Hold the Milk, Villa Has Big Race to Run

Odds are there will be no milk and cookies for Christy Villa this week. Why take the chance?

The Big West Conference cross-country championships, hosted by Cal State Fullerton, are Saturday at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea. The site brings back memories Villa can laugh about now but didn’t find so funny in September. It is where her season started, and she feared, nearly ended.

Two days before the first race, Villa wanted a little snack, some cookies--something she had recently sworn off. When she got some milk to wash them down, her season flashed before her eyes.

“The glass slipped out of my hand and hit the counter,” Villa said. “A jagged piece stabbed me in the foot. In the emergency room, my first thought was, ‘I’m going to need stitches.’ Then I put it together--foot, runner. It clicked in my head that this was not good at all.”

Her concerns, it turned out, were unfounded. Despite four stitches on the top of her right foot, she finished first among Irvine runners in the meet. Still, the basis for her fear was legitimate. She knows how fragile a season can be.

Her previous cross-country season became almost secondary, as she prepared for her wedding. Her track season was a wash because of a stress fracture.

So Villa spent the summer preparing. A month after track season ended, she was back in shape. As the Fullerton meet approached, she was clearly one of the top runners on the team.

Then came snack time.

“I was crying when the doctor came in, but not because it hurt,” said Villa, a sophomore. “I had spent all summer getting in shape. I had told [Coach Vince O’Boyle] that I was not going to eat any more sweets. I was going to try really hard. The only reason I was getting the milk was because I was eating cookies.

“The first race was that weekend and here I had a piece of glass in my foot. I kept looking down at my foot and thinking, ‘Yuck.’ ”

Overreacting, in such cases, comes easy.

O’Boyle downplays the entire situation. And the incident barely rates as a speed bump in Villa’s season.

Her time of 18 minutes 30 seconds over the 5,000-meter course at Fullerton was good enough for 13th place. Villa has been among the team’s top runners since, including a second-place finish (18:17.6) Oct. 4 at the UC Santa Barbara Invitational.

“We lose runners [to graduation] every year,” O’Boyle said. “You just hope the ones behind them learned something.

“I knew Christy was stepping it up. I can read people’s eyes and she made good eye contact. There was a gleam. I could tell something good was going on, that the running was going good.”

It better, as this was a mission for Villa.

A year ago, she tried to focus on running but it was impossible. Villa was getting married in January and there was just too much to do.

“Running just became part of the to-do list,” she said.

Villa finished 35th at the conference cross-country meet.

After the wedding, Villa could concentrate on track season. It lasted less than a month before the pain in her toe made it impossible to run. Villa was put in a walking cast and sidelined for three months.

“I remember being at the conference [track and field] meet and watching all the races,” she said. “I got to run on the grass for 10 minutes. That was a big thing for me. I knew what I had to do during the summer. I had to first get in shape, then get in better shape.”

Now, the payoff could be sweet.

*

Pat Douglass will coach his first Irvine basketball game Monday, when the Anteaters face Silute, a Lithuanian club team.

“I’ve been nervous since I got here,” said Douglass, who was 257-61 at Cal State Bakersfield during the last 10 seasons. “This is like moving into a new house after living in the old one for 10 years.”

And talk about your fixer-uppers. Then again, taking over a team that was 1-25 last season leaves lots of room for growth.

“I really haven’t addressed what went on here previously,” Douglass said. “I have just addressed what we want them to do in the future and presently.”

That means rebound, rebound, rebound. The Anteaters have only two inside players and will be forced to use Adam Stetson and Ben Jones underneath at times. Both are 6 feet 7, but both have been perimeter players.

So 6-10 Andrew Carlson has looked good in practice.

“I don’t know if that’s because we don’t have anyone big enough to guard him,” Douglass said.

Now Douglass can see Carlson--and others--size up against the likes of Raimondas Leikus, Silute’s 25-year-old, 7-foot center. The team also features Dion Cross, a 6-2 guard who played at Stanford.

“It will be interesting to see how we react when we’re banged on by some of these grown men,” Douglass said.

*

There have been plenty of changes.

Lamarr Parker moves from point guard to off-guard, leaving community college transfer Junior Bond, freshman Malachi Edmond and freshman walk-on Jason Flowers competing for the point guard spot. Bond seems to have the edge because of experience.

Juma Jackson, a starting off-guard last season, moves to forward, where he played in high school. His adjustment has been slowed by calcium deposits in his right thigh.

*

Darian Chappell, a freshman on the women’s tennis team, had another successful week, teaming with Natalie Exon (Woodbridge High) to reach the semifinals of the Cal State Intercollegiate Championships. Chappell won the singles title at the Blue/Gold Invitational a week earlier.

It shouldn’t be too surprising. Chappell’s parents were prominent players at Irvine. Bob Chappell was an NCAA singles and doubles champion in 1973-74. Annette Burrows, later his wife, was the Anteaters’ No. 1 player at the same time.

Anteater Notes

Irvine’s Thomas Bohun and Andrew Cheney are the third-seeded doubles team in the Rolex/ITA Southern California Tournament regional, which begins Wednesday at Irvine. Singles and doubles finals are at 11 a.m Sunday. . . . The Irvine women’s soccer team will play Pacific in the first round of the four-team Big West Conference’s tournament on Nov. 7 at Irvine. The Anteaters defeated the Tigers, 2-0, in the semifinals last season. Pacific won, 1-0, earlier this season. . . . Bill Mulligan, former Anteater basketball coach, has been hired as a part-time scout for the Portland Trailblazers. Mulligan was 170-156 in his 11 seasons at Irvine.

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Coming Attractions

Key games this week for UC Irvine:

* Men’s and women’s cross-country competes in the Big West Conference championships hosted by Cal State Fullerton Saturday at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea. Men begin at 9:45 a.m. and women at 10:30 a.m.

* Men’s soccer hosts Cal State Dominguez Hills 6 p.m. Friday and Puget Sound 1 p.m. Sunday.

* Women’s soccer plays at Fresno State 2 p.m. Sunday.

* Women’s volleyball hosts Cal State Northridge tonight, Utah State Friday and Cal State Fullerton Saturday. All matches begin at 7 p.m. in Crawford Hall. The Anteaters picked up their first Big West Conference victory with sweep of North Texas last Thursday.

* Water polo hosts Long Beach State 7 p.m. Wednesday at Heritage Park Aquatic Complex. The Anteaters have lost three in a row.