CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK / SCOTT MILLER : Running Women’s Team Can Be a Mistri

When we last left Al Mistri and the new Fullerton women’s soccer program, the coach was frantically telephoning his equipment company, attempting to cancel that order for athletic supporters.

Hey, how was he supposed to know? Mistri had never coached a women’s team and when it came time to order equipment, he simply filled out the forms as he had in the past.

Well, it’s several months later and the first-year Titan women’s soccer team opened its season on Sunday with a 5-0 loss at San Diego State. One report had San Diego State getting about 30 shots on goal to Fullerton’s two, but Mistri said that was inaccurate.

“I think it was more like 50 shots,” he said. “They were really all over us. But I think we did quite well under the circumstances.”

About 30 women turned out for tryouts at Fullerton’s first practice on Aug. 20 and Mistri selected a team of 20. It was an immediate eye-opener.

“I have never been around, in 23 years of coaching, a group of athletes as willing, eager and happy doing what they’re doing as this group,” Mistri said. “That’s a fact.”

Still, the mind may be willing but . . .

“I think the coaching they received in the past is primitive,” Mistri said. “We’ve done what I consider to be very fundamental things with incessant repetition. I wish we had a little more depth.”

The Titans’ best player is probably their goalkeeper, Heidi Clauss, a sophomore from Grossmont Community College in San Diego. Their most surprising player is probably freshman Kathy Fitzer, who earned the toughest player award while playing on the boys’ team at Los Amigos High School.

“She’s a feisty little gal, I’m not kidding you,” Mistri said. “You look at her and swear she shouldn’t be on the field but, boy, she is really tough. It’s the old cliche, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

And that’s what Mistri hopes will carry this team through its first season. Other teams are more talented and have more experience. The Titans have exuberance.

As for Mistri, after a few early lessons, he is settling right into coaching women.

There was the time during preseason practice that the Titans were running a soccer drill called King, er, Queen of the Hill, a five-minute drill in which the winning team gets to keep playing. After one went into overtime, Mistri told the winning team to stay on the field and told the losers to sit down.

“Two or three girls said, ‘We stay on the field? We won. We thought our reward was to take a break,’ ” Mistri said. “The next group came on and said, ‘We hope we lose.’

“These girls were like, ‘To hell with this.’ I’m stunned and mystified, looking around, and my two assistants are rolling on the other side of the field, laughing.”

The Titans host a team more their size at 7 tonight: USC, whose program is also in its first year.

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Fullerton does not fund scholarships for women’s soccer and, to help pay expenses, Mistri asks that each player raise $250 for the program.

Mistri says, though, that he is not picking on the women.

Since 1981--and including this summer--players on his men’s team have had to work three summer camps for free.

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Ex-Titan football player report: Center Wally Bonnett, offensive tackle John Cotti and outside linebacker Dan Godfrey are starting at San Jose State this year.

“We wouldn’t know what to do without those three, I’ll tell you that,” San Jose State Coach John Ralston said. “They give us good, solid performances.

“Wally was sick in the first half of (Saturday’s) Louisville game and didn’t play in the second half, but Cotti played the entire game and his pass protection and blocking was very strong and Godfrey gives us a veteran linebacker who has been in the wars before, so to speak. He’s a real hustler and a good tackler.”

Godfrey had six tackles during the 31-24 loss to Louisville, including one sack.

Former Titan defensive back Darrius Watson, now starting for Louisville, also had a big day Saturday. He had one interception and 10 tackles.

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The Fullerton men’s and women’s cross-country teams open their season Saturday by playing host to the Jammin’ Invitational at Carbon Canyon Park in Brea. The men’s race starts at 9:30 a.m. and the women’s follows at 10:15.

The Titan men are led by senior Mike Tansley, the defending Big West champion, and junior Heather Killeen, the Big West runner-up last season, returns for the women.

Coach John Elders is expecting entries from at least 10 teams in each division.

Titan Notes

Women’s basketball Coach Deborah Ayres is expected to announce any day the addition of Laura Hall to her staff as an assistant coach. Hall was head coach at Davis High School last year after spending two seasons as an assistant at Sacramento Community College. The previous year she was a graduate assistant at UC Davis. . . . An anonymous person has been mailing “I Want My Titan Football” bumper stickers to people connected with the athletic department.