Fenwick Is Sentimental

With one game remaining in his first season as Cal State Northridge football coach, Jim Fenwick already is feeling the emotion.

“The spirit [of the team] will stay with me for a long time,” Fenwick said. “It’s been a lot of time spent with relationships [being] built and here’s the last game so it’s a combination of a rewarding season in a lot of ways if you don’t look just at the wins and losses.”

The Matadors (5-6, 3-4 in Big Sky Conference play) play host to Northern Arizona (6-4, 4-3) in the season finale on Saturday. Both teams are wrapping up disappointing seasons.

Northern Arizona was top-ranked by a national publication in its Division I-AA preseason poll and Northridge was expected to challenge for the Big Sky championship.

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Bobby Braswell, the Northridge men’s basketball coach, doesn’t expect the Matadors to lose their composure at Oregon State on Thursday the way they did in a 97-91 loss at Arizona State on Sunday.

“They got the message pretty clear in the locker room afterwards,” Braswell said.

Forwards Jabari Simmons and Mike O’Quinn received technical fouls. The foul with the fifth for Simmons and came in the stretch.

Braswell, an assistant at Oregon from 1992-96, said the game at Corvallis will be like a homecoming.

It will feel likewise for O’Quinn, whose cousins, Corey and Sonny Benjamin, play for the Beavers. Corey, a sophomore guard, averaged 14.9 points and was picked to the All-Pac-10 freshman team.

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Simmons became a father Sunday night when his girlfriend gave birth to a girl.