Twin Triumphs for USC Sprinter Miller

The time is now for USC’s Inger Miller. Finally.

After three injury-marred track seasons, Miller won the 100 meters in 11.45 seconds and the 200 in 23.27 at the Pacific 10 Conference meet Saturday at Pullman, Wash.

“I was just really happy. More so than happy about the win, I was just happy I was able to make it through (the race),” Miller said.

Expectations were high for Miller when she arrived at USC. In her senior year at Pasadena Muir High, Miller had the best girls’ prep times in the nation in the 100 and 200 meters, 11.48 and 23.57.

But until now, Miller has been unable to live up to her potential. She had a stress fracture in her foot her freshman year. A hamstring problem bothered her as a sophomore, she pulled it again last year in the NCAA semifinals.

This season, Miller sprained her ankle while running the 200 at the Mt. San Antonio College meet in April. The Pac-10 meet was only her second since the injury.

“She has done a lot of conditioning and a lot of stretching, but no really hard running,” said Barbara Edmonson, USC coach. “So this was a test, and she got an A.”

Miller is the daughter of Lennox Miller, a former Trojan star and Olympic silver medalist in the 100 meters for Jamaica.

She has a good chance to do well in the sprints at the NCAA meet at Boise, Ida., June 1-4, provided she can stay injury-free.

“At this point, you want to knock on wood,” Edmonson said. “You really don’t want to say anything until it’s over.”

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The NCAA women’s tennis committee apparently thought so little of 12th-ranked Keri Phebus of UCLA that it didn’t even seed her for the NCAA women’s singles tournament at Athens, Ga.

“I wasn’t really given a satisfactory answer why she wasn’t seeded,” said UCLA Coach Bill Zaima.

But Phebus ignored the slight and advanced to the final last Saturday, where she lost to third-ranked Angela Lettiere of Georgia, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.

Phebus was only the second, unseeded player to advance to an NCAA women’s singles final. The first was Clemson’s Gigi Fernandez in 1983. Phebus also is the first woman from UCLA to advance that far.

Phebus, a 6-foot-1 sophomore from Newport Beach, was named the Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. player to watch last season.

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The UCLA women’s softball team, which has won four NCAA championships in the last six years, was on the brink of elimination in the NCAA Region 4 tournament at Columbia, S.C., this weekend.

With a 2-1 record in the double-elimination tournament, UCLA played Nevada Las Vegas, unbeaten in the tournament, Sunday in the championship game.

Kelly Howard, a sophomore all-American at second base, hit her first two home runs of the season to give UCLA a 2-1 victory and force a second game. UCLA won that one, too, 3-2, and advanced to the NCAA College Softball World Series at Oklahoma City, Okla., beginning Thursday.

Notes

The Pacific 10 Conference track title won Saturday by the UCLA men’s team was the sixth in the last eight years for the Bruins. They won consecutive Pac-10 titles from 1987-89, missed in ’90 and ‘91, and now have won three straight again. Said UCLA Coach Bob Larsen, “I think it is always a special feeling to get that third (title) because it is not always the same people (on the team), so it is a challenge to keep it at a real high level, competitively.” Added Larsen, “The weather on the first day was just brutal. It was cold, rainy and windy. Just miserable. Everybody in the Pacific Northwest was rubbing their hands, thinking that they would have better chances in that kind of weather, but our guys really responded well.”

Jenny Park shot a four-over-par 223, good for a tie for 19th place, in leading the UCLA women’s golf team to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA West Regional tournament, May 12-14, at Albuquerque, N.M. That put UCLA into the NCAA tournament, which begins Wednesday at Eugene, Ore. The Bruins couldn’t have asked for a better place to play the NCAA tournament, It will be held at the University Golf Course, home of the Oregon Invitational. UCLA won that invitational last year and finished second this year. . . . Renee Baumgartner, in her first year as USC women’s golf coach, led the Trojans to a sixth-place finish at the West Regional and they, too, will be playing in the NCAA tournament. Baumgartner, 28, played at USC from 1984-87 and spent the last six seasons as Oregon’s coach. Jill McGill, a senior from Denver, shot a 219 for the Trojans, good for 11th place individually. McGill won the U.S. women’s amateur tournament last August.

Todd Andrews of the Pepperdine men’s golf team tied for fourth place with a four-under-par 212 at the NCAA West Regional tournament at Tucson, Ariz., last week, to qualify for the NCAA tournament at Stonebridge Country Club at Dallas June 1-4. . . . The singles and doubles divisions of the NCAA men’s tennis tournament begin Wednesday at Notre Dame. Singles entrants include top-ranked Wayne Black and 18th-ranked Jon Leach of USC; third-ranked Robert Janecek of UCLA, and 13th-ranked Charles Auffrey and 47th-ranked Ari Nathan of Pepperdine. Doubles teams include second-ranked Sebastien LeBlanc and Eric Lin of UCLA, 11th-ranked Black and Leach, 29th-ranked Lukas Hovorka and Adam Peterson of USC, and 17th-ranked Nathan and Cary Lothringer and 27th-ranked Simon Aspelin and Troy Budgen of Pepperdine.

If a pattern of the last three years runs true to form, UCLA should win the NCAA College Softball World Series. in the last three years, the second-place finisher in the Pac-10 has won the NCAA title. This season, top-ranked Arizona (60-3, 23-1 in conference play) won the Pac-10. Fifth-ranked UCLA (41-12 and 16-6) finished second.