California Dreamin'

Hello all from sunny Southern California! I am in Claremont with the Pacific volleyball team as they play at the Pacific Coast Classic, which is co-hosted by Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps colleges (which is actually all one consortium of colleges along with Scripps and Harvey Mudd Colleges, but I digress). The team arrived Thursday night, but I flew in this morning after working our men's soccer match in Forest Grove Thursday night.

I knew it was going to be a good trip when right across from our hotel was a In-N-Out Burger, some of the best burgers and fries in the world. My combined breakfast and lunch was a Double-Double, fresh cut fries and a Coke. Can't beat it!

I don't travel too much with our teams. When you have 20 sports to work with there is no way that you can go every place (or any place) with the teams. Volleyball is a notable exception, however, when it comes to tournaments. Unlike our own Boxer Kickoff Volleyball Invitational, most tournaments at the Division III level do not keep stats for any of the participating teams. They have to be kept on the bench by players.

So...here I am, keeping stats on my third volleyball trip in four years. No complaints, though. It's a great way to get to know these young women a lot better. A better connection to our players never hurts.

Speaking of stats (or lack thereof)...parents and fans of Northwest Conference volleyball should thank the sports information directors of those schools, who all keep stats for both teams during the course of a match. At most Division III schools, particularly east of the Rockies, schools keep stats for just their school and combine the two teams the next day. With the NWC schools, you have complete stats the same day. What a deal!

And the conference must have found a deal to get teams into the Ontario Sheraton. In the hour I was actually on the property I saw the Pacific Lutheran volleyball team and the Whitman women's soccer team. Whose next??? Perhaps we should contract the Sheraton to be a conference host hotel (attention Matt Newman...).

Some news and notes from the World of Pacific Athletics...
VOLLEYBALL: Four matches for the Boxers at the Pacific Coast Classic. Pacific faces Chapman this afternoon and the host Sagehens this evening. Tomorrow it's over to the other side of campus and a rematch with UC Santa Cruz, followed by a meeting with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. Very hot here in the Southland. Too warm even for Keleigh Kremers, who is used to that "dry Texas heat, y'all!" Caitlin Gollehon, however, predicts that freshman Kelsy Takashima will have a great match because of the sweat she has built in pre-match warm-ups in the non-air-conditioned Voekele Gymnasium. We shall see soon.

The wireless connection here at Pomona will not allow me to access our Web servers back in Forest Grove, so Web updates (such as stats) will have to wait until this evening. We will, however, be able to post stories on the site not long after the conclusion of our matches.

MEN'S SOCCER: In their season opener on Thursday, Pacific looked incredible for the first 45 minutes against Warner Pacific. The defense was incredibly tight. At one point, the backline managed to knock down a Knights' flurry that gave them three looks at the net, yet not a shot. Danny Williams' first half goal was well played and a credit to the team's passing ability.

But a full match is a 90-minute affair. I don't know if the Boxers got tired or complacent, but the defense was not as tight in the second half as it was in the first. After the free kick goal by the Knights in the 68th minute, Warner Pacific picked up a lot of confidence and quickly parlayed it into the game-winner. If the Pacific defense can learn to play a full 90, this team will be very good.

The Boxers will play a match against an alumni squad on Sunday afternoon and return to action on Monday against LaVerne. This will be the Boxers' first ever meeting in men's soccer with the Panthers, who made it to the SCIAC's postseason tournament in 2007, are 1-0-0 on the year and play NAIA member William Jessup this afternoon.

CROSS COUNTRY: Tim Boyce's first full season at the helm begins on Saturday. The Boxers open the season at the Whitman Invitational in Walla Walla. The races will be short course affairs, with the men running 6,000 meters and the women racing 4,000 meters. Even though this year's NWC Championships will be run in Walla Walla, this race is not on the conference course at Veterans Memorial Golf Course. It is, instead, being run at Ft. Walla Walla Park, where I ran my first ever conference XC race for the Boxers back in 1994 (won't divulge my time...wasn't all that great anyway).

The Boxers will be a building team once again. The Boxers return just three runners who competed last fall: All-American Kelsey Owens, Whitney Nelson and Casey Nishimura. The men do, however, return a couple of runners who took last season off in Adrian Shipley (NWC track qualifier in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters) and Dylan Taylor.

The full Pacific cross country season preview will be posted later today on GoBoxers.com (wrote it on the plane this morning while I was free to move about the country, but the FTP limitations keep me from posting from the Pomona campus).

That's all from the Southland as we come up to a half hour before first serve. Go Boxers!