COLLEGES / IRENE GARCIA : Snub by NCAA Has the Lions Roaring

Loyola Marymount women’s volleyball Coach Steve Stratos was so confident the Lions would earn a berth to the NCAA playoffs that he scheduled a practice on Sunday to prepare for a first-round match on Wednesday.

But when the NCAA announced the 48-team field Sunday night, Loyola was bypassed. The field includes automatic berths to 24 conference winners and 24 at-large bids.

Santa Clara earned the West Coast Conference’s automatic berth. That left the Lions (23-7), who were second in the WCC, hoping for an at-large bid.

Instead, the NCAA gave San Diego, the WCC’s third-place team, an at-large bid. The Toreros (23-5) were 1-1 against Loyola. The Lions, ranked 24th, were the only top 25 team that did not get a bid.

“(The players) were absolutely devastated,” said Stratos, in his fourth year as coach. “They’re also very angry. After we finished practice on Sunday afternoon, we told the kids we’d call them and tell them who we were playing. That’s how confident we were.”

Said senior outside hitter Deanna Doolittle: “Everybody was completely shocked. The team was real excited and practice went great on Sunday, then it was like a bomb was dropped.”

The eight-member NCAA selection committee uses a computer system (Rating Power Index) to determine the teams that receive at-large bids. The system has three parts: A team’s won-loss percentage in nonconference Division I matches, strength of schedule and opponents’ strength. The NCAA won’t release the RPI until after the season.

“The system works for the top 10 teams in the nation,” Stratos said. “But for the next 15 to 30 teams it works against you. . . . It’s a very unfair system.”

Loyola was undoubtedly hurt by nonconference home losses to 13th-ranked USC and unranked Cal State Northridge. The Lions also lost road matches to fifth-ranked UC Santa Barbara and 25th-ranked Florida State.

Loyola’s WCC losses were against Santa Clara (twice) and San Diego.

“I guess you can see how they didn’t make it, but we’re still shaking our head,” WCC assistant commissioner Don Ott said. “We still believe LMU deserved a bid.”

The NCAA’s decision of taking only two WCC teams may have been justified on Wednesday, as Santa Clara and San Diego lost their first-round matches.

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Loyola players were so upset about not earning a berth to the NCAA playoffs they decided not to participate in the National Invitational Volleyball Championships in Kansas City.

Stratos had accepted the invitation Sunday night, but the players later decided against going. The Lions weren’t shown much respect in that event either. They would have been seeded sixth despite being the tournament’s only top 25 team.

“They determined that we had been successful enough and we earned a right to the NCAA,” Stratos said. “I wanted to make sure it was not an emotional decision and that it was the more dominant players making the decision. I agree and respect the decision.”

Doolittle defended the player’s decision.

“Our goal was to make the NCAA and we thought we did what we had to do to get in,” Doolittle said. “And to have it ripped away from us just didn’t seem fair. It may be looked at as a hasty decision, but we can live with it.”

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Loyola middle blockers Julie Greer and Mardell Wrensch were named to the WCC first team and outside hitter Suzanne Radcliffe was named freshman of the year.

The 6-foot-1 Wrensch finished with a team-high .331 hitting percentage and 1.2 block average. The 6-1 Greer had a .300 hitting percentage.

Radcliffe, an All-Southern Section player at Torrance, led the Lions with 314 kills and 36 aces. She was also named to the WCC second team. Kim Blankinship, also an All-Southern Section player at Torrance, was named to the league’s freshman team. She had 301 kills, a team-high 265 digs and 25 aces.

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The Cal State Dominguez Hills men’s basketball team is off to a 2-0 start after winning the Grand Canyon tournament in Phoenix last week.

The Toros beat the University of Southern Colorado, 79-71, to open the tournament, then won the title by defeating Cal State San Bernardino, 80-65.

Guard Chris Thompson had 46 points in two games and was named to the all-tournament team. The 6-foot sophomore had a career-high 25 points against San Bernardino.

Notes

Dannel Christian, a senior forward on the Loyola Marymount soccer team, was named to the West Coast Conference second team. Senior defender Tim Bernard and freshman goalkeeper Chris Walter were honorable mention selections. Freshman midfielder Cindy Carullo was named to the WCC women’s second team. Freshman defender Kirsten Keyler, freshman midfielder Trisha Abe and sophomore midfielder Judey Petix were honorable mention selections. . . . Loyola forward Sheri Brown was named to the all-tournament team at the University of Hawaii’s Paradise Classic last weekend. The 6-foot-1 senior had 36 points and 20 rebounds in two games.

The Loyola women’s basketball team signed Tammy Olson, a 6-1 forward from Janesville, Wis., and Emily Hart, a 6-4 center from Sacramento during the early signing period. . . . Five Harbor College baseball players have signed to play at Division I schools: third baseman Grant Hohman (Cal State Northridge), catcher Jeff Poor (Oklahoma), pitcher Mark Chavez (Cal State Fullerton), pitcher Mike Miller (California) and infielder Jay Uhlman (Nevada).