LMU Soccer Players Get a Kick Out of Tutoring

Karie Huchting has helped the Loyola Marymount women’s soccer team to a 9-1-4 record and 10 shutouts with her strong defensive play.

But she is doing her best work off the field.

Huchting, Amber Buffington and Amanda Shellenberger lead a group of teammates who go to a downtown Los Angeles school every Monday to help Latino children learn English.

For the last month, five players have spent two hours a week at St. Columbkille School, one hour playing soccer with students, the other giving selected students one-on-one tutoring in English.

“I love going down there,” said Huchting, a psychology major who plans on teaching. “We take the students who need the most help and spend 20 minutes with each one.”

Huchting began volunteering through a campus group. After the group had painted the school, Huchting told the group’s leader, Sister Peg Dolan, the soccer team would be willing to help out.

So far, it has been a success for both the team and the youngsters.

“This has been just wonderful,” said Sister Phyllis Cook, principal of St. Columbkille. “The team comes during school hours, not after school. So there is more formal teaching with the kids.”

But the teaching hasn’t been one-sided, according to Huchting.

“The kids help us too,” she said. “We tell them, ‘You help us with Spanish and we’ll help you with English.’

“The kids get excited because they feel they are teaching us something too.”

Huchting is also a leader on the field for the Lions.

A junior who has played in every game since her freshman season, Huchting is the last person on defense before the goalkeeper. And her play has been impressive, as the Lions are in third place in the West Coast Conference with a 1-1-2 record and four points, a year after finishing 2-5 in the WCC.

“I am not surprised [by the record] as much as I am excited about it,” Huchting said. “A big reason why we have done so well is because of how close we are off the field.”

That has also been a reason the tutoring program has worked well so far.

“We rotate who goes,” Huchting said. “So if one person has a test or can’t make it, someone will fill in for her.”

The only thing Huchting wants now is some help from the men’s team.

“Our schedules and the guys’ schedules don’t coincide,” she said. “But Sister Phyllis said the kids can use some male role models.”

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UCLA women’s volleyball player Kristee Porter became only the second freshman to be the American Volleyball Coaches Assn. national player of the week after recording 80 kills and 39 digs in three matches for the Bruins. Her 38 kills in an upset of UC Santa Barbara last Wednesday set a Pac-10 freshman record and put her second on the Bruins’ all-time list for kills in a match. She also had 24 digs, making her only the fifth Bruin to have 30 kills and 20 digs in a match. . . . UC Irvine defeated UCLA, 7-5, Sunday to win the NorCal men’s water polo tournament at Stanford. USC defeated Pepperdine, 10-4, for fifth place, and Long Beach State defeated California, 8-6, for seventh.

UC Santa Barbara women’s volleyball All-American Katie Crawford broke her right thumb Oct. 8 and is expected to miss the next three to four weeks. . . . Injuries also claimed two Pepperdine women’s volleyball players for the rest of the season. Middle blocker Jamie Hill broke her right leg and setter Melissa Plass tore ligaments in her left thumb in matches earlier this month.

The Long Beach State’s men’s cross-country team won the first Long Beach Invitational on Oct. 10. The 49er women finished second. . . . The UCLA men’s and women’s cross-country teams won their invitationals last weekend. The men won the UC San Diego Invitational on Saturday and the women the Sun Devil Invitational at Arizona State on Friday. It was the second consecutive victory for the 24th-ranked women, who had won the Murray Keatinge Invitational at Orono, Maine, on Oct. 10.

The 14th-ranked UCLA women’s soccer team defeated 25th-ranked Stanford, 2-1, Sunday, two days after losing to California in double overtime by the same score. The Bruins are 13-2-1 overall, 3-1 in the Pac-10. . . . The second-ranked UCLA men’s soccer team was upset at Cal State Fullerton on Sunday, 2-1. The Titans (9-3-1, 2-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) are the only undefeated team in conference play. The Bruins dropped to 10-2 and 3-1.

In preparation for the men’s volleyball World Championships at Japan on Nov. 11-29, the U.S. and Brazilian national teams will play at Pepperdine on Nov. 2 and Cal State San Bernardino on Nov. 3. . . .The UCLA men’s golf team won its first tournament of the year earlier this month at the Northwest Classic at Oregon State. Senior Byron Schlagenhauf won his first collegiate tournament, shooting an eight-under-par 208.