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THE GAMECOCK * Monday, October 8, 2001 10 GAME SCHEDULE n/MiTrmnm Tm VOLLEYBALL at Clemson,7 p.m. Wednesday C ON TACT U S VOLLEYBALL vs. Arkansas, 7 p.m. Friday WOMEN'S SOCCER at Arkansas, 7 p.m. Friday Story ideas? Questions? Comments? FOOTBALL at Arkansas, 2 p.m. Saturday Writeusatgamecocksports@hotmail.com ' WOMEN'S SWIMMING & DIVING at SEC East meet, More sports @ www.dailygamecock.com Thursday-Saturday NEXT STOP: ARKANSAS I Safety Deandre Eiland tackles a Kentucky wideout. The Gamecock defense made two fumble recoveries, as well as two interceptions, photo by candi hauglum Gamecocks send Wildcats home after Saturday’s 42-6 pummeling BY GREG WHITT THE (iAMECOCK The South Carolina Gamecocks bounced back from a less than stellar performance last week by defeating the Kentucky Wildcats 42-6 on Saturday. USC dominated from the begin ning, scoring three touchdowns in the first quarter. The Gamecock offense racked up 402 yards, led by tailback Derek Watson’s 16-carry, 135-yard performance. USC head coach Lou Holtz was im pressed with the junior’s perfor mance. “I thought Derek ran very well,” Holtz said. “We got him a little bit of room, and he just proved how elusive he can be.” Junior fullback Andrew Pinnock also played well. He had 11 carries for 61 yards and two first-half touch downs. Pinnock’s touchdowns al lowed USC to open up a lead they would not relinquish. Senior quarterback Phil Petty con tinued his solid, efficient play. He completed 10 of 16 passes for 112 yards. Petty had three touchdowns, two passing and his first rushing touchdown of the season. The defense was aggressive and op portunistic. USC recovered two Kentucky fumbles and intercepted the ball twice. The Gamecock defense showed sev eral different looks that made adjust ments tough for the Wildcat offense. Holtz started defensive backs Rashad Faison and Deandre Eiland together on Saturday, and had senior line backer Kalimba Edwards playing as a down lineman. Faison had an outstanding game, leading the team with 10 tackles, four of them for a loss, and he forced a fumble. Eiland took advantage of his extended time on the field with an in terception and two passes defended. USC took control of the game from the opening kickoff. Kentucky’s ath letic quarterback Shane Boyd led the team with a promising drive that in cluded three passes for 24 yards with a 10-yard scramble. Despite this early drive, the Wildcats were plagued, as they were throughout the game, with penalties and turnovers. A four-yard Dougie Allen reception was negated by a 5 yard illegal formation penalty. A 10 yard run by Shane Boyd was negat ed by an offensive holding penalty. Finally, Faison and Willie Offord halted the Kentucky drive for good with a sack and fumble recovery. The turning point of the game came on the Gamecock’s second dri ve. Kentucky’s Chris Guyton forced a Watson fumble that Petty recov ered. The play would have ended USC’s drive, but a damaging 15-yard personal foul penalty gave the Gamecocks new life. Six plays later, USC scored on a 1-yard Andrew Pinnock run. Kentucky went three-and-out on their next drive. USC then scored on a two-play, 67-yard drive highlighted by a Derek Watson 58-yard romp. Watson said his big play might have not been as successful had he not made a mistake right before the snap. “I lined up on the wrong side, but for some reason it worked out,” Watson said. Petty put Carolina up by two touchdowns with a 14-yard rushing touchdown. On the ensuing kickoff, USC’s Rod Thomas forced a fumble that was recovered by junior defen sive back Brian Elam. USC’s strong play and Kentucky’s horrible luck continued. On the sec ond play of the Wildcats’ next drive, Kentucky running back Artose Pinner broke free for a 57-yard run that appeared to be a sure touchdown, but unexplainably fell down at the USC 23-yard line. After three unsuccessful plays, Kentucky’s 41-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Jonathan Martin and recovered by Offord. Kentucky’s next drive was stopped by an Eiland interception. USC scored again on an eight-play, 46-yard drive capped by another Pinnock touchdown. The Gamecocks led 28-0 at half time, and the game was effectively out of reach for Kentucky. In the second half, Holtz gave his backup quarterbacks the opportuni ty to play, and they responded well. Junior Corey Jenkins connected with Willis Ham for a 44-yard recep ♦ FOOTBALL, SEE PAGE 11 Defense re-emerges to shut down ’Cats BY KYLE ALMOND THE (JAMECOCK USC defensive coordinator Charlie Strong wasn’t pleased with the way his unit played against Alabama, and he made sure his players knew it. “Coach Strong hammered it into us all week that he was extremely up set about the Alabama game,” Kalimba Edwards said. “ He ham mered it and he hammered it and he hammered it. We said ‘OK, coach,’ and he hammered it some more.” After