COLLEGES:

The other World Series ended Sunday night, but it has been four months since the ping was silenced in Omaha for college baseball teams.

Much has ensued for the UC Irvine program since making its College World Series debut, but with the addition of Ted Silva as pitching coach made official Monday, the three main spots on head coach Mike Gillespie’s staff, including associate head coach Pat Shine, make it as solid a three-man unit as most could hope for.

It’s still just less than four months until the Anteaters’ Feb. 22 opener at Nevada, but I was greeted by an audible sign that baseball season, or at least the earnest preparation for same, is already underway.

Walking from the Mesa parking structure to the UCI women’s volleyball match with visiting Long Beach State a little after 6 p.m. Friday, I heard the ping of aluminum striking a baseball in the batting cages at Anteater Ballpark. Even better, as I returned to my car after the match, around 9:30 p.m., the same sound filled the musty evening air.

It’s clear that the Anteaters will not be derailed by complacency stemming from their breakthrough 2007 campaign.

 On the subject of the baseball team’s success, as well as the national championship won by the UC Irvine men’s volleyball team last May, another UCI athlete said she believes a similar rise to prominence is forthcoming for her program.

“We’re next,” said senior women’s basketball forward Stephanie Duda, referring to the next big breakthrough success at UCI, during Big West Conference media day Wednesday at the Irvine Marriott.

Big words, considering Coach Molly Tuter’s unit was picked to finish eighth (media) and tied for eighth (coaches) in preseason polls for the nine-team conference. And Duda was smiling when she said them.

But those who know anything about the talent Tuter will unveil in Thursday’s exhibition game against visiting Cal Baptist at Crawford Court, would not be surprised if the Anteaters finish in the top five in the Big West this season.

In addition to Duda, 6-foot junior Kelly Cochran and senior guard Christina Zdenek, both of whom missed most of last season with injuries, the Anteaters, consistently plagued in recent years by injuries and other issues, figure to be bolstered by a much-improved backcourt tandem of junior Kirian Ishizaki and senior Miranda Forry.

 One discomforting sight at Friday’s volleyball match was men’s volleyball setter Ryan Ammerman, a 6-8 junior, wearing a medical boot on his left foot.

But assistant coach David Kniffin said the injury was merely a sprained ankle sustained in practice.

 UCI women’s volleyball player Lauren Kellerman is from Escondido in San Diego County, which was one of the communities evacuated from their homes by the fires last week.

Though the Kellerman home survived intact, UCI Coach Charlie Brande said Kellerman’s father, Mark, a retired firefighter, refused to leave the house, after the rest of the family had.

“[Mark Kellerman] was going to fight the fire as best he could,” Brande said. “But it never came to that.”

 Duda accompanied Tuter to Alaska last summer, where Tuter, a high school basketball star in Saldotna, Alaska, before producing a solid career at Arizona State, holds annual basketball camps.

Duda, as well as former Anteater Lauren Yadon, worked the camps and also had their annual fishing competition with Tuter.

So who caught the bigger fish this time?

“Molly did,” Duda said without hesitation. “We’d still be there, if she hadn’t caught the biggest fish yet.”

 The media day polling, which includes representatives from member institutions’ school newspapers, produced an embarrassing result, as two voters selected the Long Beach State men, who lost virtually their entire roster and their coach after winning the Big West Conference championship last season, as No. 1 in this year’s poll.

Anonymity prevented those two clueless voters from being exposed, but a conference official said next year voters will be asked to sign their ballots to avoid similar miscues.

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at [email protected].