SIDELINES : Matadors No Longer Consider Nash’s Height a Shortcoming

At 6-feet, Dan Nash is considered short for a Division I college setter. That’s probably why none of the local schools showed interest in him after two seasons as a starter at Pierce, a junior college volleyball powerhouse.

“I had to call around and recommend him,” Pierce Coach Ken Stanley said. “No one wanted him.”

Stanley lobbied Cal State Northridge the hardest because he figured that’s where Nash had the best chance of playing. He called Matador Coach John Price many times, but had difficulty selling his setter.

“Obviously they wanted to get a taller guy,” Stanley said. “And obviously they didn’t get one.”

It wasn’t until a Northridge assistant coach ran into Nash at a local store that the Matadors actually invited him to try out for the team.

It turned out to be a great deal for Northridge. Nash is the Matadors’ starting setter, but he’s still a non-scholarship walk-on.

In Northridge’s first two matches, Nash has 135 assists and 11 digs. After Northridge’s opening victory against USC, Price praised Nash’s performance.

“He was great tonight,” Price said after the 15-11, 13-15, 15-4, 15-1 victory over the Trojans. “He was solid and very consistent.”

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Payback time? The toughest loss of Troy Starr’s career came in 1994 when his Taft High football team was upset by Dorsey on a last-second interception return for a touchdown in the quarterfinals of the City Section 4-A playoffs.

This fall, he might get his revenge. Taft, which will face Sylmar the opening week of the season, will play at Jackie Robinson Stadium against the Dons in the third week. Dorsey, the defending 4-A champion, replaces Crenshaw on the Toreadors’ preseason schedule.

“This isn’t a case of schools coming to us; we’re going to them,” Starr said. “We want to have the toughest schedule, to play the best teams we can.”

They don’t get much better than the Dons. Dorsey beat Taft’s undefeated Northwest Valley Conference rival Kennedy, 48-19, last season in the 4-A semifinals.

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Lost in the hoopla: Liz Giltner of Chaminade High figured she had set some pretty high goals for the upcoming track and field season. But the junior’s goal to clear 6 feet in the high jump--a four-inch improvement of her personal best--paled in comparison to those of many at a news conference previewing next month’s L.A. Invitational indoor meet at the Sports Arena.

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Rori Kelly of Inglewood Morningside, whose specialty is the 100-meter hurdles, and Malika Edmondson of Playa del Rey St. Bernard, who runs the 400 meters, said they will win state titles this season.

But their boasts were nothing compared to those of Bell Gardens senior Michael Granville and Muir junior Obea Moore.

Granville, who ranks fourth on the all-time national high school list in the 800 meters (1 minute 47.96 seconds), and Moore, who ranks fourth on the list in the 400 (45.14), said with straight faces that they intend to win titles in this summer’s Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Granville said he plans to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team and there’s no sense going to the Games if you don’t think you can win.

Moore said he expects to run 43-flat in the 400--the world record is 43.29--and someone will have to run faster than that to beat him.

Thousand Oaks Coach Jack Farrell was among those in attendance amazed by the talk, especially that of Granville, who finished second in the 800 in last year’s State meet and whose personal best is more than six seconds slower than the world record.

“The 800 is not one of those events where you can just keep chopping seconds off your best each year,” Farrell said. “The faster you get, the harder it is to improve. Going from 1:53 to 1:50 is not the same as going from 1:50 to 1:47. . . . You start measuring your improvement in tenths of a second a year after that.”

Quotebook

“They are amazingly resilient, almost too resilient.”

--Cal State Northridge women’s basketball Coach Michael Abraham, on how some members of his team seem to be getting too good at handling losses.

“He improved tremendously and he had a lot of raw talent, but when he first got here from Oregon he had not played much volleyball and he was goofy-footed.”

--Pierce volleyball Coach Ken Stanley on his former outside hitter, Jason Ring, who plays at top-ranked Hawaii this season.

Stats

Cal State Northridge senior Carrie Dormire needs to make three three-point baskets in tonight’s game against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to reach 100 for her career. Dormire has nearly twice as many three-pointers as the next highest on the list (Dawn Broline, 51). Dormire is on seven other school top 10 lists.

Kevin Barnett, the Western State Conference men’s volleyball player of the year at Pierce College last season, leads Pepperdine (3-1) in kills. The junior outside hitter has 57 kills in the Waves’ four matches, including 22 in Pepperdine’s loss to UC Irvine.

Things to Do

The Cal State Northridge women’s swimming team will have the second of its three home meets this season at 1 p.m. today against the University of San Diego. The only remaining home meet for the men’s and women’s teams is Jan. 27, against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Contributing: Jeff Fletcher, Irene Garcia, Michael Lazarus, John Ortega.