Hope Is Holding Its Own in GSAC Basketball

There were snickers in basketball circles when Hope International joined the Golden State Athletic Conference last season.

The Royals have no gymnasium and often practice at 10 p.m. or later at the Brea Community Center.

The GSAC traditionally fields strong teams that are ranked among the NAIA’s best. Would the arrival of Hope water down the league’s quality?

So far, that has not been the case.

In the fall, a donor gave the school $5.25 million to construct a sports arena and student center. This season the men’s and women’s teams are off to strong starts.

The Royal men are 7-6 and rank fourth in three-point shooting among GSAC members. The women’s team is 7-4, led by one of the nation’s leading scorers, sophomore guard Jamie Harrison.

“Since I started here in my sophomore year, this has been like a complete turnaround,” said senior guard Seth Houck, one of the GSAC’s top three-point shooters.

“My first year we had a lot of talent,” he said. “But every player was new to the program. It just took time to jell. In a couple of years we’ll get that gym built and everything will be running very well by then.”

The 10-team GSAC is a competitive conference. Only two men’s teams in the conference (Vanguard and Fresno Pacific) took losing records into the league’s holiday break. Biola and Azusa Pacific are perennially ranked in the NAIA top 25.

The women’s race is usually a fight between No. 8 Vanguard and Fresno Pacific, which this season has the same record as Hope International.

The two Hope teams return to action Saturday by hosting a double-header at the Brea Community Center.

The women play Westminster College of Salt Lake City at 6:30 p.m. The men face Grace College of Winona Lake, Ind. at 8 p.m.

OUT OF CASH

By signing Lisa Faulkner, a 5-5 guard at Oregon City High, and Katie Sturgeon, a 6-2 center from Mountain Top (Pa.) Crestwood High, UC Irvine women’s basketball Coach Mark Adams has cut deeply into his recruiting budget.

Adams said he receives a pool of money from the athletic department that equals the NCAA maximum of 15 full scholarships a season. But the university charges Anteater athletic teams twice as much for non-California residents to cover out-of-state tuition of about $12,000 a year.

Next season Irvine will have four women’s basketball players on the out-of-state roll, the most it has ever had and Adams contends that in the future he will have to bring in more out-of-state players if Irvine intends to remain competitive.

“Here in California, so many tall girls play volleyball,” he said. “Not many of them are going out for basketball. At least for post players, we’re going to have to look elsewhere.”

One option is to “split” a scholarship, which is called a “partial.” Partial scholarships give coaches flexibility in signing more players. Traditionally, players receiving partial scholarships pay the difference between financial aid that includes books and tuition, or room and board costs.

Adams says the greatest number of players he has seen on an Irvine roster was 14 when he became a UC Irvine assistant in 1994. He took over the program in 1997.

The Anteaters (6-5) have won three games in a row. They host Pittsburgh Thursday and Portland Saturday, but they are down to nine eligible players after three players left the team this season.

TITANS, 49ERS RANKED

Two Big West teams, Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State, are ranked in the top 25 in Collegiate Baseball newspaper’s preseason poll.

The Titans are ranked 12th and Long Beach is 22nd. USC is rated second behind Georgia Tech. Louisiana State is ranked third, followed by Nebraska, Clemson, Arizona State, Rice, Florida State, Miami and South Carolina.

Long Beach shortstop Bobby Crosby, who played at La Quinta High, and USC pitcher Rik Currier, who played at Capistrano Valley, were selected to the newspaper’s preseason All-American first team.

Pitcher Mark Prior and shortstop Seth Davidson of USC were selected to the second team along with UCLA pitcher Josh Karp. Fullerton pitcher Kirk Saarloos was named to the third team.

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Staff writer Lon Eubanks contributed to this story.