After Coin Flip, Coach Still on Edge

Cal State Northridge softball Coach Gary Torgeson is in a rather enviable predicament. He is not sure which of his standout pitchers should start the first game of an important Western Athletic Conference doubleheader Saturday at Cal State Sacramento.

Should he go with Amy Windmiller, whose 14 wins, 116 strikeouts and seven shutouts are best on the team? Or should he start Kathy Blake, 12-1 and the team leader with 13 complete games, 106 innings, an 0.79 earned-run average and three saves?

Torgeson said Windmiller seems “a logical choice” because she has started the first game of doubleheaders most of this season. Also, she is from Sacramento and should be motivated for a top effort.

However, Blake shut out Sacramento three times last season.

“At this point, I may be leaning a little toward past success,” Torgeson said. “But on the emotional side, with Windmiller being from the area . . . she’s a big name up there and . . . I just don’t know.

“I flipped a coin 99 times and I’m still even.”

Asked how that happened, Torgeson replied, “One time it landed on its side.”

Torgeson said he may not sign any recruits this month, a surprise because any coach would seemingly be eager to cash in on his team’s No. 2 national ranking.

But Torgeson has only two seniors and with college fees set to increase, he said he plans to invest most of the leftover scholarship money on players he already has. “I think I owe that to them,” he said.

Torgeson said a strong finish by the Matadors should pay off in November when he hopes to secure as many as a half-dozen players in the early signing period.

Who’s hot? For Northridge, who’s not? Tamara Ivie has a six-game hitting streak during which she has batted .600, lifting her batting average from .258 to .297 with a nine-for-15 streak. Four of her nine hits were home runs. Ivie has hit safely in all eight of Northridge’s WAC games.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL

The Matadors won when it counted, sweeping Hawaii in three games last week in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match, only to fall in four games two days later in a nonconference match against the same team.

Although the loss did not hurt Northridge (16-9, 10-6 in MPSF play) in the conference standings, it disappointed Coach John Price.

“It made me mad because we weren’t ready to play,” Price said. “Even though the match doesn’t mean anything, you still want to play well.” . . .

Fourth-ranked Northridge has lost four of its last five matches, but Price considers the Matadors a cinch for an MPSF tournament berth “unless something weird happens.”

MEN’S BASKETBALL

There is an outside chance that Northridge will play Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., in January, Coach Pete Cassidy said.

Northridge is trying to reach an agreement to play two games--one at home, the other on the road--against Butler University. A tentative plan calls for Butler to visit Northridge on Jan. 3, then play host to the Matadors in Indianapolis on either Jan. 23 or 25. Cassidy is attempting to schedule a game against Notre Dame on the same trip.

CAL LUTHERAN

BASEBALL

The Kingsmen’s three-game series against Redlands, which begins Friday, features some of the top hitters in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Chadd Cooke of Redlands leads conference players with a .435 batting average. Eric Johnson of Cal Lutheran is second at .422, and he is the SCIAC leader in runs batted in with 31.

Also among the conference’s top 10 in batting are Chad Freeze (.419, 13 stolen bases), Mark DiCarlo (.391, three homers, a team-high 23 RBIs) and Clint Sudebaker (.371, 24-game hitting streak) of Redlands, and Joe Cascione (.391, four homers) and Gabe Diaz (.391, 11 doubles) of Cal Lutheran.

Redlands, ranked 22nd in NCAA Division III, is 15-9, 10-2 in SCIAC play, two games behind top-ranked Cal Lutheran, 21-4, 12-0.

JUNIOR COLLEGES

BASEBALL

In terms of rarity, a triple play in baseball might be less common than a hole in one in golf or a 300 game in bowling. Imagine the shock Oxnard’s baseball team must have felt last week before beating Mission, 4-3, in 11 innings.

Mission pulled two triple plays in the game.

“It takes something unique (for a triple play),” Oxnard Coach Chris Stevens said. “It takes one defensive person to be in the right place at the right moment. But this . . . this was amazing.”

Said Mission Coach John Klitsner, “I’ve never been involved in a single triple play, much less two in one ballgame.”

“I thought, ‘Two triple plays against a team as good as this?’ ” Stevens said. “I thought we were destined to lose.”

He was wrong. Oxnard persevered against Mission.

When Mike Muncy of Ventura stole his school-record 22nd base in last week’s game against Mt. San Jacinto, it took no time for Don Adams, the Pirate assistant coach and Western State Conference sports information director, to recall whose record Muncy had broken.

“Yep, I know who it is: Don Adams,” Adams said.

Adams, 39, a former second baseman who was 21 for 22 in base-stealing attempts in 1974, said he won’t mind seeing his name erased from the No. 1 spot after 19 seasons.

“(Muncy’s) a real good player,” said Adams of the sophomore from Camarillo who is 22 for 26 in steal attempts. “He should get 30 this year. He might have a shot at 40. He has really good speed and he’s an aggressive base stealer. I categorized myself the same way.”

SWIMMING

Apparently, the demise of the Pierce program has been grossly exaggerated.

Fred Shaw, Pierce swimming coach, said Wednesday a rumor that surfaced this week about the program being eliminated at the school for financial reasons was untrue.

“We are making plans for next year,” Shaw said. “I’m recruiting swimmers. We are making plans to get the (school) pool used more. There have been talks about cutbacks and there’s a certain amount of belt-tightening, but we are not stopping the program.”

Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Dana Haddad and Mike Hiserman contributed to this notebook.