Wake-Up Call Stirs Moorpark Decathlete Into Eye-Opening Feat

Jerry Edwards, a Moorpark College sophomore, had never before competed in a decathlon, and given a choice, he would have quit halfway through the two-day, 10-event test last week at the Southern California championships at Mt. San Antonio College.

When Moorpark Coach Doni Green arrived at Edwards’ home Wednesday morning to take him to Mt. SAC for the final five events, Edwards balked. “He said he was sore and tired and didn’t want to get out of bed,” Green said. “I told him, ‘That’s how you’re supposed to feel after the first day.’ ”

Green’s powers of persuasion eventually won Edwards over, and it’s a good thing. The former Westlake High standout not only got out of bed, he moved from sixth to fifth place in the standings in the final event--the 1,500 meters--to total 6,085 points and qualify for the state championships at Sacramento’s Hughes Stadium on May 16-17.

Edwards’ inexperience was obvious in some events (he cleared only 10 feet 6 inches in the pole vault), but less evident in others (he ran 4 minutes 43.4 seconds in the 1,500).

“(The day before the meet started) was the first time he had ever pole-vaulted in his life, so I was real happy with that,” Green said. “And that 1,500 blew me away. He went out in about 64 seconds for the first (400) and I thought he was going to die. But he actually sprinted the last 150 yards.”

Taxing situation: Bill Kernen, Cal State Northridge’s baseball coach, has recently moved, so perhaps it should be no surprise that the W-2 form listing his earnings from Northridge last year was sent to the wrong address.

But to Champaign, Ill.?

Kernen is, after all, in his third season as the Matadors’ baseball coach. He last made Champaign his home in the spring of 1988, when he still was an assistant at the University of Illinois.

Since Kernen took over the baseball program, Northridge has been co-champion of the California Collegiate Athletic Assn., played for the Division II national championship and has won 97 games against 51 losses and two ties. This season, their first at the major-college level, the Matadors are ranked 14th and 15th in the national polls.

Someone in the mail room obviously hasn’t been paying much attention.

Waiting game: The first day of the regular NCAA signing period for winter and spring sport athletes passed Wednesday with little news from the Northridge baseball program. Tyler Nelson, a third baseman from Simi Valley High, is the only player the Matadors have signed, and that took place during November’s early signing period.

“When you have only two coaches and you’re in the middle of something (read: a playoff quest), you can’t really worry about next year yet,” Kernen said.

In his years as an assistant at Cal State Fullerton and Illinois, Kernen was the recruiting coordinator and usually did his work early, but he’s not overly concerned about the Northridge program suffering.

“With the high school guys, we’re looking at (recruiting for) key positions--shortstop, catcher and center field,” Kernen said. “I’ve seen some people, but I want to make sure we have the right guys. I’d rather not get them than get them and find out they’re the wrong guys.”

Kernen said he might still be recruiting this summer during tryouts for the North-South high school all-star series. The last time he did that he came back with a pitcher/outfielder from Anaheim who had been overlooked by other programs.

The player: Craig Clayton, the ace of the Matador pitching staff and the team’s top hitter.

Comparisons: Valley College sophomore Melanie Clarke is one of the nation’s top up-and-coming talents in the heptathlon, but it will probably be several years before she becomes a contender on the international level.

To put it in perspective, Clarke, 19, scored a personal-best 5,127 points to win the Southern California junior college title at Mt. SAC last week, but she is still more than 1,200 points shy of Germany’s Birgit Clarius, whose 6,359 points was 10th on the world list last year.

On a roll: After failing to set a personal best in the sprints for the previous two years, Quincy Watts of USC lowered his personal best in the 400 meters twice in March.

Watts, who ran 46.67 as a Taft High senior in 1988, ran 46.44 in a quadrangular meet at USC on March 16 and 45.98 in a five-team meet at Arizona State on March 30.

Triple play: The Cal State Northridge track and field team tripled its number of NCAA Division I provisional qualifiers at Saturday’s Fresno Relays.

Northridge, which entered the meet with two provisional qualifiers, added four more to that total as Wes Dunston (wind-aided 10.36 seconds in the men’s 100), Tyrone Jeffries (wind-aided 13.92 in the 110-meter high hurdles), Ryan Vierra (191 feet in the hammer throw) and Charlotte Vines (wind-aided 11.69 in the women’s 100) all exceeded the provisional qualifying standards in their events.

Dunston, Jeffries and Vines established their marks in qualifying heats, and though their efforts were wind-aided, they are allowable for qualifying purposes. Vierra’s effort was a personal best and moved him to fourth on the all-time Northridge performer list.

Statwatch: Northridge’s Scott Sharts leads all NCAA Division I players in home runs with 19. Chris Thomson of Texas Christian has 17 and Todd Greene of Georgia Southern has 16. . . .

Northridge sophomore John Gallagher, a transfer from USC, improved his best in the discus to 169-8 in the Fresno Relays to move to seventh on the all-time Northridge list in that event.

Rest for the weary: The Northridge softball team has this week off after playing games at a blistering pace early in the season. Through last Saturday, the Matadors played 49 games (winning 26) in only nine weeks. Northridge has nine opponents remaining and is scheduled to play a doubleheader against each of them.

Staff writers Mike Hiserman and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.