Cassidy Makes Coaching Return

Former Cal State Northridge basketball coach Pete Cassidy returns to coaching Saturday when he directs the California All-Stars traveling team against host Loyola Marymount in a 3 p.m. game.

Cassidy’s team, made up of former college players, will be playing 15 games in 17 days across the country. They have games set up against Pittsburgh, North Carolina State, LSU, Kansas State and Missouri, among others.

“It’s fun,” Cassidy said. “It’s good to be around guys who have a passion for the game. It’s neat.”

Cassidy, 63, was head basketball coach at Northridge for 25 years until he was replaced by Bobby Braswell last season.

CROSS-COUNTRY

Bare bones: Thanks to injuries, the Cal State Northridge men’s and women’s cross-country teams will have little room for error when the Matadors run in the Big Sky Conference championships at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif., on Saturday.

The Northridge men placed sixth and the women finished seventh in the conference meet last year, but Coach Don Strametz figures they’ll be hard-pressed to match those performances because of season-ending injuries to Omar Vega and Nancy James.

Vega, the Matadors’ No. 5 runner for most of the season, is out with a strained calf muscle.

James, Northridge’s No. 4 runner in the first two meets, is sidelined with a knee injury.

Without them, Northridge will enter the conference meet with only five runners on each team.

Since a team’s score is based on the finish of its top five runners, Northridge can ill afford to have any subpar performances Saturday.

“We’ve only got five healthy bodies,” Strametz said of his teams. “We’ve just had a rough year with injuries.”

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Clark honored: Former College of the Canyons women’s basketball standout La Cresha Clark, now at New Mexico State, has been named among the top 15 junior college women’s transfers in the nation by Dick Vitale’s College Basketball magazine.

Clark, a 5-foot-7 guard, was the 1996-97 Western State Conference MVP and she led Canyons to its first appearance in the JC state championship game. The Cougars fell to Ventura in the final.

Ventura was ranked eighth nationally among JC women’s teams in the same publication.

SOCCER

Rock bottom: How bad have things gotten for the Cal State Northridge men’s soccer team? The Matadors (3-10-1) lost to their alumni Sunday, 7-5.