COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Northridge Unfazed by Power Loss

The Cal State Northridge softball team hit an NCAA-record 40 home runs last season, but Northridge is well off that pace in 1994.

One-quarter of the way through their regular-season schedule, the Matadors have three homers--two by Shannon Jones and the other by Terri Pearson.

Overall, Coach Gary Torgeson said the power shortage does not worry him. The Matadors are 12-2 and ranked sixth in the latest NCAA poll heading into today’s home opener against No. 20 Missouri, and Torgeson expects Northridge to get well again once the team resumes playing within the cozy confines of Matador Field.

However, he is concerned that slugger Beth Calcante, the school’s career leader in homers, has tied herself into a funk while trying to go deep.

Calcante, whose 25 homers place her nine back of the Division I career record, is batting a paltry .204.

“We’re trying to get (home runs) out of her head,” Torgeson said. “Home runs just come. Usually, you don’t have to try to hit them.”

Calcante, an All-American outfielder, last season blasted a school-record 12 homers.

CS NORTHRIDGE

Wild Thing

Cal State Northridge right-hander John Najar says he always wanted to top a statistical chart. This probably isn’t what he had in mind.

Najar (3-2) raised a few eyebrows when he unloaded four wild pitches in each of his first two starts, and while he has slowed the pace recently, he has rolled up 13 in five starts.

For the sake of perspective, Philadelphia Phillies’ starter Tommy Greene led the National League with 15 wild pitches in 1993.

“I like the wild pitch,” Najar cracked. “That’s my curveball. I guess I’ll make the record book one way or another.”

Northridge does not keep individual single-season records for wild pitches, but Najar might make it as part of a team mark. The staff single-season standard for wild pitches is 50, set in 1993.

Northridge pitchers have 28 so far.

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If Najar could skip the first inning, he’d be a world-beater.

In five starts, Najar has been scored on four times in the opening frame, allowing a total of nine runs, all earned. Saturday, the junior right-hander gave up three runs to UC Santa Barbara, a first-inning season-high for a Matador pitcher.

“I just couldn’t get comfortable,” Najar said. “I felt, I don’t know, weird out there for a while.”

Najar is trying his best to work out the early kinks. After teammate Marco Contreras completed his start against Santa Barbara on Saturday, Najar walked onto the field and started practicing his pitching motion, familiarizing himself with the strange mound. Didn’t help.

The remainder of the Northridge staff has given up a total of six first-inning runs.

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Josh Smaler, pressed into duty at catcher because of persistent soreness in the throwing arm of Eric Gillespie, has hit safely in seven consecutive games.

The batting average of Smaler, a back-up catcher last season at Pierce College, previously had hovered around the .170 mark, which was hardly surprising, Coach Bill Kernen said.

“When somebody catches every day, it does affect your hitting,” Kernen said. “You’re worried about calling the pitches, setting the defense, all of that.”

Not to mention the physical toll.

Two weeks ago, the coaching staff tore down Smaler’s swing. It was a major overhaul: Kernen said adjustments were made in Smaler’s stance, stride and hand positioning.

“Whatever he was doing wasn’t working,” said Kernen, with characteristic bluntness. “There’s not a lot of risk (in making changes) when a guy’s hitting .150.”

Smaler has raised his average to .239.

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Right-hander Aaron D’Aoust, a junior transfer from Long Beach City College, has excelled in a relief role for Northridge, and for good reason:

He doesn’t know any better.

Whereas most college pitchers were starters in high school or junior college, D’Aoust has always been a reliever.

It shows. D’Aoust hasn’t given up a run over the last 11 1/3 innings and has the team’s lowest earned-run average at 1.72. As he has for the past few seasons, D’Aoust simply shows for each game ready to pitch.

“I approach it the same way every day,” D’Aoust said. “Kick everybody’s . . .”

THE MASTER’S

Masterful

What do we have to do to catch these guys?

That thought, or something similar to it, must have been going through the minds of Biola’s players during the second half of Monday’s championship game of the NAIA Far West Independents tournament against The Master’s.

The Eagles made 10 of their first 12 shots in the second half, yet managed to trim only one point from a 10-point halftime deficit in a 93-80 loss.

Master’s maintained most of its lead by making nine of 17 shots--including three three-point baskets--and forcing five turnovers during that 10-minute stretch.

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By defeating Biola, Master’s earned a trip to the 32-team NAIA Division I tournament at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla. The tournament runs from Tuesday to March 21.

Master’s (28-4) will play Georgia Southwestern (23-9).

Tournament notes:

* Nineteen states are represented in the tournament, topped by Oklahoma with four.

* Master’s, seeded 10th, is the top-ranked team from California. Azusa Pacific (28-4) is seeded 11th and Westmont (18-12) 30th.

* Twenty-five of the 32 teams in the tournament qualified by winning their respective conference or region tournaments. Seven others were awarded at-large berths.

On Campuses . . .

* Kernen needs three victories to reach 200 in his tenure with the Matadors. In five-plus seasons, Kernen’s baseball teams are 197-105-3.

* Shannon Jones leads the Northridge softball team with a .429 batting average, 15 hits, nine runs batted in, two home runs and a slugging percentage of .629.

* Kathy Blake became the fifth Northridge pitcher to win 50 games when she shut out California two weeks ago. Blake, a junior, has a career record of 51-11. She can tie Heather Lindstrom for fourth place on the school’s career win list by defeating Missouri today.

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Staff writers Steve Elling, Mike Hiserman and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.