TEN WHO MADE AN IMPACT : They Provided the Thrills in Record Numbers

From fast finishes to fastballs, long bombs to deep home runs and high jumps to high intensity, here are 10 area sports figures who made an impact in 1993:

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(1) Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High capped a brilliant two-sport high school career by winning the girls’ long jump and the 100- and 200-meter races in the state track and field championships.

The three victories gave Jones an unprecedented nine state titles in her career, breaking the previous best of six shared by several athletes.

The state champion in the 100 and 200 as a freshman, sophomore and junior, Jones added the long jump to her repertoire in her final year, and her personal best of 22 feet 1/2 inch was only 2 1/2 inches shy of the national high school record of 22-3.

Now a freshman at North Carolina, Jones holds the national high school mark in the 200 (22.58 seconds) and ranks second in the 100 at 11.14.

Jones didn’t slow down on the basketball court, either, averaging 22.8 points and 14.7 rebounds to earn state Division I player-of-the-year honors. Led by Jones, Thousand Oaks advanced to the championship game of the Southern Section Division I-A playoffs for the third consecutive year.

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(2) Keith Smith of Newbury Park was one of the most touted high school quarterbacks in the country before the season began--and he exceeded those expectations.

Smith threw for 259 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 157 yards and another score in Newbury Park’s 22-14 come-from-behind victory over Hawthorne in the Southern Section Division III title game, and his overall stats were equally impressive.

Based on the NCAA’s passing-efficiency formula, Smith had a 179.1 rating. He completed 270 of 409 passes (66.0%) for 4,244 yards and 40 touchdowns with 13 interceptions.

Smith’s passing yardage broke the single-season state mark of 4,223 yards set by Carson’s John Walsh in 1990 and gave him a state record 9,971 yards for his career. With 87 touchdown passes, Smith tied for second on the all-time state list.

In addition, Smith rushed for 774 yards and 11 touchdowns. His 98-yard scoring jaunt against Hawthorne gave Newbury Park its final margin of victory.

Besides his football exploits, Smith averaged 14.8 points and 4.0 assists in basketball. In baseball he batted .347 and drove in 18 runs and posted a 7-4 record with a 2.88 earned-run average.

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(3) Coley Kyman’s decision to give up a spot on the U.S. men’s B volleyball team last summer so he could play quarterback at Cal State Northridge in the fall seemed an unwise choice.

After all, the ankle injury that Kyman suffered in the season opener against San Diego State not only ended his college days but jeopardized a promising volleyball career at the international level.

Yet one has to admire Kyman’s zeal for playing football, a sport he describes as his “first love.”

Volleyball, however, is the sport in which Kyman excels. He is a three-time All-American middle blocker who led Northridge to a runner-up finish in the NCAA championships in May.

A four-year starter at Northridge, Kyman is the Matador career leader in kills (2,205), total attempts (4,044), digs (831), total blocks (554), solo blocks (111), block assists (443) and hitting percentage (.401).

He is also one of the founders of the Matamaniacs, a group of fun-loving Northridge athletes who dress in wild clothes and makeup to cheer Matador teams and jeer their opponents.

“Coley’s pride in this school is awesome, especially when you consider that no one else has it,” said John Price, the Northridge men’s volleyball coach. “When he came in here as a freshman, he was embarrassed by the lack of pride the athletes had in their school. He was on a one-man mission to turn that around. And he has.”

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(4) Randy Wolf’s pitching statistics weren’t quite as impressive as those of Crespi’s Jeff Suppan, but the left-handed junior from El Camino Real High was virtually unhittable at the end of the season as the Conquistadores marched to their first City Section 4-A Division title.

Wolf’s tear began May 18--when he threw a no-hitter and struck out 14 in a 3-0 victory over Taft in a regular-season finale--and ended June 3 when he pitched two innings of no-hit relief to save El Camino Real’s 7-6 triumph over Chatsworth for the City championship.

He followed the no-hitter with a perfect game in a 6-0 victory over Banning in the 4-A quarterfinals May 27.

Five days later, he threw a three-hitter and struck out 12 in a 6-0 victory over Monroe in the semifinals.

Wolf posted an 11-1 record for the season with a 1.05 ERA. He gave up 37 hits, struck out 118 and walked 39 in 79 1/3 innings. He also batted .338, scored 31 runs and drove in 27 to earn the City 4-A player-of-the-year award.

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(5) Attracting more than a few hundred people to a junior college basketball game in Southern California is not an easy task, yet crowds of up to 3,000 regularly file into the Ventura College gymnasium to watch their beloved Pirates play for Philip Mathews.

Mathews, in his ninth season of coaching at Ventura, has compiled a 241-52 record since taking over a program that was 10-20 the previous season.

