Titans Get a Gym Dandy from Australia

The Cal State Fullerton women’s gymnastics team is going to get a boost from the land down under.

Joanna Hughes, a member of the 1996 Australian Olympic gymnastics team, has said she will enroll at Fullerton in January and compete for the Titans next season, according to Julie Knight, associate head coach. Hughes is a freshman at Monash University in Melbourne.

Knight said her friendship with Hughes’ former coach in Australia led to Hughes choosing Fullerton.

“She retired from gymnastics after the ’96 Olympics, but then decided she wanted to come back,” Knight said.

Hughes resumed her competitive career at the World University Games this summer, Knight said.

“With her not competing for a while, we had to see tape of her recent performances,” Knight said. “She did well. She should definitely be one of our best all-arounders. She was Australia’s best gymnast in ’96 and made the floor exercise final at the World Games in ‘94, which means she was one of the top eight in the world in the event that year.”

Hughes is one of six newcomers joining the team for the 2000 season. The others are Jamie Moody of Long Beach, Nicole Kasson of Fulton, Md., Kelly Mathiasen of Chula Vista, Theresa O’Gara of Agoura and Jenny Halloran of La Mesa. All are freshmen.

“This should give us the most depth we’ve had in a while,” Knight said. “We think this group will help us get back to the NCAA regionals.”

The Titans have failed to qualify for the regionals for two consecutive years after advancing 22 times in 23 seasons.

NEW SOCCER ALIGNMENT

The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has expanded to 16 teams in men’s soccer for the coming season.

San Diego State, New Mexico and Nevada Las Vegas--schools that jumped from the Western Athletic Conference to the new Mountain West Conference in other sports--will join Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Northridge in the Pacific Division of the soccer league.

The Mountain Division will include California, Air Force, Denver, Oregon State, Sacramento State, Stanford and Washington.

BAD TIMING FOR TITANS

The decision by All-American outfielder Spencer Oborn to sign with the Chicago White Sox this week was a blow to the Fullerton baseball program, and the timing was particularly bad for the Titans.

Titan Coach George Horton would like to see the deadline for signing draft-eligible college juniors moved up to around July 15 so college coaches can be more certain which players they’ll have back. The current rules allow players to sign until they resume attending college classes.

“If we had known Spencer wasn’t going to be back, we could have offered his scholarship to someone else,” Horton said.

PHILLIPS LEAVES WAVES

Lindsay Phillips, the 1998 West Coast Athletic Conference freshman player of the year, has been released by the Pepperdine women’s volleyball team.

Phillips was The Times’ Orange County player of the year in 1997 when she led Marina High to state Division I and Southern Section Division I-A titles.

She has started classes at Golden West College but isn’t playing for the Rustlers. She plans to earn her community college degree, then transfer back to a four-year college with three years of eligibility.

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Staff writer Paul McLeod contributed to this story.