Northridge Officials Fire a Mortal Volley at Price

If it wasn’t official already, it probably is now: The Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team is history.

Rigid parameters for a one-year reinstatement of the program, which was cut on June 11 to help meet budget and gender-equity requirements, were released Tuesday by the university.

Associate athletic director Grace Collins told Coach John Price that he has until Aug. 1 to raise money for traveling, equipment, sports information services and coaching salaries for the 1998 season, a total estimated by Price to be $75,000.

“It’s a joke,” said Price, who felt there was, at most, a 5% chance of raising the money.

“I don’t think our athletic department as a whole has ever raised [$75,000] in a month, and I’ve got to do it on my own? In four weeks? It’s ridiculous.”

Personnel moves: Kelli McCaskill has been hired as the girls’ basketball coach at Chaminade High.

McCaskill, a varsity assistant and lower-level head coach at Notre Dame High the past two years, replaces Diane Garza, who resigned after two seasons.

McCaskill, 25, a 1996 graduate of Cal Lutheran who played volleyball and basketball for the Regals for two seasons, will be a full-time English teacher at Chaminade.

“I’m very excited,” McCaskill said. “I’ve got to get everything organized and there’s a lot of work to it, but I’m definitely ready.”

McCaskill takes over a team that was 5-19 last season.

Sloan Bunting was named football coach at Monroe High, Principal Joan Elam said.

Bunting, former softball coach and football assistant at Grant High, replaced Fred Cuccia, who suffered a stroke in July 1996 and missed last season.

Bryan Krill and Dan Murphy, boys’ and girls’ track and field coaches at Thousand Oaks High, have stepped down from those positions.

Jack Farrell, the Lancers’ cross-country coach, will be the boys’ coach and Kristin Vinars, an assistant to Murphy this season, will coach the girls.

Krill, a 1991 graduate of Thousand Oaks, has been hired as an assistant track coach and assistant athletic director in charge of fund-raising at Moorpark College.

Murphy, boys’ coach at Thousand Oaks from 1994-96, will be an assistant.

Return event: Softball player Patty Del Real, who transferred from Kennedy High to Granada Hills last season, will take advantage of open enrollment to again attend Kennedy High, she said.

“I’ve already done it,” said Del Real, who will be a junior. “All the paperwork’s done. I knew from the time I went to Granada Hills that I was going to come back to Kennedy.”

Del Real, a first baseman and part-time pitcher for Granada Hills last season and a first baseman for Kennedy as a freshman, expects to be primarily a pitcher next spring for Kennedy, which lost ace Sandra Durazo to graduation.

Retiring type: Tony Davila has retired as the women’s tennis coach at Cal State Northridge after 17 seasons. His record was 175-157.

Davila, a 1966 Northridge graduate, guided the Matadors to the NCAA Division II national championship in 1982, as well as three consecutive California Collegiate Athletic Assn. championships from 1984 through 1986, and then through the program’s transition seven years ago from Division II to Division I.

Davila was named CCAA coach of the year in 1985 and ’86.

Northridge was the Division II runner-up in 1986 and finished third in the Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women Championships in 1981, Davila’s first season as coach.

Camp NBA: He wasn’t one of the 57 players taken in last week’s NBA draft, but Mike Penberthy will participate in free-agent camps for the Indiana Pacers and the two-time defending NBA champion Chicago Bulls later this month.

Penberthy, an NAIA Division I All-American for The Master’s College the past two seasons, will take part in the Pacers’ camp in Indianapolis from July 5-13.

Penberthy, a 6-foot-2 point guard who averaged 27.5 points a game last season, will be in Chicago from July 19 until about the 23rd, according to his agent, Don DeJardin.

He will play as a member of the Bulls’ squad in a multi-team camp in Salt Lake City from July 26-Aug. 2.

How Swede it is: Viveca Lof , a 6-3 center from Stockholm who plays for the Swedish national basketball team, has signed a letter of intent with Cal State Northridge.

Lof will compete for Sweden in the World University Games in Italy this summer.

Lof played for the Norrkoping Flamingos, a Swedish club team, the past two years, averaging 13.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocked shots per game.