UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Orloff Plans to Reach New Heights

Freshman Borya Orloff plans to qualify for the NCAAs in the pole vault during this weekend’s Big West Championships at Long Beach State. The NCAA automatic qualifying height is 18 feet 1 1/4 inches. The provisional height is 17-4 1/2, but it will probably take a jump of at least 17-8 to make the field.

Orloff has never cleared 17-3.

Nothing wrong with optimism, of course, but it turns out Orloff might be more of a realist than it appears. At last year’s State high school meet, he recorded three lifetime bests, propelling himself over the bar at 15-10, 16-2 and then 16-6.

“Actually, I wasn’t that surprised,” Orloff said. “It was due. We were waiting for it to happen. I had been training hard all year for that meet and conditions were perfect.

“I was waiting for something to happen and something happened.”

Another such happening--an eight-inch increase in his personal best--would carry him to his NCAA goal.

Orloff is only 5-7 and has what Coach Vince O’Boyle calls “decent” speed. His strengths are strength and technique. Doug Sparks, who coaches Irvine’s pole vaulters, says few in the world are technically as good as Orloff.

“I was really into gymnastics as a kid and then when I tried the pole vault as a freshman (at Bellflower St. John Bosco), I just fell in love with it,” Orloff said. “It was a really good event for me considering my background in gymnastics.”

O’Boyle says Orloff’s love of the sport and dedication to training are the most important factors in his rise from a high school sophomore who had never gone higher than 12-6 to an 18-year-old with an incredible future in the sport.

“He just loves to work at mastering the event,” O’Boyle said.

Orloff has lots of goals. Short-term, long-term, and a general-use one he remembers every day.

“My goal is to train harder and harder and get better and better,” he said. “Most pole vaulters don’t reach their peak until their late 20s or early 30s.

“Right now, I think the most important area for me to try and improve is my speed. It’s a huge factor in this sport. So this summer, I’m doing a 16-week program where all we do is run six days a week and lift four days a week. Just a lot of running to get faster and more powerful.”

Orloff grew up in Long Beach, spending much of his early childhood with his grandmother, who was his baby-sitter while his parents worked. She spoke only Russian, so his first language is Russian.

He hopes it will come in handy, maybe at the Olympics one day, where he and world-record holder Sergei Bubka can discuss how it felt the first time they cleared 20 feet.

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Setter up: Cory Hinkle didn’t play high school volleyball because San Jose Bellarmine Prep doesn’t have a volleyball team. But his performance with the Fresno Volleyball Club was enough to convince Irvine Coach Andy Read that he was the right man to replace Jason Hinchman, who is graduating after establishing school records in single-season assists (1,293 this year) and career assists (3,949).

“We rated Cory as one of the top three players at his position in the country,” Read said. “His quickness, athletic ability and offensive skills will make him an outstanding player in the (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation).”

Hinkle’s club team recently placed second in a junior tournament at Cal and finished among the top 10 at last season’s National Junior Olympics.

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Down but not out: The Anteater golf team finished eighth in the Big West Championships last week, but early-season success was enough to carry them into a spot in the NCAA West Regional, scheduled May 18-20 at the University Golf Course in Albuquerque, N.M.

Irvine won four of its first seven tournaments this season and finished second, third and fourth in the other three. The Anteaters were 118-6 against tournament competition at that point and ranked No. 25 in the country.

“We’ve got eight really good players who are pushing each other,” Coach Steve Ainslie said. “In the past, we’ve had one or two top players, but our depth this year has been the difference.”

Unfortunately for Irvine, all of those top players struggled during the Big West tournament. Sophomore Darren Humphrey led the Anteaters with a 24th-place finish. Senior Tim Hart and juniors Jesse Lanham and Kevin Yamauchi tied for 29th. And senior Steve Holmes, who was named to the All-Big West second team, ended up 38th.

Anteater Notes

Irvine sailors will compete in the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Assn. Nationals May 30-June 4 off Belmont Pier in Long Beach. The Anteaters, who tied Stanford for first place in the team-racing competition at the Pacific Coast Championships last weekend, also qualified for the nationals in the dinghy class with a second-place finish. Cal won the dinghy racing with 103 points. Irvine had 117. Skipper Peter Wells and crew Melissa Cutter, Eric Knopf and Jonathan Posner will compete in the Division A dinghy class and skipper Andy Beeckman with crew Carrine Palm, Brian Wynn and Posner will race in Division B. Irvine has won three dinghy national titles, most recently in 1989 . . . Senior David Mayeda, from University High, has the conference’s best time in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles going into the Big West Championships at Long Beach State on Friday and Saturday. His best time in the event this season, 51.80 seconds, is close to the NCAA provisional qualifying time of 51.75. The automatic qualifying time is 50.50 . . . Sophomore Laura Monson, who won the 3,000- and 5,000-meter races as a freshman, currently ranks second in both events with a 9:55.49 in the 3,000 and a 17:15.79 in the 5,000