Northridge Baseball Team, Opponents Playing on a Level Field

The Cal State Northridge baseball team and its opponents to date are well-matched.

The Matadors and the opposition have cumulative batting averages of .297. After 312 innings, Northridge has 369 hits, its opponents 370.

Nothing surprising about the Matadors’ record.

It’s 18-18 going into a three-game series against Cal State Sacramento this afternoon at Matador Field.

What’s in a name?: The Master’s College catcher Jeff Bennett, a freshman from Newbury Park High, was nicknamed “Bo-Bo” by his new teammates, much to his chagrin.

But since Bennett has been one of the team’s best offensive threats, batting .351 as the cleanup hitter, the nickname might lead to a new slogan:

Bo-Bo Knows-Knows Baseball-Baseball.

Cagey players: If the batting-cage run becomes an Olympic sport, baseball players from Cal Lutheran will be ready.

Before every home game, Kingsmen players wheel the batting cage from behind home plate to beyond the left-field fence as fast as they can.

They say the school record is 20 seconds.

Royalty: The Royal High softball team is 4-10 and 1-5 in the Marmonte League, but if quality of instruction counts for anything the Highlanders should do better once league play resumes Tuesday.

Lisa Fernandez, a former record-setting pitcher at UCLA, will conduct a clinic for the Highlanders on Monday from 1 to 4 p.m. at Rancho Simi Community Park. Fernandez had been privately coaching Royal freshman Rachel Alcorn and sophomore Andrea Loveless.

Talented trio: The performance of three local players at an invitational tournament last week bodes well for the future of Valley basketball.

Chatsworth High’s Eddie Miller and Harvard-Westlake twins Jason and Jarron Collins were impressive while playing for the American Roundball Corp. team that won the Virginia Invitational last weekend.

The trio formed “by far the most dominant front line in the tournament,” ARC president Rich Goldberg said.

The tournament included some of the nation’s best traveling teams for high school-age players. Miller has a year left at Chatsworth and the Collins twins have two years to go at Harvard.

Priorities: Bill Springman, Oak Park High’s first-year baseball coach, has spent the past week away from his team mourning the loss of his mother, Wanda Smith, 71, who died Monday, two days after suffering a heart attack.

Springman, 38, a former Pepperdine assistant, said his mother had been in poor health in recent years. Still, he was totally unprepared for her passing.

So, while his team participated this week in the Birmingham tournament, Springman contemplated more-important matters.

“You never realize until it’s too late,” Springman said. “I’ll tell you, if your mother is still alive, go hold her hand and tell her that you love her deeply.”

Honors

Palmdale High moved to ninth on the all-time region list in the girls’ 1,600-meter relay last week when Sinead Younge, Edneisha Curry, Monique Nolan and Kadrina Coffee placed fifth in the Arcadia Invitational with a time of 3 minutes 53.36 seconds. The region record of 3:37.71 was set by the Kennedy foursome of Kelley Cook, Ann Johnson and sisters Tina and Denean Howard in 1981.

Quotebook

“I was a better waiter than I was a women’s coach.”

--John Price, former restaurant waiter and current coach of Northridge’s ninth-ranked men’s volleyball team, on the one season he spent guiding the Matador women’s squad.

Stats

Northridge designated hitter Andy Shaw entered this week ranked 11th among Division I players with 12 home runs and 15th in runs batted in with 45.

Ranked, rankled: Since Northridge knocked off then-No.4 USC on Jan. 31, the Matador baseball team has lost seven in a row against teams ranked in Baseball America’s top 25.

Senioritis: Outfielder Jonathan Campbell, a senior from Poly High, hit one homer in his first three years as a Matador and had a cumulative batting average of .243. This season he has five homers, is batting .284 and has 17 RBIs--more than half of his career total of 33.

Unbeatable: With its 77-50 victory over crosstown rival Buena last Wednesday, the Ventura High boys’ track team has a 5-0 record in Channel League competition and a 26-0 mark over the past four years.

Seniors Ramsey Jay, Aaron Davis and Brian Fasulo, who combined for 31 1/2 points in the victory over Buena, have been members of all four teams.

Hot team: The Monroe High baseball team started 0-6 but has won nine of its past 10 games, including eight in a row. The main reason: Eight players in the lineup are now batting .321 or higher. Wayne Nix (50 at-bats) and Ray Rodriguez (36) lead the way with .500 averages.

Block party: Former Royal High standout Kevin Hambly is ranked first among Division I volleyball players, averaging 2.05 blocks a game for Brigham Young.

Compiled by Mike Hiserman. Contributing: Steve Elling, Darin Esper, Jeff Fletcher, Dana Haddad, Vince Kowalick, John Ortega, Bryan Rodgers.