It’s Not Exactly a Win-Win Situation for Shackelford

Although it’s been 25 years since Lynn Shackelford attended UCLA, the former basketball standout still has a passion for the Bruins.

Shackelford, owner and operator of Sinaloa Golf Course in Simi Valley, is quite confident UCLA will defeat USC in its annual cross-town rivalry football game Saturday.

As a gesture of his confidence, Shackelford is offering a day of golf with no greens fees if the Bruins defeat the Trojans.

But what if UCLA loses?

Should USC win, all proceeds from the greens fees will be donated to the Bob Chandler Foundation, in honor of the former USC receiver who died of cancer earlier this year.

“This was something I came up with a couple of years ago,” Shackelford said. “Since I’ve been doing it, UCLA has won both times. I told Terry Donahue he was killing me.”

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Tough season: To say Cal State Northridge’s final football game of the season is important to senior kicker Matt Ornelaz is an understatement.

“This game is my whole life basically,” Ornelaz said.

Besides being the last game of Ornelaz’s career, the matchup with Cal State Sacramento has special meaning for Ornelaz because of what’s happened in one-point losses to the Hornets each of the past two years.

In 1993, he missed a 44-yard field goal that would have given Northridge the lead with 58 seconds to play. Last season, he missed an early extra point. He’s hardly to blame for the losses, though, since he made three field goals in each game.

Ornelaz wouldn’t mind capping this season with something positive. He was an all-conference selection last year, but he’s missed all six of his field-goal attempts and is only 11 for 17 on extra points in 1995.

“The year I’ve had I wouldn’t wish on any kicker,” he said. “If we win Saturday, you could ask me what happened in the first nine games and I’d say I don’t even care.”

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En Garde: The Southern California High School Fencing League begins its second season with a new entry and the first of three tournaments Saturday at Chaminade High in West Hills.

Monroe High joins Harvard-Westlake, Chaminade, Bellflower, Norwalk and Victor Valley.

Monroe’s program was launched last season by Greg Schiller, a biology teacher who fenced competitively at UC Santa Cruz. Schiller started Monroe’s program after studying with Harvard Coach Ted Katzoff, longtime fencing director of Westside Fencing Center in Culver City.

Now, Schiller is offering his own pointers to boys and girls learning to parry, reprise, fleche and thrust. And interest is growing.

“I figured this was something that was out there enough that the principal just might go for it,” Schiller said. “The response was a core group of kids who stayed on and kept training.”

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Bye, goodby: Sometimes, you can lose even without playing.

It happened this week to the Valley College football team, which had a bye last Saturday. The Monarchs (9-0) are top-ranked in the state by the J.C. Athletic Bureau and in the nation by USA Today, with Long Beach (10-0) ranked second in the state and third in the country.

That’s how it has been for the past three weeks. The state rankings didn’t change this week and the national rankings remained the same.

But the Southland junior college sports information directors penalized Valley for having an open week. They dumped the Monarchs to second behind Long Beach in their poll.

Go figure.

Quotebook

“We’ve had a hard time picking the team most valuable player because there’s not a person that stands out on this team. That’s why we’re so successful. We’re all good.”

--Cal Lutheran volleyball Coach James Park on his 25-2 team.

Honors

Cal Lutheran’s Jeff Shea completed the season as the top punter in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. In nine games he had 43 punts for 1,933 yards, an average of 45 yards a punt. The Kingsmen’s Chad Valousky is No. 1 in the SCIAC with six interceptions for 112 yards.

Palmdale driver Lance Hooper will be honored by Mayor Richard Riordan today at 11:45 at the Golden West Motorsports facility in Van Nuys.

Hooper recently claimed the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour championship. He will accept the championship trophy on Saturday at the tours banquet in Reno.

Stats

While watching a Cal State Northridge football practice recently, a reporter asked some trainers how much tape they use on Matador athletes in one week.

The trainers guessed they use about 12 cases of tape each week. Twelve cases is 24 rolls. Each roll has about 90 feet of tape. That’s about 25,920 feet, or 4.9 miles of tape each week.

What does this prove? Northridge football practices can be pretty boring.

Things to Do

The Racquet Centre in Studio City will hold a tournament with a team-tennis format on Saturday, with four-player teams consisting of two singles players and one doubles team. Divisions include men’s, women’s and juniors. The event starts at 9:30 a.m.

Information: 818-713-8148.

Contributing: Fernando Dominguez, Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia, Dana Haddad, Vince Kowalick, Bryan Rodgers.