Northridge’s ‘Rudy’ Also Stars as Team’s ‘Natural’

Steve Moreno wasn’t kidding.

Two weeks ago, the reserve infielder walked up to Cal State Northridge baseball Coach Bill Kernen and gave it to him point blank.

“How come I’m not playing?” Moreno said.

Said Kernen: “He was serious as a heart attack.”

Kernen hemmed and hawed. Implicit in the coach’s response was that other players were better.

The more Kernen thought about it, though, the more he realized the scrappy Moreno had a point. When starting second baseman Grant Hohman suffered a knee injury against Texas A&M;, Moreno was inserted in the lineup and started pelting line drives all over College Station.

Moreno, a senior walk-on from Long Beach City College, now owns the highest batting average (.440) on the team. As a sophomore at Long Beach, Moreno (5 feet 8, 150 pounds) was hitless in four at-bats. He hit .224 at Northridge last season.

Teammate Keven Kempton calls Moreno “ ‘Rudy’ in a baseball uniform,” referring to the movie that depicted the struggles and eventual triumph of a Notre Dame football walk-on.

“The guy’s definitely got guts,” Kernen said.

He has a job, too. Moreno will start at second today against Cal State Sacramento. Hohman, batting .292 with four home runs, has begun taking fly balls in the outfield.

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Trivia question: Of the western schools on Northridge’s 1995 baseball schedule, the Matadors have a winning record against all but four. Name them.

The choices: UC Riverside, Loyola Marymount, Cal State Los Angeles, University of San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Hawaii, USC, UCLA, Pepperdine, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State Sacramento, Long Beach State and Fresno State.

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Poll cats: Keith West had an inkling. He didn’t know how right he was.

The Cal State Northridge soccer standout said that after talking to classmates last week about the student-fee referendum--designed to bail out the deficit-strapped athletic program--he figured the controversial ballot measure would pass with ease.

“Everybody I talked to didn’t know anything about it,” said West, a junior from Kennedy High. “I’m thinking, ‘ Excellent. ‘

“Who’s going to vote? Only the people who knew about it, who were the people in favor of it.”

Bingo. The measure carried 63% of the vote amid a turnout of fewer than 2,300 of the school’s 23,000 students. When a similar funding measure failed last fall--despite a well-orchestrated athletics campaign--more than 4,400 voted.

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Taking charge: The Cal State Northridge football team, saved by a student-fee referendum that passed last week, has a full-time coaching vacancy to fill. Defensive coordinator Mark Banker, a 14-year Northridge assistant, left last month to coach at Hawaii.

That doesn’t mean Coach Bob Burt is seeking a defensive coordinator.

In fact, he isn’t.

Burt said he plans to call the shots defensively in the fall.

“I’ve done it before,” he said. “I kind of miss it.”

Burt, a former defensive coordinator at Cal State Fullerton and Hawaii, said he likely will hire a defensive secondary coach instead.

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Trivia answer: Northridge has losing records against USC (28-39-1), Pepperdine (25-29-2), San Diego State (27-28) and Fresno State (22-43).

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History lesson: Newbury Park is the first area girls’ team to play in a State basketball championship game since Buena won the Division I title in 1984. Newbury Park will play San Jose Archbishop Mitty in the Division III final Saturday at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

Montclair Prep, which will meet University High of San Francisco in the Division V boys’ title game today, is the first Valley boys’ team to play in a state final since Faith Baptist lost in the Division V final in 1992. Santa Clara was the last area boys’ team to win a state title--the Division IV crown in 1990.

Stats

How dominant was the state champion Ventura College men’s basketball team this season? Of the team’s 37 victories, eight came against teams that were ranked in the top 20 in the state at the time. Five were ranked in the top 10.

Things to Do

Several of the region’s top high school distance runners are expected to run in the inaugural Channel Coast Invitational at Camarillo High on Saturday. The meet will start at 9 a.m.

Eleazar Hernandez of Camarillo, Brett Strahan of Hart and Thousand Oaks’ Jeff Fischer and Keith O’Doherty are expected to compete in the boys’ 3,200 meters.

Hernandez placed fifth in the 1994 Foot Locker national cross-country championships and Strahan finished fifth in the West regional. Fischer and O’Doherty placed third and sixth, respectively, in the State Division I championships to lead Thousand Oaks to its second consecutive title.

The Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Little League Pirates, an all-girls’ team, will make its season debut against the Phillies at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park.

* Compiled by Rob Fernas. Contributing: Fernando Dominguez, Steve Elling, Jeff Fletcher, John Ortega, Bryan Rodgers.