Northridge’s Talent Runs Deep, For a Change

There won’t be a conference or regional championship, a berth in the NCAA championships is out of the question, but Cal State Northridge should field its best cross-country team of the decade.

The Matadors will open their seventh season as an NCAA Division I program at 10 this morning when they race Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and host UC Santa Barbara. Yet this could be the first time Northridge has men’s and women’s teams worthy of Division I status.

Northridge placed fourth (women) and fifth (men) in the 1989 Division II championships, but the talent of Matador teams plummeted after that.

Until two years ago, Coach Don Strametz lacked the scholarship money to lure quality distance runners to Northridge.

Things started to turn around when Strametz recruited a solid women’s freshman class in 1994. Last year, he got Nordhoff High’s Javier Ramirez, a two-time Southern Section Division III champion, and Agoura’s John Greene, 1993 Southern Section Division II winner, to sign on the men’s side.

The newcomers this year also have solid credentials.

Will Bernaldo placed second in the 3,200 meters for Nordhoff in the State track championships in June after finishing seventh in the West regional cross-country meet in December.

Jesse Barragan was runner-up in the 1,600 for Long Beach Wilson in the Southern Section Division I track finals in May.

Oswaldo Servin, a former Fillmore High standout who transferred from Cal State Stanislaus, has run 14 minutes 55 seconds for 5,000 meters. A junior, he should be among the Matadors’ top four runners along with Greene, Ramirez and Bernaldo.

“The potential is definitely there for a quality top four,” Strametz said. “We’re not going to be very deep, though.”

Barragan, the Matadors’ probable No. 5 runner, is questionable for the meet today because he is recovering from a strained quadricep muscle.

Still, with no seniors among Northridge’s projected top five, the future looks bright for the Matador men, who along with the women, will compete in the nine-team Big Sky Conference this season after a two-year stay in the four-school American West.

The Northridge women lack the high school credentials of their male counterparts, but they could have more depth.

Juniors Jamie Whitmore and Andrea Bruins and sophomore Ellen Muench were the Nos. 1, 3 and 2 runners on last year’s team that finished 12th in the District 8 championships.

Bruins will miss the meet today because of a sore tendon in her knee.

Freshmen Shana Driscoll, from San Francisco St. Ignatius, Tara Marsden from Thousand Oaks and junior Jennifer Overlock from College of the Canyons will make their Northridge debuts.

Driscoll placed 13th in the 3,200 in the State track championships in June and Overlock finished third in the 1,500 and fifth in the 5,000 in the State junior college championships in May.

Marsden was slowed by illnesses during her last two years at Thousand Oaks, but she placed 14th in the 1993 State Division I cross-country championships as a sophomore.

“Last year we had our top four runners and then it was a prayer for fifth,” Strametz said. “This year we should have a solid six when we’re healthy.”

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Pepperdine will open its season at the University of San Diego Invitational today, but with a different outlook than Northridge.

The school does not award cross-country scholarships and has no track team. Therefore it’s difficult for coach Dick Kampmann to attract quality runners to the Malibu campus.

Juniors Chris Shaw, who took off the 1995-96 school year, and Bryan Kuvehinikov, 31st in the West Coast Conference championships, should be Pepperdine’s top men.

The women will be paced by Olivia Lua and Barbara Miller, juniors who have never run for Pepperdine.