CSUN Awaits Word on New Scoreboards

The scoreboard at Matador Field, installed in the early 1970s, is older than most of the players on the Cal State Northridge baseball team.

“At that time, it was a very good scoreboard,” said Bob Hiegert, the school’s athletic director and former baseball coach.

By today’s standards, it is obsolete. Several area high schools have better scoreboards.

If all goes according to plan, the baseball, softball and football facilities might soon have new scoreboards. Hiegert said the school is negotiating with beverage companies to install advertising on the scoreboards to defray the cost of installation and purchase.

The Northridge earthquake delayed the process, but Hiegert said he hopes to have the scoreboards in place by next year. The new scoreboards would feature electronic message boards, which could be used to announce any relevant statistics.

As far as Matador Field goes, Hiegert said he hopes to install sunken dugouts to improve the field sight lines and to redesign the backstop screen.

Anything will help. The baseball team averaged 167 fans at Matador Field during its first 20 home games.

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE

A Little Extra

Call Steve Moreno the guttiest little Matador.

Moreno, a walk-on infielder, wasn’t expected to play much this season. But now that he’s in the lineup, he doesn’t want to leave.

Moreno had four at-bats last season at Long Beach City College and entered the crucial San Diego State series last weekend with a .167 average (three for 18).

Yet Moreno (5-foot-8, 150 pounds) went four for 11 in the series, reached base seven times and scored the winning run in victories on Friday and Saturday. He even socked a solo home run Sunday. Moreno said he last homered in high school.

“I don’t know if he’s ever hit one out of here in (batting practice),” Coach Bill Kernen said. “It shows what you can do if you want to play.”

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Northridge first baseman Andy Shaw is so far ahead of his initial rehabilitation projections that he took batting practice with the team Wednesday night at Cal State Fullerton.

Shaw, the Western State Conference player of the year last season at College of the Canyons, had knee surgery in the preseason. At the time, it was uncertain whether he would be available to play in 1995, much less sooner. The knee has responded so well to treatment that Shaw might be allowed to play baseball this summer.

He will be a junior in 1995.

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Track assistant Tony Veney figures the Matadors have the athletes needed to run 3 minutes 7 seconds in the men’s 1,600-meter relay.

A foursome of junior Marshall Evans, senior Troy Collins, freshman Derek Favorite and sophomore Chris Brown timed 3:09.94 to place sixth in the California-Nevada collegiate championships on Sunday, but that might be the final assault on the school record (3:09.81) this year.

“I really feel like we’ve got a team that can run 3:07 or 3:08,” Veney said. “But it just hasn’t happened yet.”

Northridge was on pace to break the school record after the first two legs of Sunday’s race--clocking 1:33.9 at the halfway point--but the Matadors timed 1:36.0 over the final two legs, narrowly missing the mark set last year.

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Sophomore Akiem Brown--no relation to Chris Brown--had been the Matadors’ anchor man for most of the season, but he did not run Sunday because of what Veney described as an “irritation” in the upper part of his rib cage.

Although Brown’s discomfort apparently resulted from strained muscles, Veney and his fellow Northridge coaches decided not to take any chances until Brown was examined by a team doctor.

“We wanted to make sure we took all the necessary precautions,” Veney said.

JUNIOR COLLEGES

One More Step

Two more rounds of golf like the ones he had Monday and Kelly Schlender of Ventura College could wrap up the season in high style.

Schlender will be one of 60 players who will compete for the state individual title Monday at the Mission Viejo Country Club. He qualified with rounds of 79 and 71 at the par-72 Santa Ana Country Club this week to win the Southern California Regional.

His scores weren’t enough to help Ventura advance to the state tournament. The Pirates finished sixth in the team competition, though notice was served that Schlender will be among the top contenders for individual honors.

“He should be the logical favorite,” Ventura Coach Brian Marshall said. “He’s definitely in the hunt. His own home course (Wood Ranch in Simi Valley) is similar to the Mission Viejo course. They are both long and his style lends itself to that kind of course.”

If Schlender wins, he will become the third individual state champion from Ventura. Mark Singer won the title in 1985 and Jim Johnson followed suit a year later. Singer, who didn’t play in 1986, returned to Ventura in 1987 and missed winning another state championship by one stroke.

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Among those who pressed Schlender for the individual regional title was Aki Amaya, who graduated from Birmingham High in 1991 and is now the top player at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo.

Amaya, the Orange Empire Conference player of the year, shot rounds of 77 and 79 to finish six strokes behind Schlender. But his score helped the Gauchos, who were 21-1 in conference play this season, win the regional.

Amaya attended San Jose State for two years before enrolling at Saddleback.

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It’s rare to see an aluminum bat break in a game, but two within a matter of minutes is downright otherworldly.

Yet, it happened during a 6-3 victory by Pierce over Bakersfield in a recent Western State Conference South Division game.

Against left-hander Adam West of Pierce in the second inning, Bill Rutherford sent an RBI single up the middle. The ball was followed by the top half of the bat, which flew past West.

An inning later, Richard Parra hit a bloop single over first base against West, his bat breaking on the swing.

“You break two bats and you get two hits on them?” asked Pierce Coach Bob Lofrano. “That’s nuts.”

Around the Campuses . . .

* The opposition has stolen 78 bases in 100 attempts against Northridge.

* The cleanup spot in the Northridge lineup has hit a cumulative .300 average (57 for 190) over the first 49 games, but has accounted for only 23 runs batted in. Six players have hit in the fourth spot.

* In six games against San Diego State, first baseman Jason Shanahan was 12 for 27 and drove in eight runs. However, his 15-game hitting streak was snapped with an 0-for-4 performance against the Aztecs on Sunday.

* Northridge entered the week with a record of 24-25 and is in danger of becoming the first school baseball team to have a losing season since 1988, when the Matadors finished 22-23 in their final year under Terry Craven.

Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Steve Elling and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.