Mathews’ coaching style--which includes high-decibel scoldings of players who do not meet his performance standards--has been criticized as overly harsh by some. But the bottom line is that the Pirates are consistently among the top teams in the state and most players improve their game under the fiery coach.

Ventura, which won the 1987 state title, has posted three consecutive 30-win seasons and is working on a fourth. The Pirates are 19-1 this season.

Ventura, which has been ranked No. 1 in the state poll all season, was the top-ranked team last season even after being upset by Columbia, 97-88, in the state title game.

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(6) In a sport traditionally dominated by pitchers, Beth Calcante of Cal State Northridge has made a name for herself as a power hitter on the Matadors’ softball team.

Calcante earned first-team All-American honors after leading Northridge in batting average (.343), hits (61), doubles (seven), home runs (school-record 12), total bases (110), slugging percentage (.618), average with runners in scoring position (.477), runs batted in (school-record 51) and sacrifices (15) as a junior. The former Newbury Park High standout was also tied for the team lead in triples (three) and runs (33).

Her home run total tied her for third on the NCAA’s all-time single-season list and she is tied for fifth on the career home run chart with 25.

Calcante needs nine home runs to tie the NCAA Division I career record of 34.

Led by Calcante, Northridge hit an NCAA record 40 home runs last season and was ranked second behind UCLA in the final national regular-season poll.

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(7) Jeff Nadeau of Monroe High turned in one of the most stunning performances of the year when he cleared a City Section high jump record of 7 feet 2 1/4 inches in the Valley Pac-8 Conference finals in May.

Nadeau entered the meet as a good--he had a personal best of 6-8--but not great high jumper, and left it as one of the favorites for the state title.

That his season best was 6-6 entering the meet, and that the record clearance came on his 24th attempt of the competition, made Nadeau’s performance all the more remarkable.

After winning the long jump with a leap of 22 feet 2 inches, Nadeau cleared 6-0, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4, 6-6 and 6-8 on his first high jump attempts, but it took him three tries each at 6-9, 6-10, 6-11, 7-0, 7-1 1/4 and 7-2 1/4. He missed three times at 7-3 1/4 before heading directly to the triple jump where he placed second with a personal best of 45-2 1/2.

“That’s a huge shot in the arm for City track,” then-City Section Commissioner Hal Harkness said. “A huge shot.”

Nadeau, a three-sport standout at Monroe now attending Arizona on a football scholarship, proved his performance was no fluke by winning the City (7-0), Golden West invitational (6-10) and state (7-2) championships.

He also averaged 13.7 points and 5.1 rebounds for the Viking basketball team which advanced to the finals of the City 3-A Division playoffs.

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(8) Newbury Park wide receiver Leodes Van Buren is half of the most productive quarterback-receiver combination in high school football history.

The Panther senior led the state this season in receptions with 101 for 1,658 yards and 20 touchdowns.

He is the state’s all-time leader in receptions (269) and receiving yardage (4,446) and ranks second in touchdown receptions (45).

Van Buren also ranks second on the national all-time list in career receptions and receiving yardage. Only Maurice Mebane of Cummings High in Burlington, N.C., had more catches (292 from 1989-92), and only Stan Rome of Valdosta (Ga.) High had more receiving yards (4,477 from 1970-73).

For good measure, Van Buren averaged 14.3 points and 6.2 rebounds in basketball.

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(9) George Keiaho didn’t play for a team that won a section championship and missed three games because of injuries, yet the Buena High senior rushed for 2,248 yards and scored 30 touchdowns as the Bulldogs advanced to the semifinals of the Southern Section Division III playoffs.

Keiaho, the Cal-Hi Sports freshman and sophomore player of the year in 1990 and ‘91, rushed for 6,585 yards and scored 81 touchdowns in his career.

His rushing total ranks second on the all-time state list behind David Dotson (USC), who ran for 7,257 yards at Moreno Valley Valley View from 1989-91, and his career touchdown total ranks fourth.

Based on his 224.8-yards per game average this season, Keiaho could have become the second back in state history to rush for 7,000 yards if not for the injuries, with Dotson’s mark within reach.

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Despite the turmoil that engulfed the Cal State Northridge football team for much of the season, Robert Trice quietly rushed for 1,362 yards to move to third on the Matador single-season list.

The 5-11, 205-pound senior from Rocky Point, N.C., was held to 216 yards rushing in the first three games before he posted consecutive school-record totals of 261 yards against Sonoma State and 278 yards against Nevada Las Vegas.

He had three other games in which he rushed for more than 100 yards, including a 187-yard effort against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a 152-yard total against Southern Utah in the final game of the season.

Mike Kane (1,565 yards in 1986) and Albert Fann (1,377 in 1989) are the only Matador players to rush for more yards in a season than Trice.