Gonzalez Appointed Channel Islands Coach

Ray Gonzalez will replace Chris Nordquist as the Channel Islands High girls’ basketball coach, the school announced Friday.

Nordquist was relieved of his coaching duties by school officials last week after he was implicated in an NCAA investigation of the New Mexico State men’s basketball program.

Nordquist, a New Mexico State men’s assistant the past six years, is charged with academic fraud. He has retained his position as a first-year English teacher at Channel Islands.

Gonzalez, also a first-year teacher at the school, has not previously coached at the varsity level. He was originally slated to be the girls’ junior varsity coach.

In other coaching moves at Channel Islands, Chuck Bowling and Steve Payan were named co-coaches of the wrestling team, and Raul Villegas Hernandez has been hired as the boys’ soccer coach.

Women’s Basketball

Carly Funicello of Alemany High has verbally committed to play basketball for UCLA starting with the 1996-97 season, becoming the fourth recruit to sign early with a Bruin team that features nine returning players.

Funicello, a 6-foot-4 center, averaged 15 points, eight rebounds and 2.5 blocked shots as a junior to earn Times Valley-Area player of the year honors.

In her sophomore season, Funicello was a Times All-Valley first team selection as Alemany went undefeated in the regular season and won the CIF Southern Section Division II-A championship.

Soccer

The Master’s College is the host site for the Far West Region Championships of the NAIA Division I soccer playoffs that begin today.

Masters (9-9-0, 4-1 in Far West competition) is seeded No. 2 in the four-team tournament and faces third-seeded Dominican (15-1-1, 3-1-1) at 1 p.m..

No. 1-seeded Hawaii-Pacific (7-2-2, 3-0-1) takes on No. 4 Westminster, Utah, (13-7, 2-2) at 10:30 a.m.

The winners of each match will play Tuesday at 1 p.m. at Master’s.

Contributing: Darin Esper, Steve Henson, Bryan Rodgers.