April 2011 Archives

Senior All-American Bryanna Burns was named to the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA) second-team squad, the association announced Wednesday morning.

Burns, an Oceanside native, has been a stalwart for the Coyotes during her four seasons. She became the Coyotes' all-time leader in saves in the final game of the 2010 season and earned All-American honors in the process.

This season Burns has 420 saves with 30 assists and 60 steals for the Coyotes, who open the WWPA Tournament at 9 a.m. Friday against Cal State Monterey Bay at Chabot College in Hayward. The tourney is hosted by Cal State East Bay.

In her career, Burns has 1,566 saves and owns three of the top five single-season saves in school history.

Sophomore Misty Vu was named to the honorable mention squad. The Riverside native leads the Coyotes with 81 goals.

College Baseball Insider announced today that UC Riverside's Trevor Hairgrove was named the West Region Baseball Player of the Week for games played from April 18-24. The honor comes on the heals of Hairgrove winning the Big West Conference Player of the Week award on Monday for the same time period.

Hairgrove extended his hitting streak to 11 games over the weekend scoring the game-winning run in UCR's 3-0 win over CSU Bakersfield on Thursday, and driving in both runs in a 2-0 win on Friday.

On Saturday, the Highlanders erased a 3-1 deficit with a seven-run eighth inning, and Hairgrove capped the rally driving in runs 5, 6 and 7 with a double to right center, and scoring the team's eighth run.

For the week, Hairgrove hit .538 with a .571 on base percentage and a .692 slutting percentage. He also played a flawless shortstop in the series handling all 14 chances over the three games.

Hairgrove now leads the Highlanders with a .350 batting average while his .423 on base percentage and 438 slugging percentage rank second on the squad.

Cal State San Bernardino junior outfielder David Silvas, who has blistered the baseball during the month of April, was named this week's California Collegiate Athletic Association Batter of the Week for the week of April 18-23.

The Moreno Valley native continues to be one of the hottest hitters in the CCAA over the last three weeks. He currently owns a club-best, 9-game hitting streak and is hitting .485 over those nine games (16 of 33 with eight extra-base hits - 6 doubles, 2 HRs).

During the 4-game series against CSUMB that puts the Coyotes into 4th place by percentage points over CPP and CSULA, he hit .538 and capped the series with a 3-for-4 effort in the series finale that included back-to-back-to-back doubles.

He is 24-for-53 (.453) with 11 extra-base hits in his last 14 games.

Junior right-hander Aaron Brooks, who dominated in his opening-game series start against Cal State Monterey Bay on April 21, was named the California Collegiate Athletic Association Pitcher of the Week.

The San Bernardino native set the tone in the weekend series against CSUMB on Thursday, with his third complete game and first shutout of the year in a 2-0 win. Brooks faced just  31 batters - four over the minimum -- and did not allow an Otter to reach past second base after the first inning.

He retired 14 in a row -- from the last out of the 3rd inning through the first out in the 8th --  and struck out six, did not issue a walk and scattered five hits.

For the season, is 4-6 with a 2.78 ERA. He owns 70 strikeouts and just eight base on balls. He has allowed 64 hits and opponents are hitting just .229 against him in 77.2 innings.

 

 

For the second straight year Claremont-Mudd-Scripps will host the SCIAC's post-season softball tournament.

The Athenas (32-8, 19-5) and the University of Redlands (31-9, 19-5) finished tied for first in the regular season but CMS gets the top seed and right to host based on its 4-0 record against the Bulldogs.

Action begins at 9 a.m. on Firday with CMS squaring off against No. 4 seed Whittier (23-17, 11-13), whom they just swept to complete the regular season. Then at 11:30 a.m. Redlands faces off with No. 3 La Verne (25-14, 18-6).

It is a double elimination event so the winners of the first two games will play at 2 and the loser's will play at 4 in an elimination game.

Play also starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday with an elimination game. The championship game is set for 12:30 p.m. with the if necessary game to follow.

Last season the Leopards won the tournament as the No. 3 seed, the same scenarion they face this year.

The winner gets the conference automatic playoff berth. Last year CMS and Redlands were both granted at-large bids despite not winning the conference tournament.

