College Notebook : Pierce’s No. 1 Takes On No. 2 for Tennis Title

Nobody is more familiar with Sang Kim’s fast-paced, aggressive style than Bill Kearsley, his doubles partner on the Pierce College tennis team.

Kearsley hopes his familiarity with Kim’s game will give him an advantage when the two play for the Western State Conference singles title next week.

“He’s tough when he’s on his game,” Kearsley said. “He’s phenomenal at the net.”

Kearsley, the top player in the WSC, is no pushover, either. He was undefeated in 12 conference matches this season and posted a 14-1 overall record as Pierce’s No. 1 singles player.

Kearsley knows, however, that his match against Kim will be his toughest test yet.

“He comes in on everything so I have to make sure I keep him back,” Kearsley said. “The strength of my game is my defense, my passing shots.”

Both Kim, Pierce’s No. 2 player, and Kearsley were All-WSC selections. They teamed Monday to win the deciding point in Pierce’s 5-4 victory over Grossmont in the semifinals of the Southern California junior college dual-team championships.

Jonathan Holiday, Tony Cohen and Sam Pitts of Pierce also were named to the All-WSC first team.

Pierce Coach Paul Xanthos was named co-coach of the year in the WSC along with Larry Mousouris of Santa Barbara.

Title time: The Cal State Northridge women’s tennis team is seeded sixth in the Division II nationals that begin Monday in Rohnert Park.

The Lady Matadors, who are 13-12 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. and finished third in the CCAA, play fourth-seeded Abilene Christian (Tex.), last year’s national runner-up.

“I think we have a shot at it,” Northridge Coach Tony Davila said. “It comes down to how well we match up. I know from talking to other people that we match up pretty well with Abilene.”

Sophomore Allison Kincaid and senior Missy Conn qualified in the 32-player singles competition. Kincaid is seeded eighth and Conn is seeded 12th. Nicole Gillis, a sophomore, is a first alternate.

Rescheduled: The Cal Lutheran football team, in need of an 11th game to complete its schedule next season, will play the alumni game that originally was scheduled for today on Saturday, Sept. 3, at Mt. Clef Stadium.

The Kingsmen will conduct an intrasquad scrimmage at 2 this afternoon.

The beat goes on: The Cal State Northridge soccer team continued a strong recruiting year with the signings this week of Jim Hall and Roberto Reyes.

Hall, a 5-10, 150-pound midfielder, was a high school All-American at Edgewood High in West Covina.

Hall, who scored 13 goals last season, was supposed to visit Fresno State next week but canceled the trip to sign with Northridge and Coach Marwan Ass’ad.

“Of all the coaches I talked to, Marwan took the most interest in me,” Hall said.

Reyes, a 5-8, 155-pound midfielder, was named first-team All-Southern Section at Culver City High.

More signings: The Cal State Northridge women’s basketball team has signed Denna Mulverhill, a 5-10 forward from Mt. San Antonio College.

Rolling Lady Raiders: The Moorpark College softball team clinched its fourth Western State Conference title in five years a week ago, but the real milestone came Wednesday.

With their 9-0 victory over the College of the Canyons, the Lady Raiders went undefeated in conference play for the first time.

The Lady Raiders (25-10-1, 12-0) have won 34 consecutive home conference games and are 60-7 in all WSC games during that five-year span.

Assistant hired: John Lorenzano will join the football staff at Moorpark College. Lorenzano, the baseball coach at Santa Clara High, has coached football at Santa Clara High and Cal Lutheran.

Hot stick: Corey Aurand, who has blistered the ball all season for Moorpark (11-23, 6-19), saved the best for last.

The sophomore center fielder was 14 for 27 last week with 4 home runs, 5 doubles and a triple in 7 games. He batted .372 for the season and hit .406 with seven home runs in Western State Conference play.

Staff writers Ralph Nichols and Gary Klein contributed to this notebook.