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Notebook
Thursday, May 25, 2000
Just six University of Hawaii baseball players plan to sharpen their skills playing with summer teams. RAINBOW BASEBALL NOTEBOOK
Six will play
summer ballRight-handed pitchers Chad Giannetti and Bryan Lee, catcher Jacob Flick and shortstop Akaniao Kozeniewski will play for the Hawaii Island Movers, who compete in the Alaska Baseball League.
Left-handed pitcher/first baseman/designated hitter Aaron Pribble returns for a second season with the San Francisco Seals of the California Coastal Collegiate League.
Right-hander Gavin Garrick will pitch for the Danbury (Conn.) Westerners in the New England Collegiate League.
Brian Bock may play for the Santa Barbara Foresters of the California Coastal Collegiate League, but that depends on a doctor's recommendation concerning his left shoulder, which the freshman catcher jammed diving back into second base.
The medical file
Outfielder Chad Boudon will continue to rehab his right shoulder after having a second surgery just before the Rainbow Easter Tournament.
Left fielder Scooter Martines is scheduled for surgery the first week of June to fix his left shoulder injured diving for a ball in the first game of the season.
Martines hopes to be ready for the 2001 season, but probably will miss fall practice.
Danny Kimura will have arthroscopic surgery soon to remove bone chips from his right elbow. His rehabilitation time is expected to be 6-to-8 weeks.
Top three receive bids
Rice, San Jose State and Fresno State -- half of the baseball-playing Western Athletic Conference schools, -- received bids to the NCAA tournament. This validates the decision not to hold a postseason conference tournament based on cost and the thinking that the best teams would rise to the top with sufficient power ratings.The coaches felt WAC power ratings would go up once the break-away schools weren't in the mix.
Rice tied San Jose State for first-place in the final standings, but received the automatic bid based on the Owls 4-2 record vs. the Spartans.
Rice is the No. 2 seed in the Houston regional, San Jose State is the No. 3 seed at Waco, Texas, and Fresno State is the No. 4 seed in the regional at Stanford.
The Spartans are appearing in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1971.
Rice (40-21) and Fresno State (40-19) are among the 25 teams out of 281 Division I schools that won 40 or more games this season.
Incoming WAC member Nevada, co-champions of the Big West Conference with Cal State Fullerton, is the No. 3 seed at Stanford.
The Mountain West Conference, which held a postseason tournament but did not have an automatic bid, was shut out.
Regular-season champion New Mexico (35-23) saw its chance disappear when it was eliminated with quick tourney defeats. San Diego State (34-28) beat Air Force to win the tournament, but didn't have the necessary record for an at-large bid.
Other 2000 UH opponents in the tournament are UCLA (35-24), which shared the Pacific-10 Conference title with Stanford and Arizona State, and Florida (41-21-1). The Gators play San Jose State in their first game.
The lineup for 2001
The Rainbows will open the 2001 season with series against UCLA, Louisville and Cal State Sacramento.With Nevada joining the WAC, the first league series will be in mid-February.
Centenary, Wichita State, Lewis-Clark State, Hawaii Pacific and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo have committed to play in the Rainbow Easter Tournament.
It is possible another Big West Conference school will come if it can rearrange its league schedule. If that happens, UH head coach Les Murakami plans to invite a team from Japan.
By Al Chase