Photos by Rob Burge

DUST PLUS: ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS AND ALL THAT YOU KNEE-D TO KNOW

In all of the number crunching that went on last week, by Sunday night the hot topic in 49erville focused on the well turned knees of two sporting stars. One of import is the hardly fragile-looking Klaudia Malenovska, the tennis star who tore the ACL on her right knee in the Big West Championships at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Insiders have posted on the LBSU chat board that there is a ray of hope, for next year.  “…Good news is that there is no other ligament or tendon or cartilage damage in the knee so her prognosis is pretty good….had very little swelling… (expect) a relatively rapid and successful recovery.”

Almost a senior citizen by comparison (born July 30, 1977), Misty May Treanor was half a world away at the Olympic Bay Sanya Open in China when the two-time Olympic champion was injured during an international tournament forcing she and teammate Kerri Walsh to withdraw. Dr. William Schobert, a surgeon to the stars from Mission Viejo, began treatment of May on Monday. May-Treanor tore her left Achilles’ tendon while rehearsing for “Dancing with the Stars” after the Beijing Olympics in fall of 2008. May-Treanor and Walsh are collecting points that should still lead them to making the US Olympic team for the 2012 competition in London.

Schobert’s track record also includes successful surgeries on Walsh and men’s volleyball icon Karch Kiraly. As far as Klaudia’s plan, reports are that “she will go home and have the surgery because a close family friend is apparently an orthopedist who does all of the ice hockey players in her Slovakia.” 
 
We now return to your Dust Plus already in progress. As has been the case a lot in 2011, the freshmen class continues to shine particularly on the pitcher’s mound. In baseball, the Dirtbags won that critical BWC series with Cal Poly with two first-year 49ers Ryan Strufing (5.2, 4 Ks and 1 ER) and John Maciel a clean and hitless 1.2 innings. Their classmate on the ladies side is softball star Erin Jones-Wesley (19-5), who won her sixth BWC Pitcher of the Week when she personally swept UC Santa Barbara collecting all three of the weekend wins. On Saturday, she tossed a complete game five-hitter in the 5-0 win, came on in relief in game two, pitching the final five innings of a 6-5 13-inning win for LBSU then went eight innings with seven strikeouts in the sweep the Gauchos  3-2 win. This weekend, while the baseballers are in the toasty desert at Arizona State, the ESPN TV crew will feature Beach softball and Fullerton from the shadow of the Pyramid.

PLUS CLOSING QUOTES: This from how Bag’s boss Troy Buckley mentors his young pitching staff. “If we didn’t expect our pitchers to make mistakes we would fill up the bathtub and have them walk across it.”

Senior Deborah Armstrong got some headlines in that wonderful Big West tennis title spanking the Beach put on UC Irvine, but one knowledgeable fan reported that his MVP for the weekend in the desert for the No. 39 Niners was junior Anais Dallara who was clutch especially in the clinch victory over Pacific. “Issy’s win was unbelievable beating UOP’s No. 1 who hadn’t lost a BWC match in three years, last losing to…………Hannah Grady!!” After winning their eighth Big West Conference championship in the last ten years, the Beach now exhales and then gets ready for the NCAA tourney beginning on May 13th. Anna Jeczmionka replaced Malenovska in the singles lineup will need to fill her sneakers in the upcoming matches.

Big noises of the home run kind from softball by freshman Hannah de Gaetano and senior Christina Schallig. Christina’s was the walk variety in the bottom of the eighth inning to lead Long Beach State complete the sweep of Santa Barbara. The win virtually wraps up an NCAA invite for both LB and UOP since the 49ers moved into a first-place tie with Pacific in the Big West Conference. Saturday’s doubleheader starts at 12:00pm and will be televised on ESPNU. Sunday’s single game gets underway at 1:00pm. Fullerton (21-20, 10-5 Big West) trails LBSU and UOP by one game in the standings.

And going off topic, this closing quote from my Twitter pal Jay Busbee: “Bin Laden’s last words: ‘Pizza? I didn’t order a-‘”