This Season, Golden West’s Success Has Caught...

This Season, Golden West’s Success Has Caught Coach Stricklin by Surprise

The Golden West women’s basketball team has dominated for so long, success has almost become a given.

The Rustlers have won the last five Orange Empire Conference titles and seven of the last eight. The Rustlers need only one victory in their three remaining games to add this year’s title outright.

“Hey, isn’t this unbelievable,” said Coach Dick Stricklin, who is in his 18th season. “I figured this year we might be in trouble in conference because we don’t have a whole lot of depth. But everybody helped us out by beating each other.”

But Stricklin doesn’t spend much time fretting about conference titles.

He’s shooting for the State title game and Golden West has reached the State tournament for the last eight seasons.

The Rustlers won the State title in 1990 and 1991 and lost in the title game last season.

All the winning has left Stricklin two games short of 600 career victories. He had a 151-192 record in 12 seasons with the Golden West men’s team. His record with the women’s program is 447-99 for an overall mark of 598-291.

Golden West plays host to Fullerton Wednesday and Riverside Friday. The Rustlers finish the regular season Feb. 15 at Rancho Santiago. All games are at 7 p.m.

*

More Golden West: This season’s team is 24-5, 9-0 in conference. Sophomore forward Julie Murdent is averaging 20 points and nine rebounds and is the college’s second-leading all-time scorer with 1,176 points.

The five losses for Golden West were by a total of 12 points, leading Stricklin to ponder why they didn’t win the close ones early.

The most obvious answer is the absence of his son, Dave, who had been co-head coach at Golden West the previous eight seasons. Dave took a full-time teaching and coaching job at Umpqua College in Roseburg, Ore., last spring.

“We were able to adjust a lot better during games when Dave was here,” Dick said.

Kristin Brun, who played for the Rustlers the last two seasons, is working as an assistant. “She’s been a lifesaver,” Stricklin said. “She runs all the drills with the guards like Dave used to.”

*

Finally: The Rancho Santiago women’s basketball team broke its 32-game losing streak in Orange Empire Conference play Friday with a 57-56 victory over Fullerton.

Wendy Morris drove the lane and passed to Ana Lopez who was open for the game-winning layup with two seconds left for the Dons.

*

Moving on: All 11 sophomores from Cypress’ Orange Empire Conference championship soccer team have landed at four-year colleges.

Pam Prine, the two-time conference player of the year, is headed for UC Irvine. Traci Osman is headed for UCLA and Christy Rowe will play at Cal State Fullerton.

Michael Cunningham, Carrie Fair, Tracy Van Herk and Kim Wyer are going to Chapman. April O’Brien is bound for Chico State and Erica Roberge plans to play at Cal State Los Angeles.

Leah Russell will play at Azusa Pacific, and Lori Van Herk is going to Westmont.

Cypress also added a basketball commitment. Jody Caruso, a sophomore guard from El Dorado High, is going to Southern California College.

*

Irvine Valley’s Hart Gymnasium will be officially dedicated Wednesday before the Lasers’ 7 p.m. game with district-rival Saddleback. The gym, which was completed last August, seats 1,800 and also contains classrooms, offices, a training lab and a dance studio.

Once the ceremony ends, it will be followed by the most important game in Irvine Valley’s short home history.

Irvine Valley (19-9, 7-3), which is tied for third, trails first-place Saddleback (22-4, 9-1) by two games with four left. Saddleback won the first meeting, 97-73, Jan. 13 at Saddleback. Keon Clark, a 6-foot-11 center from Danville, Ill., is averaging 27 points in the last six games and 22 for the season for Irvine Valley, which has won five in a row.

Rancho Santiago will be the site of another big game Wednesday when the Dons (19-7, 7-3), also tied for third, play host to second-place Riverside (24-4, 8-2) at 7 p.m.

Notes

America Robledo, a sophomore guard at Orange Coast, has moved into a fourth-place tie on the college’s all-time scoring list with 953 points. Erika Manning (1989-91) also scored 953 for the Pirates. Robledo needs 10 points to pass third-place Colleen Hatch (1991-93). Lisa Schumaker (1985-87) tops the list at 1,130. . . Rob Crabtree, a starting pitcher last season at Cypress, has started strongly at Cal State Northridge. He pitched a seven-hitter to lead Northridge to a 4-2 victory over USC, Jan. 31. Crabtree had 12 strikeouts and one walk. He picked up his second victory Sunday by pitching eight innings as Northridge beat Loyola Marymount, 10-2.