COLLEGE DIVISION NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Chapman Loses Chance at 30-Victory Season

Chapman’s baseball season ended prematurely when the Panthers’ game Tuesday against Cal State Long Beach was canceled so the 49ers could play a makeup game against Big West Conference opponent UC Santa Barbara.

That means Chapman (29-24), which finished the season with an eight-game losing streak, won’t get another chance to win its 30th game. Even so, the Panthers had a highly successful first season in Division I.

They started strong, defeating Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Northridge, Fresno State and Cal State Fullerton, all teams that have been nationally ranked. Even news that the university was dropping athletic scholarships and moving to Division III after next season didn’t slow the Panthers much--after losing to Fullerton, 10-3, on the day of the announcement, they won eight consecutive games.

With the streak, the Panthers ran their record to 20-7, and the next week they moved into both national polls--No. 24 in Baseball America and No. 30 in Collegiate Baseball. An NCAA tournament berth seemed possible.

But the next week, Chapman lost three of four games to Pacific 10 Conference teams and dropped out of the polls.

Add Chapman: The Panthers closed their season Saturday, losing both games of a doubleheader to Nevada in Reno, but two Chapman players had memorable days. In the first game, designated hitter Chris Briones hit for the cycle. Briones, a freshman from Brea-Olinda who finished with a .328 batting average, was five for five with four runs batted in.

Buster Nietzke, a junior transfer from Saddleback College, extended his hitting streak to 16 games, the longest of the season for a Chapman player. Nietzke, who batted .333, had the highest average among the starters.

The Southern California College baseball team’s season ended when Azusa Pacific beat the Vanguards, 1-0, for the NAIA District 3 championship. Doug Rystrom and Matt Imus held Azusa Pacific to four hits, but Steve Allyn’s double in the sixth off Rystrom drove in the game’s only run.

SCC men’s tennis Coach Greg Nations, who played for the Vanguards in 1991, has resigned after one season to return to school. Nations will be studying the philosophy of aesthetics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto.

Notes

SCC selected three athletes as its players of the year: Mike Henjum, a men’s basketball player who was selected for the second consecutive year, Janet Evans, a softball player, and Kristin Bevis, a women’s basketball player.