COLLEGE BASEBALL / GARY KLEIN : His Bat Speed Makes Fast Work of Pitchers

USC begins a five-game Hawaiian swing Friday and the second-ranked Trojans’ success so far is due in large part to the swing of outfielder Geoff Jenkins.

Jenkins, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound junior from Rancho Cordova, is the Trojans’ leading hitter with a .378 average, five home runs and 14 runs batted in.

“I’m trying to use the whole field this season,” he said. “I want to have the kind of year that is going to help us get to the World Series.”

Last season at USC, Jenkins hit .373 with 15 homers and 47 RBIs, and he hit .324 for Team USA last summer.

If there is a knock against him, it’s that he sometimes tries to do too much at the plate.

“He’s not satisfied with having the best bat speed in the country,” one major league scout said. “He wants to make it mega-bat speed. He just needs to work on staying in his shoes.”

Said Jenkins, “Sometimes when I get that 2-0 or 3-1 count, I just hump up and take a little too big of a swing. I’m just glad I have too much bat speed rather than not enough.”

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Tournament time: Seventh-ranked Cal State Fullerton is 10-2, but the Titans will be trying to end an eight-game losing streak against No. 24 Pepperdine when the teams meet in the first round of the Anaheim Hilton Classic on Friday at Fullerton.

Fullerton has not beaten Pepperdine since 1990 and lost to the Waves in the 1992 NCAA championship game, 3-2.

The round-robin tournament also includes No. 5 Texas and Notre Dame.

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Ouch! Azusa Pacific set a record for baseball played at the four-year level when six Cougar pitchers hit 12 batters in a 17-6 loss to Chico State last weekend in the Chico State tournament.

The record for most batters hit in a game was nine, set by two teams, San Francisco and Loyola Marymount, last season.

“Our kids were freshmen, pitching for the first time in a pressure situation,” Azusa Pacific Coach Tony Barbone said. “But I’ve never seen anything like it. . . . I didn’t know how to stop it.”

Apparently the affliction was contagious. Chico State pitchers hit four batters, running the new two-team record to 16.

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New format: This season, for the first time, a playoff between the champions of the Pacific 10’s Southern and Northern Divisions will be played, the winner getting the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs.

For the last 12 years, the Southern Division champion has received the conference’s automatic berth and the division routinely gets two at-large berths as well. Southern Division schools--USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford and California--have won 23 NCAA titles. No Northern Division team has won one.

The Northern Division includes Washington, Washington State, Oregon State, Gonzaga, Portland and Portland State. But Portland and Gonzaga will be leaving the Pac-10 to join the West Coast Conference next season.

College Baseball Notes

UCLA (6-4) begins play in the Pac-10 Southern Division on Friday when the Bruins open a three-game series against Stanford. Senior shortstop Garr Vallone leads UCLA with a .381 average. . . . Pepperdine first baseman Ruben Gamboa is batting .406 with two homers and 12 RBIs. Freshman Randy Wolf is 1-0 and has a 2.35 earned-run average in 15 1/3 innings. . . . Senior John Mastandrea of Loyola Marymount, who entered the season with a .149 career average, is batting .414 with two homers for the Lions.

Cal State Fullerton catcher Brian Loyd, a draft-eligible sophomore, is batting .457 and went eight for nine in the Titans’ last two games against Fresno State. Ted Silva, a junior right-hander who was the Titans’ closer the last two years, has emerged as a top starter. He is 4-0 with a 2.12 ERA and has 34 strikeouts and only three walks in 34 innings.