Hawaii Might Find Rough Going on Northridge Infield

In the off-season, in an attempt to help rid Matador Field of its reputation as the worst baseball facility in NCAA Division I, about $25,000 was spent installing and nurturing a new infield.

The old one was a bit rocky and uneven. In fact, a Northridge school administrator said Hawaii complained about the surface after a Western Athletic Conference series at Matador Field last season.

When Hawaii rolls into town Friday to begin WAC play, the infield surface might be in comparable shape. Because of earthquake-related developments, there is no water for the field’s sprinkler system.

Players and coaches, armed with a single garden hose fed by a lone faucet behind the grandstands, are watering the field manually.

Northridge Coach Bill Kernen said the infield is rock-hard and getting worse.

“Pretty soon, it’ll be like a parking lot,” Kernen groused.

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE

Elbowing Into the Schedule

Sports Illustrated’s well-documented cover curse has nothing on these guys.

Last season, Northridge senior right-hander Steven Morales was pictured on the front of the team’s baseball pocket schedule. He missed the season because of elbow problems.

A photo of senior right-hander Keven Kempton graces the pocket schedule this year. He will miss the season because of elbow problems.

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Third baseman Tyler Nelson had a “fan club” during last week’s Gator Slug-Fest in Florida.

Rather, he was adopted by a group of obnoxious fans as their whipping boy. It all started when Nelson made a couple of fielding mistakes early in the tournament.

“After that, they were all over me,” Nelson said.

Everything Nelson did was serenaded with a cavalcade of taunts. The group included a teen-ager and one lava-lunged female--who was the most verbal of the lot.

For some reason, she appeared at every Northridge game and was dogged in her dogging of the junior infielder.

“She was definitely loud,” Nelson said.

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Upon further review. . . .

The way freshman Eric Gillespie remembers it, he hit two home runs last season as a senior at Millikan High. And that’s what it says in the Northridge media guide, in fact.

Gillespie leads the Matadors in homers (three), extra-base hits (nine) and runs batted in (23). Quite a haul for a guy who hit only two homers in his final year of high school. Granted, the team played at spacious Blair Field in Long Beach.

Wait. It gets better.

According to Gillespie’s father, Richard, Eric hit only one homer as a senior. Father recently mentioned this minor statistical oversight to his son.

“I guess he’s right,” Eric shrugged.

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Oliver Heitmann is averaging 6.0 kills per volleyball game this season and if Coach John Price has his way, that number will increase as the season goes on.

Heitmann, a 6-foot-7 junior middle blocker from Hamburg, Germany, had 30 kills in Thursday’s 15-12, 17-15, 15-4 loss to UCLA, but Price hinted that setter Gary Reznick should go to him more often.

“Gary finally figured out that Oliver can hit the ball from the back row,” Price said sarcastically. “He finally figured out that you’re allowed to do that. . . . Oliver is by far our best hitter. He should be getting the ball 100 times a night if that’s what the match calls for.”

Heitmann had only three attacking errors in 41 attempts against UCLA for a hitting percentage of .659.