Soccer Teams

It's nail-biting time for area boys' soccer teams as the first round of both the City and Southern Section playoffs begins today with a number of local schools playing each other. Ten area teams are in the City's 32-team draw. Local matchups include No. 27-seeded Sylmar at No. 6 Birmingham and No. 19 North Hollywood at No. 14 San Fernando. Reseda and Chatsworth are the highest-seeded area teams at third and 10th, respectively.

Are they contenders or pretenders? In the span of three days, the Cal State Northridge men's soccer team expects to find out. Coach Marwan Ass'ad is bubbling with confidence after opening victories over Cal State Dominguez Hills and The Master's last week. But he will have a better indication of Northridge's prospects for earning a Division I playoff berth after the Titan Classic this weekend at Cal State Fullerton.

The UCLA men's and women's soccer teams must be drinking from the same water fountain. Each team has seven victories and is ranked by Soccer America. However, each suffered a setback in its last game. One team lost a game, the other its captain. Sophomore midfielder Sasha Victorine is out for the season after tearing a knee ligament in the first half of the men's 2-0 victory over Fresno State on Sunday. "This is definitely a big blow to our team," Coach Sigi Schmid said.

Recent rainstorms have played havoc with area soccer teams' schedules, causing postponement of most matches last week and threatening more postponements this week. Teams cited the need to preserve playing fields as the reason for the postponements. "You don't want to ruin the fields completely," Oak Park High boys' Coach Rick Torres said. "If you chew (the field) up and then it dries like that, you've got a lot of work."

The last strip of sod was laid Friday on the renovated Chapman athletic field, in plenty of time to prepare for the first football practice in August, 1994. But for the field's current users, the timing is far from fortuitous. The Chapman men's and women's soccer teams have moved to nearby Orange High for practices and to Glover Stadium in Anaheim for home games until the field has grown properly. It's an unfortunate situation, said Gregg Murphy, who coaches both teams.

Eddie Carrillo has been hired as the men's and women's soccer coach at Chapman, the university announced Wednesday. Carrillo replaces Gregg Murphy, who resigned last month to become women's coach at Loyola Marymount. Carrillo, who played for Chapman from 1984-86, coached the boys' soccer team at Trabuco Hills High last season and coached at Orange High the previous seven seasons, leading his Orange teams to three league titles and a 93-48-29 record.

Demian Brown, a senior defender trying to bounce back from his third knee injury, has quit the Titan soccer team, school officials said Friday. Brown had surgery on his right knee in 1994 and missed the second half of the season. He sat out the 1995 season after re-injuring the knee. He had played in seven games this season before getting a new injury to the same knee.

After a winless stretch that spanned 59 conference games--six full seasons without a victory--the Concordia men's soccer team finally broke the streak Saturday when the Eagles defeated host Cal Baptist, 2-1. Matt Stiles scored an unassisted goal in the 57th minute to break a 1-1 tie, and the Eagles held on for their first Golden State Athletic Conference victory since defeating Azusa Pacific, 3-0, six years ago to the day.

The charge the Chapman women's soccer team has put together is something second-year Coach Eddie Carrillo had hoped for but didn't expect would happen so soon. Though the Panthers (9-1-1) are young, with nine freshmen and five sophomores on their 17-player roster, they have pushed their way up the regional rankings and earned the school's first national ranking, 25th, last week. And all of a sudden, they're making a big push at the school's first NCAA Division III playoff berth.

Thieves raided a parked van Tuesday and made off with 31 dozen jerseys purchased for underprivileged youths participating in a Watts soccer league, authorities said. The jerseys, worth about $1,400, were purchased by the Watts Friendship Sports League, a nonprofit organization started in 1991 with the assistance of Los Angeles police and the Housing Authority. Two league volunteers returning from a printer with the shirts had stopped for lunch near the Memorial Coliseum about 1:15 p.m.