San Bernardino Valley College basketball standout Paige Haynes has signed a letter-of-intent with Division I Northern Arizona.

The 5-foot-7 guard averaged 12.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.9 assist and 1.9 steals in helping the Wolverines to a 27-2 record and fourth straight Foothill Conference crown.

She led the team in assists and free-throw attempts and recorded a season-high 21 points four times, most notably against College of the Canyons in the Southern California semifinal.

Haynes is the second player from this year's team to head to a Division I porgram. Guard Jasmine Ray signed with Hawaii earlier.

The Chaffey College baseball team turned in a near-flawless performance in a 3-0 nonconference win over Golden West.

The Panthers were minus head coach Jeff Harlow who was ejected from Tuesday's game against the same team and was sitting out the mandatory one game. But the Panthers were on auto-pilot.

They didn't get a ton of hits - they managed just five but they were timely ones. And with Matt Anderson on the mound they didn't need many anyway. Anderson went six innings and gave up just one infield single and a walk while striking out six. He easily could have gone the distance but it was a nonconference game and other pitchers needed work.

Chris Truitt had three of Chaffey's five hits. One of those was a run-scoring triple in the third. He scored after that on a sacrifice fly by Anderson.

Chaffey has a big series on Tuesday and Thursday against San Bernardino Valley. Chaffey is one game behind Rio Hondo. SBVC is third and fighting for an at-large berth so those should be well worth watching.

 

The University of Redlands seized control of the SCIAC baseball race with a 7-6 win over the University of La Verne. The Bulldogs (25-8, 19-5) now have a two-game lead over La Verne (22-13, 17-7) and a three-game over Cal Lutheran (22-14, 16-8) and they won head-to-head series against both in the case of a tie,

 

There are six games left in the SCIAC baseball regular season and a couple of contenders have fallen by the wayside. A week ago five teams were still in the hunt. None of those have beem mathematically eliminated but both Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps suffered losses on Friday that will make it difficult for them now.

The defending champion Sagehens were dealt a 5-1 loss by the University of La Verne while CMS fell to Cal Lutheran 12-4. It is unlikely that either of those can leapfrog enough teams in front of them now.

Pomona-Pitzer and CMS play each other on Saturday, so the loser of that can definitely mail it in.

Redlands survived against a lower-tier team in Occidental 13-9. The Bulldogs trailed 8-0. So give them credit for having the guts to come back. But it shouldn't have been that hard.

In other games today La Verne will battle Whittier and Redlands will travel to Cal Lutheran. Its a chance for the Bulldogs to put a dagger in the Kingsmen.

A VERY big game looms on Sunday when Redlands travels to La Verne. Stay tuned!

       

Redlands	22	17-5						23-8
La Verne	22	16-6						21-12
Cal Lutheran	21	14-7						20-13
Pomona-Pitzer	22	13-9						23-10
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	22	13-9						19-15
Whittier	22	8-14						16-17
Occidental	21	6-15						10-22
Caltech	22	0-22						0-25

Sophomore defender Monique Thomas, who helped the San Bernardino Valley College women's soccer team to a 20-1-4 record and a state championship, has signed a letter of intent with Minot State University in Minot, N.D.

Thomas, a product of Cajon High School, was an  honorable mention All-Foothill Conference selection in 2010, helping fortify a defense that recorded 12 shutout, including five straight to end conference play.

Thomas is the 10th player from the title-winning team to advance to a four-year school.

Minot State is coming off a 9-7-3 season and the school is in transition from NAIA to NCAA Division II.

 Barstow College basketball standout La Vanne Pennington has signed with San Jose State. Pennington, a 6-foot-4 sophomore guard, averaged 16.9 points and 3.3 rebounds in leading the Vikings (22-7, 10-4) to a third-place finish in the tough Foothill Conference.

Pennington was an All-Conference selection. He tallied a season-high 36 points in nonconference play against Pasadena City College.

San Jose State is coming off a 17-16 season.

Coach Reggie Howard said 6-foot-10 sophomore forward Daquan Brown also visited San Jose State as well as Pepperdine which he really liked.

A couple of other players are likely headed for Division II or NAIA schools.

