SPORTS BRIEFS : 49er Baseball Team Ranked in Top 10

Collegiate Baseball and Baseball America rank Cal State Long Beach among the top 10 collegiate baseball teams, but the two publications disagree on how good the 49ers will be.

Collegiate Baseball ranked Long Beach No. 6 and Baseball America rated the 49ers fifth. Cal State Long Beach was 45-22 last season.

Tucson-based Collegiate Baseball ranked 1989 national champion and last year’s runner-up Wichita State (66-13) No. 1. Baseball America, based in Durham, N.C., picked Miami (46-17).

Collegiate Baseball ranked Florida (51-21) second, followed by Miami, Mississippi State (42-21), Cal State Fullerton (34-22) and Cal State Long Beach.

Baseball America ranked Wichita State second, followed by Florida, Pepperdine (41-17-1) and Cal State Long Beach.

Both publications named 49er third baseman Jason Giambi as a preseason All-American. Giambi, a junior, batted .407 and drove in 54 runs last year.

Baseball America selected 49er shortstop Chris Gomez, a junior transfer from Loyola Marymount, to its preseason All-American team.

A boys’ basketball team from Japan will finish a weeklong tour of Southern California with two games against area high schools.

The Yusuda High team is scheduled to play Carson at South Gate High at 4:30 p.m. Friday. On Saturday, Yusuda will play South Gate High at the city’s sports center, 9520 Hildreth Ave. Game time is 7:30 p.m. A welcoming ceremony is scheduled 45 minutes before the Saturday game. The visit by Yusuda is being sponsored by the Los Angeles Area Japanese Businessmen’s Assn., which has put on cultural sporting exchanges between the United States and Japan for the past 15 years. Earlier this week the Yusuda team played games against teams from Fairfax and Westchester high schools.

A funeral service for Cal State Long Beach football secretary Patricia Dalton will be held at 8 tonight at St. Columban Church, 10801 Stanford Ave., Garden Grove.

Dalton, who died Monday, was struck by a car Dec. 27 while crossing a street in Costa Mesa. She sustained cerebral injuries and a fractured skull and did not regain consciousness after the accident. She was 29.

A funeral service for former Lynwood High football player Melvin Johnson will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Lynwood High auditorium.

Johnson and a girlfriend were shot to death Friday in an apartment near Fresno. Johnson was a two-time All-Big West Conference offensive guard at Fresno State who was to play in the upcoming Hula Bowl.

Lucious Harris was named Big West Conference player of the week after helping Cal State Long Beach (8-3 overall, 2-0 in conference play) to three basketball victories last week. Harris, a 6-foot-5 junior, scored 67 points in victories over Robert Morris, San Jose State and University of the Pacific. Cal State Long Beach, which has a six-game winning streak, plays at Nevada Las Vegas tonight and at New Mexico State on Saturday night.