After Short Breakup, All the Kingsmen Will Soon Be Together Again

Call it a prolonged midseason respite. The Cal Lutheran baseball team, ranked No. 2 in Division III, has disbanded this week while school is out for spring break.

The team will reconvene next week and prepare for its most important series of the season, three games against Claremont-Mudd, which like Cal Lutheran is 12-0 in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

“Our kids will be scattered all over,” Coach Marty Slimak said. “We don’t have the money to keep them here during break. Some go home and others go somewhere to have fun.”

No foolin’: Division III teams might have the week off, but no such luck for Cal State Northridge, ranked No. 5 in Division I. The Matadors showed up Monday at 10 a.m. expecting a brisk, two-hour workout but were shocked upon looking at the posted schedule.

Practice was mapped out to the minute--for 270 minutes. That’s right, 4 1/2 hours.

“When we came out here and saw the schedule we thought it was an April Fool’s joke,” said Robert Crabtree, a senior pitcher.

Apparently, a look at the game schedule has not left Coach Mike Batesole in a joking mood. Northridge (32-6, 11-2 in the Western Athletic Conference) is riding a 10-game winning streak but must play 11 of its final 17 conference games on the road.

To Morrow, to Morrow: For once, Jason Morrow wasn’t the set-up man.

The Harvard-Westlake High setter recently played a pair of matches . . . at outside hitter.

Morrow, who will set for Princeton next season, fulfilled a season-long desire by playing on the outside against St. Francis and Chaminade.

Trevor Julian and Rick Rauth, normally the Wolverines’ outside hitters, were out because of minor injuries.

Morrow was in--with 11 kills against St. Francis and 13 against Chaminade. Harvard-Westlake, ranked fifth in Southern Section Division I, swept both matches.

Brett Fowler, Harvard-Westlake’s second-string setter, made sure Morrow had plenty of attempts.

“You know how those setters are,” Harvard-Westlake Coach Jess Quiroz said. “They just want to set each other.”

First things first: She placed second in the 400-meter dash in the 1995 USA Track & Field Junior championships as a freshman, but Kadrina Coffee of Palmdale High won’t be running in any high-quality 400 races this season until she breaks 2 minutes 10 seconds in the 800.

That’s the deal she and Falcon Coach Steve Wilson agreed on.

“We figure that will give her some good motivation,” Wilson said. “Once she breaks 2:10, we’ll focus on the 400 in the major meets.”

Coffee began the season with a good-but not great--personal best of 2:24 in the 800, but she ran 2:16.30 to place third in the Pasadena Games at Occidental College on Saturday and has a best of 53.96 in the 400.

“I don’t think it’s going to be much longer before she breaks 2:10,” Wilson said.

Quotebook

“I was just thinking about anything from my English homework to my favorite song to beating the girl ahead of me.”

-- Lauren Fleshman, Canyon High freshman distance runner, who ran a personal best of 11 minutes 9.11 seconds and finished second in the 3,200 meter race behind teammate Julie Harris at the Pasadena Games last Saturday.

Stats

Gerardo Gonzalez has been Pepperdine’s hottest hitter. In the Waves’ last six games the senior first baseman is eight for 19 with three doubles, a triple, three home runs and 12 runs batted in.

USC infielder Ryan Stromsborg, a junior from Notre Dame High, is batting .407 with nine doubles, four home runs and 20 RBIs. Stromsborg has played second base, third base, shortstop and outfield this season.

Mark Ellis of Cal Lutheran is the top-ranked NCAA Division III tennis player in the West.

Things to Do

The unbeaten boys’ and girls’ track and field teams from Birmingham and Taft highs collide today in a Northwest Valley Conference meet at Taft. The field events start at 2 p.m., followed by the running events at 2:30.

Contributing: Mike Bresnahan, Darin Esper, Steve Henson, John Ortega.