Each week the Sun and Daily Bulletin newspapers run student-athlete profiles as part of a Tuesday local colleges packages. It’s a fun Q & A with one girl and one boy recommended by their coaches or athletic directors. Last Tuesday the girl feature was cross country standout Micaela Castillo of University of La Verne.

On the question “Person you would most like to meet” she listed Louis Zamperini, a former American distance runner and WW2 Prisoner of War survivor. That’s the nice thing about athletes from the SCIAC schools. There is usually some depth to their answers.

So I come into the office on Thursday and have a message from Steve Wallace, a marketing rep for the Plane of Fame Museum in Chino. Turns out Zamperini is going to be a guest speaker at a fund-rasier the group is having on Saturday in Chino. Wallace talked to Zamperini and told him about Castillo and he was willing to spend some time with her.

So after a few phone calls the meet and greet has been set up for an hour before the event on Saturday. I’m sure it will go well. Zamperini has to be flattered that a young athlete know hims and wants to meet him and Castillo has to be thrilled with the opportunity.

I like to think we helped!

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps chalked up a 20-17 win over University of La Verne in the SCIAC opener for both teams on Saturday. But it wasn’t without a cost as senior quarterback Patrick Rooney sustained a broken leg and it lost for the season.

Coach Kyle Sweeney said the injury occured in the first quarter when a La Verne played jumped offside and slammed into his quarterback before the offical blew the whistle.

The Stags have used two quarterbacks the last three years with Rooney noted as the batter passer and junior Peter Kimmey more of a weapon in the rushing attack.

Ironically, Rooney was also hurt last year which left Kimmey as the sole signal-caller for the last four games. The Stags should be able to draw upon that experience and proceed the same way.

“They won games with him so he can do the job,” Sweeney said.

CMS will play at Chapman at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

The SCIAC baseball race just a got a whole lot closer.

Not only did Pomona-Pitzer defeated Redlands 4-2, but Claremont-Mudd-Scripps upset University of La Verne 7-6. So now the four teams are separated by just two games. Redlands and La Verne remain tied for first with Pomona-Pizter one gane out and CMS two out,

The Bulldogs and Sagehens played one of the best games I have seen since I started covering colleges full-time in 2004. It was a great pitching matchup with Pomona’s David Colvin opposed by Redlands’s Derek Johnson.

The Bulldogs got to Colvin early and were up 2-0. But they didn’t maximize their opportunities. Twice they had runners at third with one out and couldn’t get another run home. They had a runner gunned down at the plate trying to score on fly ball to shallow right.

The Redlands defense was nothing short of spectacular in the first six innings, making several highlight-reel plays. They had two in the fifth, the first coming when shortstop Chase Tucker leaped as high as humanly possible to come down with a line drive off the bat of Nick Gentili that appeared headed into left field.

One batter later Teddy Bingham hit a line drive to second that was nabbed by Cameron Lowe who threw to first to double up a runner there.

The Sagehens fimally broke through with one in the seventh, then manufactured three in the eighth. There were four hits and a walk in the inning. A double down the left field line by Kyle Pokorney tied the game at 2 and a single by Timonthy Novum snapped the tie.

It was a little bit of redemption for Johnson, although his team came out on the losing end. The last time he was on the mound against the Sagehens he gave up seven hits and six runs and lasted two innings in a game that was pivotal down the stretch last year.

Colvin was Mr. Steady. In the games I have witnessed this season he seems to give up a couple early, but the later it gets, the tougher he gets. Get to him early or you won’t get to him at all.

This race is going to go down to the final game!

The University of La Verne has fired women’s volleyball coach Marlon Sano and football coach Andy Ankeny. Could someone else be next? There are a lot of sports there struggling right now. So is it really the coaches or are there other reasons teams are failing? Maybe the school isn’t hiring the right people. Only time will tell.

It was good news and bad news for the Cal State San Bernardino men’s soccer team.

The Coyotes (13-5-1) made the postseason for just the third time in history. The bad news, though, is losses in the last two matches cost the Coyotes the right to host a game, so they’ll be hitting the road.

Chico State will host the Super Region 4. The Coyotes will be facing Pacific West champion Grand Canyon (14-2-2) at 4 p.m. Friday in the first round while the host Wildcats (13-6) will play CCAA North foe Sonoma State (14-5-1) at 7 p.m.

“Our guys are excited about the opportunity,” said Cal State San Bernardino coach Noah Kooiman, this year’s CCAA Coach of the Year. “It’s a little disappointing we’re not hosting, but it’s the playoffs. “We got a taste of it last year, so we’re better prepared this time around.”

The Coyotes have been ranked as high as No. 3 in the country and were No. 1 in the West Region the last three weeks, but Cal State lost its regular-season finale to Cal State Dominguez Hills 1-0 and its CCAA tournament semifinal to Sonoma State 1-0.

Sonoma State won the event by beating Dominguez in the final. Kooiman thinks Sonoma State winning tipped the hosting right to Chico. Had Dominguez gotten in, the South would have had two teams and the Coyotes likely would have been the host team.

“We’ll never know, but that’s how we think it would have worked out,” Kooiman said.
It will be the third playoff berth for the Coyotes, who were beaten last year by Cal State Los Angeles 5-3. The previous berth was in 1991, when the school was competing at the Division III level.