"This is big for us," Howard said. "We haven't had a guy go Division out of here in a very long time."

The Cal State San Bernardino golf team is second after two rounds of play at the 20-team Hanny Stanislaus Tournament at the Turlock Country Club.

Cal State San Bernardino outfielder David Silvas is this week's Wilson/California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Baseball Player of the Week for his showing in games April 4-10.

Silvas, a junior from Moreno Valley, led the Coyotes' offense during a four-game series split at nationally-ranked Chico State. He hit .400 (6-for-15) with three runs scored, three doubles and three RBI, while recording a .600 slugging and .471 on-base percentage.

On the season he his batting .33 with 11 doubles, two home runs, 18 RBI and 19 runs scored.

Cal State San Bernardino will host local rival Cal Poly Pomona in the opener of a four-game series at 3 p.m. on Thursday at Fiscalini Field.

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 baseball teams from University of Redlands and Pomona-Pitzer will square off in a three-game series that starts on Friday. As usual the SCIAC will probably go down to the final game and both teams are in the mix so this is a huge series.

Redlands (20-7, 14-4) and La Verne (19-10, 14-4) are tied for first with the defending champion Sagehens (22-7, 12-6) in striking distance.

The pitching matchup doesn't get much better than this. The 3 p.m. game on Friday at Pomona-Pitzer will pit a pair of seniors in Derek Johnson (9-0, 2.10) of the Bulldogs and David Colvin (6-1, 3.18) of the Sagehens - probably the best two pitchers in the conference.

No doubt Johnson will want to make up for his showing in the game between the team's last season when he gave up seven hits and six earned runs in a 14-5 loss. He hasn't been hit that hard by anyone in his four years.

Both pitchers did face the other team in the ealier earlier series although they didn't take the mound in the same game. Johnson went the distance and earned the win in that one but like all competitors, he's likely to remember the last one because it was part of a six-game losing streak that cost the Bulldogs the conference title. 

The teams will play a doubleheader at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Redlands. Kyle Hart and Adam Byrd will be the starters forthe Bulldogs. The Sagehens have some options with some pitchers now getting healthy. Travis Rooke-Ley will get the ball in one of those.

 

San Bernardino Valley College soccer standout Antonio Salazar has signed a letter of intent with University of Maine at Machias.
 
Salazar, a product of Fontana High School, was an honorable mention All-Foothill Conference selection for his freshman year, the 2009 season.

University of Maine at Machias is located in the town of Machias, about 30 miles southwest of the U.S./Canada border and about 325 miles northeast of Boston. The team went 8-10-1 overall and 7-4 in conference play. UMM is in the Sunrise Conference of the NAIA.

Junior catcher Jenzen Torres of the Cal Poly Pomona baseball team has been named NCAA Division II National Player of the Week.

The award is released through the National Collegiate Baseball Writer's Association (NCBWA). Slippery Rock sophomore left-hander Joby Lapkowicz earned the National Pitcher of the Week honor after throwing a no-hitter on Sunday.

Torres led the Broncos' offense during a series win over Cal State East Bay. In four games, he batted .462 (6-for-13) with five runs scored, four home runs and 13 runs batted in while registering a 1.365 slugging percentage and getting on base at a .588 clip.

The Valencia, native, who accounted for 18 of CPP's 42 runs scored in the series, hit safely and scored at least one run in three of the four games. In the series opener, a 19-3 win for the Broncos, Torres went 2-for-4 with two runs scored, a pair of home runs and career-high six RBIs. That total of 19 scores was the highest amount in program history since 2002.

The CPP squad returns to action this weekend with a four-game road series at San Francisco State. The series opener will start at 3 p.m. Friday.

Cal Poly Pomona will hold a rally to honor the women's basketball team which advanced to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight.

Festivities are scheduled for noon on Thursday in Center Court of the Bronco Student Center. It is open to the public free of charge. It will be similar to the one held last year to honor the men's team after it brought home a national championship.

Coach Danelle Bishop and the players will be introduced with a chosen few addressing the crowd.

The Broncos advanced to the national tournament last month for the first time since 2002. They were second in the CCAA in the regular season but won the conference tournament and the NCAA Division II West Regional.