For Millis, It Means a Little More

Clayton Millis is going home, and perhaps as a starter for only the second time in his college career.

With J.J. O’Laughlin nursing an injured throwing shoulder, Millis is preparing as if he will be the starter when Cal State Northridge plays an American West Conference football game at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Saturday night.

Millis was a two-sport star in the Central Coast area, earning first-team All-Northern League honors in both football and basketball for Arroyo Grande High.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was among the schools that recruited him out of high school, but Millis chose to walk on at Oregon, where he redshirted one season and appeared in one game as a reserve the next.

When Millis decided to transfer and seek a starting position, San Luis Obispo was among the schools he considered.

His brother Mark attends school there.

His father, also named Mark, is the former mayor of Arroyo Grande.

San Luis Obispo’s Mustang Stadium is where Millis led Arroyo Grande against Lompoc--and University of Washington star Napoleon Kaufman--in the Southern Section Division VII championship game before a stadium-record crowd of 11,200. Lompoc won, 13-7.

And now he says he is “excited, not nervous” about going back. He expects that his parents, friends and former teammates will be in the stands watching.

So, he is preparing as if the assignment will be his.

“To be fair to myself I’m thinking that way,” he said. “I have to be prepared to be the guy.”

Millis has completed 11 of 34 passes for 76 yards with three interceptions. He struggled in his only other start, against Weber State, the game after Coley Kyman suffered season-ending ankle and leg injuries and the game before O’Laughlin took over.

*

Victor Myles, captain of the team’s defense, is expected to play Saturday.

Myles, a senior tackle, did not practice last week after the death of his father, Encell Rodgers. He watched the Matadors’ 21-7 nonconference victory over Chico State last Saturday night from the sidelines, dressed in street clothes after attending the funeral earlier in the day.

Myles rejoined the team Monday, but he is not expected to suit up for practice until today or Friday. Coach Bob Burt said Myles will not start, but will probably play in “special situations.”

Without Myles, Northridge changed defensive fronts, using two down linemen supported by five linebackers. The Matadors normally employ three linemen and four linebackers.

Penn Bushong was added to Northridge’s usual linebacking corps of Ivy Calvin, O.J. Ojomoh,John Herrera and Angel Chavez. Occasionally, Calvin took a place on the line of scrimmage.

Bushong, a senior making his first start, was credited with a sack, six solo tackles, two assists, a deflected pass and a caused fumble to share team defensive player of the week honors with tackle Oscar Wilson.

Wilson was credited with two solo tackles, four assists, half a sack, five hurries and three pass deflections.

*

Northridge already has benefited from one transplanted Illinois quarterback.

Now the Matadors might get another.

Her name is Kathleen Shannon, and she is the setter--also known as the quarterback--on the Fighting Illini women’s volleyball team.

Shannon, a junior, recently told the Champaign News-Gazette that she is considering joining O’Laughlin at Northridge after the conclusion of this season. O’Laughlin, her boyfriend, confirmed the report this week.

Shannon, from Elmhurst, Ill., took over as starting setter for the Illini after the team lost its first five matches. Illinois is 12-8 and well on its way to re-establishing itself as a Top 25 team.

“We were in the same position, both being backups,” O’Laughlin said. “The difference is, she finally got her chance.”

*

Three weeks ago, cross-country Coach Don Strametz figured that sophomore Lori Miller would be the Matadors’ lone representative in the NCAA District 8 championships in Woodland, Wash., on Nov. 13.

But senior Jennifer Andrews and freshman Armando Lerma were added to that list last week after turning in their top performances of the season at the Bronco Invitational in San Dimas.

Andrews finished ninth in the women’s race with a time of 18 minutes 37 seconds over the 5,000-meter course at Bonelli County Regional Park, and Lerma finished 12th (25:17.9) in the men’s 8,000-meter event.

Andrews’ performance marked the first time in her career that she has broken 19 minutes on a 5,000-meter course and left her less than 12 seconds behind Miller (18:25.1), who placed sixth.

“She just continues to improve,” Strametz said. “She’s really closed a lot of ground on Lori as the season has progressed. . . . Armando’s performance shows me that (being consistent in college is) just a mental thing with him. He’s still making the transition from high school to college, but he has a bright future ahead of him at this level.”

JUNIOR COLLEGES

Little Big Man

What a way to bounce back from an injury.

After missing the first three games of the season because of a pulled abdominal muscle and slowly working himself back into shape, Antelope Valley running back Roosevelt Miller rushed for 227 yards and scored five touchdowns in a 43-29 Foothill Conference victory over Desert on Saturday.

The five touchdowns were only one short of the school single-game record set by Bob Keyes against MiraCosta in 1955.

Three of Miller’s rushing scores covered at least 45 yards (75, 70 and 45). The other was a walk-in-the-park five-yard jaunt. He also scored on a 23-yard pass from quarterback Todd Fink.