The Coyotes haven’t played Grand Canyon this season. They defeated Chico State 2-1 and lost to Sonoma State twice, 3-1 and 1-0.

Division III women’s soccer

Surprise SCIAC tournament winner University of Redlands has drawn a first- round playoff matchup against Chapman on Thursday.

The Bulldogs (10-9) were seeded fourth for the SCIAC tourney but earned the conference playoff berth by upsetting top- seeded Cal Lutheran and No. 2 Occidental in the conference tournament.

Redlands hasn’t given up a goal in more than 285 minutes dating back to its 5-0 victory over Whittier on Oct. 30. It has seven shutouts.

Chapman (12-6), which competes as an independent, gained one of 21 Pool B/C bids to the NCAA tournament. It defeated Redlands 3-2 in nonconference play earlier this season.

Division III men’s soccer

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (14-3-2) will be the SCIAC’s lone postseason representative and compete in a four- team sectional. The Stags will play host team Texas-Tyler University (12-3-1) on Saturday.

The winner of that game will face the winner of the game between Trinity-Texas and Pacific.
Claremont-Mudd finished second to the University of Redlands in the regular season but upended the Bulldogs 1-0 in the SCIAC tournament to earn the automatic bid.

Division III volleyball

For the first time since 1999, the University of La Verne will not be participating in the postseason.

Regular-season champion Cal Lutheran won the SCIAC’s automatic bid by also winning the conference tournament.

The Leopards (19-11) were 11-9 in mid- October but went 8-2 over their last 10 matches to make a push for an at-large bid, then lost the tournament finale to Cal Lutheran.

West Region representatives Cal Lutheran, Colorado College and Whitworth each received automatic bids into the 63-team field by virtue of winning their respective conferences. Puget Sound (18-6) earned the West’s lone at-large berth.

Three of the seven area college football teams are off this week and one that is playing will be on the road. So there aren’t many games to choose from.

Linfield, Ore. (0-1) at University of La Verne, 12:30 p.m.

Linfield has had two weeks to sit and stew about its 47-42 loss to Cal Lutheran. La Verne lost its opener to what looks like a very good Azusa Pacific team, also two weeks ago. La Verne’s running game looked much improved and that’s a good thing. It needs to do well there to have any chance at all of pulling a major upset and snapping its 12 game losing streak which dates back to the end of the 2008 season. Would love to call an upset here but it looks highly improbable.

In the community college ranks  . . .

Chaffey (2-1) at Ventura (2-1), 6 p.m.

The Panthers are coming off a 17-13 loss to Saddleback which doesn’t look as dominating as it has been in the past. Chaffey has some nagging injuries, one of those an elbow injury to talented back Erin Madden who will probably be out a minimum of three weeks according to coach Carl Beach. That will hurt big time. Chaffey’s offense has not been firing on all cyclinders and it needs to here to get the win on the road.

Santa Monica (2-1) at San Bernardino Valley (0-2), 6 p.m.

A year ago this might have been an easy game but Santa Monica has improved, although its nonconference schedule has not been as challenging as some. The Wolverines had a lot of players banged up two weeks ago in the loss to Riverside. The key here may be how the secondary of SBVC holds up. It has been torched badly in the first two games. Coverages has to be better for the Wolverines to get the W!

Saddleback (2-1)  at Victor Valley (0-3), 1 p.m.

The Rams continue their gauntlet of difficult nonconference games. This looks like the most winnable of the four with the trip to High Desert never an easy one for opponents. The Rams have had a revolving door at quarterback. Dave Hoover finally settled on one – Courtney Patton. But he injured an ankle last week and is questionable. Even if he does go the injury will probably take away some of his mobility which is his strong suit. So the Rams will probably be hard-pressed to pull this one off.

University of La Verne Athletic Director Julie Kline has announced the hiring of Yolanda Duron as Head Women’s Tennis Coach.

Duron brings a wealth of coaching experience to the Leopard program and has previously coached at the Division I, II and community college levels. 

“I’m extremely excited to be at La Verne,” said Duron.  “I am grateful for this tremendous opportunity.  I look forward to the challenge of building the tennis program and I’m also excited about bringing much more recognition to Leopard tennis in the near future.

She previously served as head coach at Mt. San Jacinto College during the 2008-09 academic year, leading the squad to a 11-4 overall record and 6-2 in conference play.  For her efforts she was named the 2009 Foothill Conference Coach of the Year.

Additionally she served as assistant men’s and women’s tennis coach at both Division II Cal Poly Pomona (2005-08) and Division I Temple (2004-05). She began her collegiate coaching career at alma mater Drexel University in 2002, serving as assistant men’s and women’s tennis coach for two seasons.

“We are excited about Yolanda Duron being our next Head Women’s Tennis Coach,” said Kline.  Yolanda’s vision for our Women’s Tennis Program and her plans to achieve that vision is the right fit for this Athletics Department and the direction we are heading with each of our programs.”

Duron is a former Divison I player at Drexel where she was team captain as well as an America East All-Conference selection in 2001. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Drexel in 2003 while earning her Master’s Degree in Kinesiology from Cal State Fullerton in 2008.

She is affiliated with both the United States Tennis Association (USTA), the United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) while also serving as a board member for the California Community College Tennis Coaches Association.

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.

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).

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.”