Williams Accepted Swim Championship With Open Arms

Sophomore Joshua Williams of El Camino Real High should win some kind of award for his celebration after his upset victory in the 100-yard breaststroke at the City Section swim finals Wednesday in Long Beach.

Williams had the fifth-fastest qualifying time but won from the outside lane, timing 1 minute 5.82 seconds.

When he saw his time and place on the scoreboard, Williams leaped out of the pool, dove back in, jumped out and promptly hugged anyone he could find, be it coaches, teammates or competitors.

“It’s just a great feeling to win something like this,” Williams said. “I wanted to do good for myself. But this is a little more than I expected.”

Latin flavor: An alarming NCAA study has revealed that in 1995 only 193 of 5,514 Division I baseball players were Latino. Cal State Northridge, however, is a program in which Latino players are flourishing.

Five of the Matadors’ 10 pitchers are Latino--Erasmo Ramirez, Benito Flores, Juan Velazquez, Jesse Yeomans and Rob Ballester, and they have combined for an 18-5 record. Right fielder Jose Miranda is batting .347 with a team-high on-base percentage of .498, and second baseman Cesar Martinez has improved his batting average 65 points to .237 during the past 17 games.

One of the Matadors’ top recruits is Royal High’s Adrian Mendoza, a left-handed pitcher/first baseman with a 7-1 record and .533 batting average.

Positive thinking: Those psychology classes are paying off for Northridge softball slugger Scia Maumausolo. The senior catcher, who has set career records with 36 doubles, 45 home runs

and 162 runs batted in, has never been one to speak of or even acknowledge her personal feats. Stoic is an understatement.

But the psychology major who wants to be a sports psychologist, has been working on more than just softball.

“I am in the process of learning to appreciate my accomplishments,” she said, forcing a smile and wringing her hands nervously.

Honors

Right-hander Lindsay Parker of Fresno State has been named the Western Athletic Conference’s freshman softball player of the year. Parker (19-1), a La Canada High graduate and The Times’ 1995 Valley pitcher of the year, has a 1.01 earned-run average and has struck out 93 in 138 1/3 innings.

Cal Lutheran outfielder Eric Buben and pitchers Andrew Barber and Erik Kiszczak have been named to the All-Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first team, and former Burroughs High standout Bobby Sherwood made the squad as a catcher. Kingsmen pitcher Richard Bell and catcher Rik Work made the second team.

Quotebook

“Other teams would finish games and be looking to kick the ball around and work out some more. Some of our guys were more interested in where they put their surfboard.”

--St. Bonaventure High boys’ soccer Coach David Bierly, whose teams have struggled to a 6-33-2 record in two seasons.

“It’s amazing how the scores go up down there.”

--Granada Hills High golf Coach Joe White on next week’s City Section championships, which use official scorekeepers as opposed to regular-season scoring, which is done on the honor system.

Things to Do

The Ventura County youth track conference varsity finals are scheduled for Saturday at 8:30 a.m. at Rio Mesa High.

Contributing: Steve Henson, Michael Lazarus, Paige A. Leech, Bryan Rodgers, Tris Wykes, Peter Yoon.