the bases loaded.

The two victories over Azusa Pacific, then-ranked No. 4 in the nation and now No. 5, are even more impressive considering CCI had lost seven of its last eight games and 11 of its last 12 in the conference.

Upset fallout: Left fielder Doug Senne, who was four for four with two doubles, a home run and two runs batted in in the second victory over Azusa, was named the NAIA National Player of the Week.

Senne, a sophomore from Orange Lutheran High who redshirted at Saddleback College and played a season at Rancho Santiago, hit .545 for the week (six for 11).

Senne, who bats leadoff, was academically ineligible until the second week in March and has started only the last two weeks. He had three hits and three RBIs Tuesday in a 9-6 victory over Whittier and improved his batting average to a team-high .432 (16 for 37).

“We’re really getting to know what kind of season he could have had and hopefully that will motivate him for next year,” Schniepp said.

Upset fallout II: Mike Crumrine, who beat Azusa, 3-1, in the first game, was named the conference player of the week. He struck out five and didn’t allow an earned run in improving his record to 2-5.

“Azusa finds a way to score runs and to be able to hold them to one unearned run is quite an accomplishment,” Schniepp said.

Going out on top: Christ College Irvine women’s basketball Coach Kent Schlichtemeier, who announced his resignation Tuesday, leaves the program in much better shape than he found it.

When Schlichtemeier took the job before the 1988-89 season, Christ College had won 10 games in two seasons of intercollegiate women’s basketball. In Schlichtemeier’s first two seasons, the Eagles won 11 and lost 45.

But in each of the next three seasons, CCI won at least 20 games, compiling a 72-18 record, culminating with a 26-6 record and second consecutive trip to the NAIA national tournament last season.

So why quit now?

Schlichtemeier, who is also a part-time professor of education at CCI, learned Friday that he has been accepted by a doctoral program at UCLA.

“This is the next step for professors at our college,” Schlichtemeier said. “The administration encourages all of us to pursue the doctorate sooner or later.”

Schlichtemeier, 36, who lives in Irvine, will be attending classes three nights a week and most of the day on Saturdays starting next fall.

“I felt it would be much better for our program for me to resign rather than to take a leave of absence,” Schlichtemeier said, adding that his stepping down would improve the quality of applicants for the position.

“The hardest part of the decision is the great team I’m leaving behind,” he said. “The team next year is going to be a great, great team but there’s never a good time to leave a program.

“You’re always going to leave some great people behind.”

Christ College is accepting applications until May 15 for the position, which is full-time, 40% coaching, 60% in another area based on qualifications. Among the returning players is Gitte Mejer, the NAIA District 3 and Golden State Athletic Conference player of the year.

Softball: The Southern California College softball team completed its GSAC season Tuesday, sweeping a doubleheader from Point Loma Nazarene. The Vanguards will play host to the NAIA District 3 playoffs May 7-8.

SCC (37-17-2, 14-2), ranked No. 18 in the nation, is top-seeded in the double-elimination tournament. Azusa Pacific (37-13, 10-6) is No. 2 and Cal Baptist (21-20, 8-8) No. 3.

Sophomore outfielder Carrie Nelson was named the District 3 player of the week. He was seven for 14 in four games with two doubles, a home run and four runs batted in.

Junior pitcher Beth Howard, who won two games and had a 0.45 earned-run average, was named the district’s pitcher of the week.

SCC high jumper Ed Bowling qualified for the NAIA national meet with a 6-foot-11-inch jump at the Caltech Invitational April 10. Bowling, a junior, was a City Section champion at Canoga Park High. It was his third competition of the season and beat the qualification standard by three-fourths of an inch.

“He cleared it pretty easily. He may have cleared 7-1 if the bar had been that high,” SCC Coach Bryan Wilkins said. Bowling, who attended Santa Monica College, had a best of 7-0 in high school.

The Vanguards’ only other likely national qualifier, freshman Nikee Pool, who finished second in the 800 meters at the conference championships, has a groin injury that will probably keep her sidelined the rest of the season.

Pool, from Great Bend, Kan., had a best of 2:20 for the 800, four seconds short of the qualifying time.

Notes

David Joerger and Jason Stephens of the Chapman men’s tennis team won two matches in doubles in the independent collegiate division of the Ojai tournament. They beat Ed Amstutz and Matt Baer of Westmont, 7-6, 2-6, 6-2, and Darin Bassett and Sean Willette of Point Loma Nazarene, 6-4, 6-4, before losing to UC San Diego’s Dan Brownstein and Aunon Show. Joerger and Stephens each lost in the first round in singles.