Pickler Earns National Honor

Scott Pickler, the Cypress College baseball coach who led his team to the state title last spring, has been selected as the national coach of the year for community colleges by the American Baseball Coaches Assn.

This is the third time Pickler has won the award. He also received it after the 1991 and 1994 seasons in which his teams also won state titles.

Pickler has a 419-192 record in 13 seasons at Cypress. He also coached at Savanna and Loara high schools before Cypress. His 1993 Loara team won a Southern Section title.

Cypress starts the 1998 season Jan. 30 in the College of the Desert tournament.

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Irvine Valley men’s basketball Coach Jerry Hernandez has been saying all season that the Orange Empire Conference would be a wide-open race.

Thanks to Cypress’ overtime victory over Hernandez’s Lasers Friday, the coach is right. The top seven teams are separated by a game.

Irvine Valley (15-6) and Fullerton (15-5) are tied for first at 3-1 and Riverside (16-8, 2-2), Orange Coast (13-7, 2-2), Cypress (11-10), Saddleback (10-10) and Santa Ana (10-10) are tied for second.

Irvine Valley is on the road twice this week with a Wednesday game at Golden West (5-16, 0-4) and a Friday contest at Orange Coast.

Both games are at 5:30 p.m. The road has been difficult in the early going of conference; the home teams hold a 10-6 edge.

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Rankings: There are four women’s teams from the Orange Empire Conference ranked among the top 20 in the state’s poll.

Santa Ana (15-2, 4-0) is third behind No. 1 Ventura and No. 2 San Jose. Irvine Valley (15-4, 3-1) is ranked ninth, Cypress (16-7, 3-1) is No. 18 and Orange Coast (15-7, 3-1) is 20th.