Surprisingly, the 5-foot-7, 165-pound freshman was used primarily at Palmdale High as a receiver, Carder said. He seems to have adjusted to his new position well.

“I think he’ll develop into a very good football player,” said his coach, Brent Carder.

*

A shot that came within inches of going into the cage is all that separated the Ventura water polo team from its biggest victory of the season on Tuesday.

The Pirates lost to Cuesta, 17-14, in overtime at home in a Western State Conference match that Ventura Coach Larry Baratte called “easily the best game we’ve played all year.”

Ventura, ranked 10th in the state, had a chance to win with five seconds to play in regulation but a shot hit the crossbar and bounced off. Cuesta, ranked third, scored three goals in the two overtime periods to avert the upset.

It was the last WSC match of the season for Ventura (23-10-1, 6-2-0 in conference play), which awaits an announcement Monday of the pairings for the Southern California regionals that start Wednesday.

*

Antelope Valley cross-country Coach Mark Covert has said all season that the Marauders’ men’s team had the potential to be among the top four or five teams in Southern California, but only if his top five runners all turned in strong performances in the same meet. Saturday’s Johnie O Invitational proved his point.

Antelope Valley had four runners among the first 65 finishers, but the Marauders’ fifth runner placed 150th, giving them a 278-point total and a ninth-place team finish.

“We can be among (the teams that finished fourth, fifth and sixth),” Covert said afterward. “But in order for that to happen, every one of our guys has to crank it. We can’t have any bad races.”

CAL LUTHERAN

Pressure Points

Dan Leffler could have been forgiven if he had the shakes after Cal Lutheran’s 23-17 overtime loss to Redlands on Saturday. The junior kicker braved an extraordinary amount of pressure in the preceding moments.

For the first 59 minutes of the game, life could hardly have been more peaceful for Leffler. His only scoring opportunity was a first-quarter extra-point kick.

But in the final minute and the overtime, Leffler had four potentially game-deciding kicks.

--His 25-yard field goal with 46 seconds to play forestalled the loss, tying the score at 10-10.

--His 41-yard field-goal attempt as time expired in the fourth quarter could have won the game, but was blocked.

--His extra point after the first overtime tiebreaker staved off defeat again, tying the score at 17-17.

--His 25-yard field-goal attempt in the second tiebreaker that would have given the Kingsmen a 20-17 lead also was blocked.

Before the first blocked field goal, Redlands called consecutive timeouts in the traditional attempt to unnerve the kicker.

But as he did after the loss started to sink in, Leffler kept his composure.

“That doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I felt I kicked the ball as well as I could kick it.”

*

Running back Ivan Moreno isn’t known for pass-catching prowess. But the 5-foot-10 sophomore, who had only seven receptions going into the Redlands game, caught a career-high 10 for 81 yards.

None wowed the crowd more than a fourth-quarter reception in which he barreled forward after catching the ball and collided with Bulldog defensive back James Merrill.

Merrill’s helmet flew off on impact, but Moreno’s head was ringing as well.

“I hit him and I guess when I hit him, I blacked out in midair,” Moreno said. “When I hit the ground, I came to and I said, ‘I’m not staying on the ground.’ I guess he got the worst of it.”

*

The Kingsmen’s title chances in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference are remote, but not impossible.

With two weekends left in the regular season, Cal Lutheran (4-3, 2-2 in conference play) is in fifth place, two games behind La Verne, one game behind Redlands and Occidental and a half game behind Whittier. There is one scenario that would create a five-way tie for the title in the seven-team SCIAC.

This week: Cal Lutheran defeats Occidental and Redlands defeats La Verne.

Next week: Cal Lutheran defeats Claremont-Mudd, Occidental defeats Redlands and Whittier defeats La Verne.

Five teams would then have 4-2 conference records.

Around the Campuses. . .

* Moorpark’s Joe LaFierenza is second in the WSC in punting with a 37.4-yard average, behind Bakersfield’s Hassan Halevy, who averages 41.8.

* Albert Razo could have set a Cal State Northridge career record for punts had he gone through on a kick early in the fourth quarter against Chico State. Instead, he threw a short pass to Travis Hall, who completed a 50-yard touchdown play. In his four-year career, Razo has punted 202 times, tying Bryan Wagner, whose kicks covered 8,762 yards from 1982-84. Razo’s punts have gone for 7,856 yards, a 38.9 average. Wagner is the punter for the Green Bay Packers.

* Aimee Stone’s streak of 16 consecutive volleyball matches with double-digit kill totals came to an end Saturday when the Matadors were swept by USC. Stone, who had averaged 18.1 kills per match during her streak, was limited to eight against the Trojans.

* The loss was Northridge’s ninth in a row to the eighth-ranked Trojans and dropped the Matadors’ series record to 1-15 against them. Northridge’s lone success against USC was an 0-15, 15-7, 15-11 victory in a 1983 tournament match.

Jon Weisman and staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Mike Hiserman and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.