June 2009 Archives
The University of La Verne is no longer without a women's volleyball coach as former Olympic assistant coach Marlon Sano has been chosen to direct the Leopards program.
He becomes only the third head coach at the school since 1974, following Jim Paschal (1974-1997) and Don Flora (1998-2008). The program has produced three national championships, 22 SCIAC titles and 26 All-Americans.
Flora resigned earlier this spring to take an assistant position at Division I New Mexico State.
"This has been a program that has been great for an awful long time,'' Sano said. "I'm just hoping to keep building on what has been done here and maybe raise the bar even higher."
Sano was an assistant for the 1984 U.S. Olympic silver medal-winning volleyball team and is currently a co-director and head coach for the USA High Performance Development camp series. That series develops and implements the techniques and tactics taught to coaches and players in conjunction with the USA National team.
He inherits a La Verne squad that went 27-3 and reached the NCAA Division III Championship match in 2008. The Leopards graduated just two players.
Sano's collegiate resume includes a recent stint as an assistant coach at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He was also an assisant at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from 1995-2005 and most recently served as lead assistant at Cal State Los Angeles. He also was the head coach at Utah State (1991-94), an assistant coach at Cal State Fullerton (1989-91) and a head coach at Southern California College (now Vanguard University) from 1988-89.
Sano also has extensive junior club coaching experience and is the founder and co-director for the Ocean's Elite Juniors Volleyball Club.
Sano said he has spent much of the last week contacting the returning players, incoming recruits and support staff. Both of Flora's assistants left for other jobs so he is looking for help as well.
"It has been a weird year and there are some good coaches still out there," he said. "I didn't want to put the cart before the horse so that's what I am looking into now."
Sano earned his bachelor's degree in speech communications and his teaching credential from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
The University of Redlands football team landed at No. 22 on Sporting News magazine's Division III Preseason Top 25. The Bulldogs are the only team from the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) included on the poll.
Redlands excitedly returns the 2007 SCIAC Offensive Player of the Year in senior quarterback Dan Selway (Villa Park, CA), who sat out much of last season with an injury.
In addition, the Redlands defense strives to remain stingy against the run and repeat its nationally ranked numbers. The team ranked first among Division III in tackles for a loss (11.1 TFL/game) and rushing defense (58.33 yards/game). In addition, the Bulldogs finished first in the nation in net punting with a 37.42 average. With 28 sacks for 182 yards, the Maroon and Gray boasted the fourth-best total in this category.
The Bulldogs kick off the 2009 season at home on September 12 with a 5 p.m. contest against East Texas Baptist University in the teams' first meeting.
La Verne's Rizal Amin and Brianna Gonzales were honored as the Jesse Iles and Anthony P. Scafani Awards, respectively, as the school's top senior male and female athletes for 2008-09.
Gonzales is a two-time First Team All-America by the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) and is also a two-time Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Player of the Year (2007, 2008).
She helped lead the Leopards to a ninth consecutive SCIAC crown and a runner-up finish at the NCAA Championships during the 2008 season. Along the way she was named Most Valuable Player of the West Regional and also was named to the NCAA Championship All-Tournament Team.
A two-time AVCA All-West Region selection (2007, 2008), she also recorded her 1,000th career kill in October to become the first Leopard volleyball player to reach that milestone in 15 seasons.
Amin was a three-time All-American in golf, earning First Team honors in 2007 and 2009 while garnering Second Team accolades in 2008. He helped the Leopards to NCAA runner-up team finishes in both the 2007 and 2009 seasons. He placed third overall at the 2009 NCAA Championships. He was the 2008 SCIAC Player of the Year and was a First Team All-SCIAC honoree in 2009. In addition Amin was the recipient of the SCIAC's Jess Clark Sportsmanship Award.
University of La Verne junior Mitchell Fedorka has been named winner of the 2009 Jack Nicklaus Award which goes annually to the nation's top golfer in Division III.
Fedorka, out of Upland High School, led the Leopards to a runner-up showing at the Division III national tournament last month at the PGA Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
The award was presented by Nicklaus to Fedorka on Sunday prior to the final round of The Memorial, the PGA event hosted every spring by Nicklaus at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio.
Fedorka was the top ranked player in the Golfstat Division III individual standings with an overall scoring average of 72.35.
At the NCAA Division III Championships he tied for the overall lead with a total of 285 (67-71-74-73) but lost a sudden death playoff for medalist honors to Ogelthorpe University sophomore Olafur Loftsson.
Fedorka was a first team All-America selection in 2009. He also earned All-West Region and SCIAC Player of the Year accolades.
He captured the SCIAC 36-Hole Championship with a total of 138 (66-72) as he helped propel the Leopards to their third straight conference crown. His conference scoring average of 69.3 is a SCIAC record. Fedorka won three tournaments this season and only finished out of the top 10 on two occasions.
"This definitely takes some of the sting out of finishing second at nationals," Leopard first-year coach Joe Skovron said. "He really deserved it. He was so consistent all season.
"It isn't just his ability but his demeanor out there. To look at him out there you wouldn't know whether he birdied or bogeyed that last hole."
