Azusa Pacific Has High Hopes Again

The coach is new but the expectations are not. Azusa Pacific expects to win another NAIA football championship.

After building the team into a national champion in four years, Coach Vic Shealy left to become an assistant at Air Force. Peter Shinnick, an offensive line coach at Humboldt State, took over the program.

And judging by the Cougars’ record, they haven’t missed a step. Azusa has the same record, 2-1, that it had through three games in 1998. And the Cougars also have Jack Williams, NAIA player of the year last season. He will be used more at safety and less at running back this season.

But record aside, the Cougars have been mistake-prone. On Saturday, playing Shinnick’s old team, Azusa Pacific lost at Humboldt State, 38-34, ending the Cougars’ winning streak at 12. The Cougars were their own worst enemy, committing four turnovers.

“We want to be able to control the things we can control,” Shinnick had said before the game.

He made that statement after a game against 1998 runner-up Olivet Nazarene, which Azusa almost gave away. With a 14-point lead, less than five minutes to play and the ball deep in Olivet territory, the Cougars committed a near-fatal mistake. An interception was returned for a touchdown, making the score 21-14. But Azusa was able to run out the clock and win the championship rematch.

“No doubt we tried to give that away,” Shinnick said. “They took advantage of the mistakes we made, but we had a big enough lead to hang on to the game.”

Now, the Cougars are in a predicament similar to last year’s. Angling for a spot in the 16-team NAIA tournament, Azusa is an independent and may be able to afford only one more loss. The good news is that the toughest part of the schedule is over, and the Cougars play their toughest remaining games at home. Despite the loss, a repeat title is within reach of the Cougars.

In the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, the big question is, “Who can stop the La Verne offense?”

With last year’s All SCIAC second-team quarterback, Dan Blahy, at the helm, the Leopards have outscored their opponents, 80-3, in jumping out to a 2-0 conference start.

Last weekend, La Verne dismantle two-time defending champion Whittier, 45-0. Blahy threw for 110 yards and two scores, and running backs Cameron Hurst and Richard Allen combined for 172 yards and three touchdowns.

“The keys for us are for our defense to play consistently and our offense be able to drive the ball in a sustained manner,” La Verne Coach Don Morel said. “Last year, we overachieved with a group of sophomores and juniors and that made for the building blocks of a really good team.”

Whittier, which lost quarterback Steve Luce, two-time SCIAC offensive player of the year, to graduation, now has to hope someone else can stop La Verne.

Redlands has one of the best athletes in the conference in quarterback Danny Ragsdale. He leads the SCIAC with 219.5 total yards per game. Redlands plays Azusa this weekend before opening SCIAC play. Cal Lutheran has the conference’s No. 2 passer in Chris Czenak and No. 2 rusher in George Keiaho. Claremont-Mudd is also off to a 2-0 start, but has yet to begin play in the SCIAC. And as it has the past few years, Occidental will have to battle to stay out of last.

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Cal Poly Pomona’s Ruth Van’t Land now holds the California Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s women’s soccer records for goals and points scored. She was tied for the goals record with 44 and was two behind in points with 103 when Pomona played Grand Canyon last Thursday. She scored twice, then added another goal against Cal State San Bernardino on Saturday.

UNIVERSITY DIVISION

For the first time since the 1997 NCAA semifinals, Long Beach State’s women’s volleyball team lost a match. It happened last Thursday, as the No. 4 49ers fell to No. 3 Hawaii, 15-13, 15-10, 10-15, 15-10, at Honolulu, perhaps the toughest place in the nation for an opposing team to play. The loss ended Long Beach’s 42-match winning streak, third-longest in NCAA history.

USC, UCLA and Loyola Marymount all won tournaments over the weekend. Lion Coach Steve Stratos earned his 200th career victory against Texas-El Paso.

Pepperdine’s seven-match winning streak ended in a five-game match against Brigham Young at Provo, Utah, on Saturday. A BYU women’s volleyball-record 3,553 attended.

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In a rematch of last year’s NCAA championship, No. 2 Stanford defeated host and top-ranked USC to win the men’s Southern California Water Polo Tournament on Sunday. And like last year’s championship match, this one went to overtime. But in 1998, the Trojans won. This time, they were outscored, 2-1, in the two overtime periods. It was the first loss of the season for the Trojans (5-1). UCLA defeated UC Irvine, 12-8, for third place, Pepperdine finished sixth and Long Beach State was eighth.

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USC freshman golfer Candie Kung made school history when she finished second at the NCAA Fall Preview last week at Sunriver, Ore. Kung’s two-under-par 214 is the lowest-scoring 54-hole debut in USC women’s golf history. Kung is the top-ranked junior girl in the world.

Pepperdine’s Tamie Durdin finished tied for third with Arizona’s Jenn Daniels at one-over 217. Arizona State’s Mariam Nagl won the tournament with a 211.

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After last week’s 2-1 victory over No. 8 BYU, the USC women’s soccer team is tied for seventh with Hartford in the latest poll. It’s the Trojans’ highest ranking in school history. UCLA is 13th, and Loyola Marymount is ranked for the first time, tied with Duke for 19th.