Chapman Coach Is Showing Plenty of Confidence in His Softball Team

For more than a year, Chapman co-Coaches Lisle and Janet Lloyd have been predicting their team would win the NCAA Division III softball championship.

This week, the Panthers will get a chance to prove the Lloyds right. Friday, Chapman will open the championship tournament in Storm Lake, Iowa, against the winner of today’s game between Rowan (N.J.) and Allegheny (Pa.).

The Lloyds, a father-daughter team, are both confident, but Lisle is feeling extra sure of the Panthers’ chances. Case in point: The 1995 team picture was shot months ago, but the players haven’t received their copies yet; Lisle plans to hand them out after the tournament.

Janet asked her father the reason for the delay.

He told her, “Well, I had national champions put on the bottom of the photos.”

“I asked him, ‘Dad, what happens if we don’t win?’ and he said, ‘We’ll just cut it off the bottom.’ ”

The Lloyds are hoping it doesn’t come to that.

*

Crowd stopper: Chapman (40-5), which hasn’t lost to a Division III team all season, kept that streak alive with a flourish in the regional title game Monday. After seven scoreless innings, Megan Coe of Buena Vista (Iowa) hit a home run off Christy Guidorizzi, the only run Guidorizzi gave up in the tournament.

Buena Vista’s fans, razzing Chapman all game, intensified the abuse.

“Some 80-year-old lady was yelling at Christy the whole game,” Janet Lloyd said. “That’s what made it a little sweeter.”

It was Jessamine Maiben’s two-run double off the center-field wall in the bottom of the inning.

“I’ve never seen a crowd get so quiet so quickly,” Lloyd said.

The two-out double was a redemption of sorts for Maiben. She got a glove on Coe’s home run but knocked it over the fence.

*

The field: Rowan (32-12), ranked eighth nationally, and Allegheny (33-8), ranked third, play at 3 p.m. PST today for the chance to play No. 2 Chapman, which has a first-round bye. Defending champion Trenton (N.J.) State, which was ranked No. 1 the entire season, also has a bye and will play the winner of today’s game between Central (Iowa) (33-11) and Hope (Mich.) (29-9).

Chapman has played only Allegheny this season. The Panthers won a nine-inning game, 1-0, in March in Orlando.

Trenton State (45-4) has the winningest softball program in Division III history, having won five titles and reached the national tournament all 14 years it has been held.

Trenton is led by Michelle Carlson, the 1994 Division III player of the year and all-time division home run leader. Carlson, a three-time All-American, is batting .627 with 20 home runs, 92 runs batted in, 14 doubles and 12 triples. She has a 1.280 slugging percentage.

“Inside, outside, high, low, people say it doesn’t matter where you pitch it,” Janet Lloyd said, “she’s going to hit it over the fence.”

*

No rest: Because of stormy weather last week in Storm Lake, the regional tournament was extended one day until Monday. The team flew back Monday, went to classes Tuesday and got on a plane back to Omaha, Neb., at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday.

The Panthers returned for a total of 30 hours, but with finals week coming up next week the players were adamant about getting back.

“The NCAA would have preferred us to stay in Iowa,” said Jim Moore, Chapman sports information director. “The kids unanimously shot that idea down.”

Academics take precedence on this team. Last season, the Panthers had a 3.32 team grade-point average, tops in the nation among Division II teams.

“Our players were more concerned about their classes than the games,” Moore said.

*

NAIA softball: Southern California College opens play in the NAIA national tournament today in Columbia, Mo. The Vanguards (41-20) are scheduled to play Belmont (Tenn.) (36-12) at 8 a.m. PST.

SCC, which received an at-large bid, is seeded seventh in the double-elimination tournament. With a victory, the Vanguards will play the winner of the game between William Woods (Mo.) (44-19) and second-seeded Athens State (Ala.) (47-2) later today.

SCC is led by shortstop Shannon O’Rourke, who is batting .363, catcher Amy Lewis, who is batting .327 with a team-high 34 RBIs, and pitcher Shannon Saylor, who is 28-8 with a 1.05 earned-run average and 193 strikeouts.

College Division Notes

Four Chapman players--junior shortstop Lisa Cancilla, junior catcher Kathy Donovan, freshman pitcher Christy Guidorizzi and freshman left fielder Jessamine Maiben--were named first-team Division III All-Americans. Junior center fielder Jenny Martinez was selected to the second team. . . . Guidorizzi, Cancilla, Maiben, Martinez and Donovan also were named first-team All-Division III West Region. Senior pitcher Leslie Gerbin and freshman first baseman Lacee Rashi were second-team picks. . . . Six Chapman players were named to the all-tournament team after the regional: sophomore third baseman Lisa Simpson, Guidorizzi, Donovan, Maiben, Martinez and Cancilla. Guidorizzi struck out 17 batters in 17 innings. Donovan and Martinez each had five hits in nine at-bats (.556) and Maiben had three runs batted in. . . . Chapman’s NCAA softball game Friday will be broadcast live at 10 a.m. on campus radio station KNAB (93.3 FM), but the station is difficult to pick up outside the campus dormitories. The station is also sporadically available on Cablevision Orange at 105.7 FM. Chris Boeckman of KAYL in Storm Lake, Iowa, will do the play by play and Jim Moore, Chapman sports information director, is doing the color commentary. The station plans to carry all of Chapman’s games in the tournament.