Titans Are Stocking Up on Pitchers

College baseball will undergo a change when the new NCAA rule limiting the performance capabilities of aluminum bats goes into effect, and Cal State Fullerton’s recruiting focus is already reflecting that change.

Seven of the 10 players the Titans signed during the early period are pitchers.

“Pitching and defense are going to be able to dominate more if everything happens that we expect to happen,” Titan recruiting coordinator Dave Serrano said. “We’re trying to establish that emphasis quickly, and we’re very pleased with the pitchers we’ve signed.”

That group includes two highly regarded Orange County high school prospects: Brian Wolfe of Servite and Nick Lovato of Mater Dei.

Wolfe, a right-hander, was the area’s most dominant pitcher last season as a junior. He led the county in strikeouts with 139 in 86 2/3 innings and was 11-2 with a 1.37 earned-run average.

Lovato, a left-hander, was 7-1 with a 1.78 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 51 innings as a junior.

Two other pitchers the Titans signed, Ronnie Corona and Jake Moon, will throw this season for Cypress College, and another, Mike Natale, will be on the mound for Santa Ana College. The other pitchers signed are Monty Mansfield of Hesperia High and Mike Nunez of San Jose City College.

“We feel we’re going to be strong on the field the next two years,” Serrano said, “and we want to make sure our pitching is equal to it.”

The Titans, who lost two of the top pitchers they signed last year when Nick Neugebauer of Riverside and Heath Bell of Santa Ana College signed pro contracts, don’t want to be caught short in pitching numbers for the 2000 season, regardless of what happens in the 1999 amateur draft.

The NCAA rule that will reduce a bat’s diameter and limit batted-ball speeds to no more than 93 miles per hour will go into effect in August 1999, but the NCAA baseball committee has recommended the new bats be used in the 1999 championships.

Two conferences--the West Coast and Big South--have indicated they are planning to use bats that meet the new standards in the 1999 season. The Big West Conference is awaiting the NCAA’s response to the baseball committee’s proposal.

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The Titans got a boost for the upcoming season when catcher-outfielder Brett Kay received a qualifying score on his SAT. Kay will be eligible to play when the Titans begin their season Feb. 5 at home against Stanford if he gains final approval from the NCAA Eligibility Clearinghouse.

Kay played at Mater Dei last season, when he batted .389 with seven home runs in 90 at-bats. He was drafted in the 35th round by the Houston Astros.

The Titans begin preseason practice Jan. 4.

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It was a troubled season for the women’s volleyball team, but Coach Mary Ellen Murchison is optimistic about next season.

The Titans finished last in the Big West Conference’s six-team Western Division with a 3-13 record. Their overall record of 9-18 was the worst since the Titans won only one match in 1994.

“It was a young team with only two seniors [Michelle Halliday and Kahea Smith],” Murchison said of this year’s team, “and it will help us next season to have that much experience coming back.”

Two of the top players, Katie Crawford and Beatrice Holcombe, didn’t play because of injuries, and starting setter Krista Charles quit the team at midseason.

Murchison said junior Allison Anderson turned in a good effort as Charles’ replacement. “I think the end result turned out to be good for our program because the team had to rally around Allison,” Murchison said.

Murchison said she also was pleased with the play of several freshmen, particularly Alisa Geddes and Megan Sabo. Geddes was third in the conference in digs per game (3.39).

“This year, we put some young people in the lineup and asked them to do a lot for us,” Murchison said. “But it took awhile for them to settle in. I thought we played well late in the season.”

Murchison also expects the return of Crawford and Holcombe to make a difference. Crawford was out with shoulder problems, and Holcombe had a knee injury.

“We wanted a better won-loss record this year, but this conference is usually dominated by senior teams,” Murchison said. “We didn’t have that kind of experience.”

The Titans faced a difficult challenge in their division, which has three teams--Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and Pacific--that ranked among the national top 10 this season.

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Titan women’s basketball Coach Denise Curry is among 26 inductees named to the inaugural class of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Curry was a three-time All-American at UCLA who played professionally for eight years in Europe.

The inductees will be enshrined next spring at the Hall of Fame building under construction in Knoxville, Tenn. Curry was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame last year. She is one of only 13 women to be selected for that honor.

Titan Notes

Freshman Ray Ramirez has been selected to the U.S. under-20 national soccer team. That team will play the Jamaican under-20 team Dec. 10 and the Richmond Kickers, an A-League team, on Dec. 15 in Richmond, Va. The games will be played around the NCAA Division I soccer championships in Richmond. . . . Assistant soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin has been named an assistant for the Mexican women’s national team that is attempting to qualify for the women’s World Cup.