Cal State Fullerton Notebook : One Big Loss No Big Deal, but Two?

Cal State Fullerton suffered its worst loss in 12 years Saturday, but that has not led Athletic Director Ed Carroll to consider abandoning his approach of scheduling big-name, big-dollar road games to help sustain a financially struggling program.

Carroll said Monday that the problem in Fullerton’s 65-0 loss to 18th-ranked Florida Saturday lay not so much in the scheduling of such a game, but in having two such games in one season.

Louisiana State, which is currently ranked seventh, beat the Titans, 56-12, Sept. 12 in Baton Rouge, La.

“Normally we don’t plan to have both an LSU and a Florida the same year,” Carroll said. “Playing two such teams in one year is not something we intended to do.”

The Florida game was added to the schedule late last year after Wichita State, a mutual opponent, dropped its program.

“Our team played better against LSU than Florida,” Carroll said. “A second game like that was just too much.”

Fullerton received a guarantee of $200,000 for each of those games.

The only worse defeat in Titan history was a 70-0 loss to Southern Mississippi in 1975.

Carroll said it was “too soon” to make final judgments on future scheduling, but that no current schedules have two games as difficult as the Titans’ pair of Southeastern Conference opponents this season.

“Next year’s schedule is not nearly as competitive and none of our future schedules are as competitive at this time,” Carroll said, not ruling out changes.

When Connie Clark last week was named the winner of the Broderick Award, she became the third Fullerton pitcher in six years to win the award, which honors the college softball player of the year.

Susan LeFebvre won the award in 1986 and Kathy Van Wyk in 1982.

For Clark, a first-team All-American who had a 33-5 record with an 0.47 earned-run average and 261 strikeouts last year, it was a triumphant postscript to a career that ended in a bit of disappointment.

After leading the Titans to a national championship in 1986, Clark watched as a hitting slump left them in third place in the College World Series in May.

Later, she learned that despite her status as one of the top collegiate pitchers during the past two years, she was not eligible to try out for the Pan American Games team because she had not been a first-team All-American in 1986, a season in which she was injured part of the time.

“Winning the award kind of took me by surprise,” said Clark, who will complete the requirements for her degree in December. “It kind of ended things up real nice.”

Susan Herman, a sophomore outside hitter who graduated from La Habra High School, has been the brightest spot on the Fullerton volleyball team, which has a 9-11 record, 1-7 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.

Herman may break the single-season school record for kills as soon as next week. Joan McGhee set the current record of 301 kills in 1985. Herman, who is averaging 3.95 a game, has 261.

Titan Notes

Starting quarterback Ronnie Barber, who completed just 3 of 7 passes for 13 yards and was intercepted once in the first half against Florida before being replaced, will remain the starter against Nevada Las Vegas Saturday at Santa Ana Stadium, said Coach Gene Murphy, explaining that he simply wanted to give playing time to backups Carlos Siragusa and Tony Dill. . . . Starting safety Tom Phillips (possible broken hand) and backup center Marc Hauser (knee) are questionable for the UNLV game. . . . Linebacker Bryan Riggs left the field in the middle of the Titans’ loss to Florida with a game-related malady: He was sick to his stomach.