Titan Gymnasts Won’t Advance as a Team

The Cal State Fullerton women’s gymnastics team finished third in the Big West championships Saturday night at Utah State with a score of 194.200 points, but the effort apparently won’t qualify the Titans for the NCAA West Regional.

“We know we didn’t make it,” Titan Coach Julie Knight said Sunday. “We needed a better score than our best score previously this season, and we didn’t get it. We didn’t perform well as a team.”

The official announcement of the team and individual qualifiers will be made later this week after final season scores are compiled and compared.

Boise State won the Big West title with 196.225 points to 194.250 for second-place Utah State. Boise State and California moved ahead of the Titans in the regional rankings, Knight said.

Sophomore Joanna Hughes, a member of the 1996 Australian Olympic team, led the Titans. Hughes tied for second in the all-around (39.250 points). She was second on the bars at 9.925 and tied for third in the vault at 9.850.

Knight expects Hughes and freshman Kelly Mathiasen to qualify individually in the all-around. Knight said Megan Berry also has a chance to qualify in the all-around.

Mathiasen was sixth in the all-around and Berry eighth at the conference meet.

“We could have some individuals qualify in other events, but we won’t know for certain until later in the week,” Knight said.

HILL RANKS HIGH

The fourth-place finish for Cal State Fullerton freshman T.J. Hill in the 125-pound division at the NCAA wrestling championships Saturday in St. Louis tied for the second-best finish by a Titan wrestler.

The best came in 1994 when Laszlo Molnar took second in the 167-pound division. David Jones finished fourth twice, in 1990 and 1991, in the heavyweight division.

Hill, winner at the World Junior Championships in the 20-and-under freestyle division last summer, became the school’s seventh wrestling All-American. The top eight in each weight class receive the honor.

Mike Elliott was fifth at 150 pounds in 1980, and Michael Grubbs fifth at 118 in 1993. Titan Coach Ardeshir Asgari was sixth at 158 pounds when he wrestled for Fullerton in 1986, and Joey Coughran took eighth at 126 pounds in 1998.

ON SALE TODAY

The 2001 men’s basketball NCAA West Regional is scheduled to be played at the Arrowhead Pond March 22 and 24 and applications for tickets are available today beginning at 10 a.m. at the arena’s box office or on the Internet at https://www.arrowheadpond.com. Each seat costs $90 and includes both the regional semifinal and final games. No walk-up or telephone sales are planned. Ticket applications must be returned by regular mail postmarked no later than April 28. The Big West Conference, which is hosting the regional, will conduct a random drawing to determine who gets seated if orders exceed capacity.

The winner advances to the Final Four in Minneapolis.

BASEBALL SEARCH

The search for a baseball coach at UC Irvine is expected to commence in about two months, and Athletic Director Dan Guerrero has already received more than 70 inquiries.

The Anteaters are bringing baseball back in 2002. The school, citing financial constraints, dropped the sport eight years ago. But last May’s successful referendum that essentially taxes students to support athletic teams allowed Guerrero, a former UCLA second baseman, to reinstate the program, along with two women’s sports.

Guerrero said the official job opening for the coaching position won’t be posted until May and that he hopes to hire someone by mid-August. Stadium renovations to the field, which has been used for soccer games, will be ongoing, pending success at raising enough money to complete the job. Guerrero said his goal is to have the field playable in the fall of 2001.

AS GOOD AS EVER

Chapman College’s softball team is expected to be as good or better than it was last season when it advanced to the championship game at the NCAA Division III tournament.

Leading the way is pitcher Tiffany Hoskins, a sophomore from Modesto. She fired a five-inning perfect game recently, striking out 13 of 15 batters in an 8-0 victory over Heidelberg, Ohio at the Sun West tournament. Later in the tournament she hurled a five-inning no-hitter against Susquehanna College. In her first four games, Hoskins was 4-0 with 0.00 earned-run average, having struck out 35 in 24 innings.

Vanguard’s Gina Liebengood tossed a perfect game in a 2-0 victory over host University of Mobile last week. Liebengood struck out 13.

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Staff writer Paul McLeod contributed to this story.

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