Saturday’s win against Kentucky, the Gamecocks shouldn’t have to hear it anymore. USC gave up 36 points last week in its worst defensive performance of the season but made up for it Saturday, limiting the Wildcats to a season-low six points. “We knew that it got to [Strong] personally,” Edwards said of the Alabama game. “We knew that we had to come to play this game a little tougher and a little harder.” The Gamecocks did just that. On the first drive of the game, USC’s Rashad Faison sacked Kentucky’s Shane Boyd and forced a fumble that the Game cocks recovered. It was the start of a suc cessful day for Carolina’s defense, ranked 25th in the nation coming in. “The defense was really focused this week (in practice),” Faison said. “We wanted to correct our errors from last week.” Faison was the star of a Gamecock defense that forced three turnovers in the game. Along with a sack, the junior spur from Wauchula, Fla., had a game-high 10 tackles, four of which were for a loss. USC gave up 326 total yards, in cluding 57 on a run by UK’s Artose Pinner, but head coach Lou Holtz said that, for the most part, he was pleased with his defense’s performance. “[Kentucky] ran the ball better than I would have liked, but a lot of it was on one play,” Holtz said. However, Holtz said he was con cerned about the team’s ability to de fend on third-and-long situations. “I thought our first-team defense played very well; we gave up the one long run. But our problem is third and-long. That’s a problem that we have to address and we will address,” Holtz said. The Gamecocks were playing with a bit of a different look Saturday with defensive end Dennis Quinn out with an injury. Edwards, normally an out side linebacker, moved to Quinn’s po sition,-and both free safeties, Antione Nesmith and Deandre Eiland, got the start. “We changed our defense some what after Dennis Quinn got injured,” Holtz said. “We felt that we’d rather have Nesmith and Eiland in the game at the same time, so we moved Kalimba Edwards to a down lineman for this game. I don’t know what we’ll do next week, but 1 thought it was pretty effective.” Edwards said he felt a little un comfortable playing at a different po sition than normal but agreed with the change and praised Nesmith and Eiland. “Their combined speed and agili ty, and as great tacklers as they are, I think it was an extremely positive thing,” Edwards said. “It was a good move.” The All-American Edwards said he doesn’t mind moving around if that’s what the team needs. “Quinn is out, and I’m the next best person for the position,” he said. “And anything that we have to do to win, I’ll do.” Despite the win, Edwards ex pressed a little regret for not getting the shutout. Boyd connected with Aaron Boone in the fourth quarter for a 28-yard touchdown pass. “It was a pretty complete game,” he said. “It would have been ex tremely complete if we would have held them to zero points. But that happens, and we’ll take the victory.” Edwards isn’t blaming himself for not getting the shutout. With a com manding 28-0 lead entering the last quarter, Holtz and the coaching staff took most of the starters out of the game. “I wanted the shutout extremely bad; I think everybody on defense did,” Edwards said. Then he smiled. “But it was the second-team de fense that was in.” Volleyball wins one, loses one on road BY RICK JOHNSTON THE (JAMECOGK For the second time in the past three weekends, the USC volleyball team posted a 1-1 road record. The Lady Gamecocks hit the road, defeating Kentucky on Friday and falling to Tennessee on Sunday. Friday’s game saw a solid perfor mance from several Lady Gamecocks, as four posted double-digit kills in the 3-1 win over the Wildcats. Game scores were 20-30,30-24,30-22 and 30-20. Junior Nadia Sefferovich led the Lady Gamecocks with 16 kills. Fellow juniors Berna Dwyer, Yajaira Cadet and Cally Plummer contributed with 13,12 and 10 kills, respectively. In addition to her 12 kills, Cadet also posted 10 digs, giving her a dou ble-double. Junior Milicia Perovic led USC with 13 digs. In the opening game, USC hit a meager .029 to Kentucky’s .355. But, the Lady Gamecocks turned things around in the second game, jumping out to an early 11-6 lead. Kentucky went on a run and tied the game, but they couldn’t take the lead from the Gamecocks who ended the second game on a service ace by Plummer. The third game was another great exchange of leads as Carolina took the 9-7 lead, which then grew to 15-9. Kentucky called a timeout to stop the USC scoring streak. The game winner came on a Sefferovich kill. The Lady Gamecocks jumped to an early lead in game four and cruised to the 30-20 game and match victory. Junior setter Megan Hosp had a season high 56 assists in the match. USC then traveled to Knoxville to take on the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, a very deep and experi enced team. USC was defeated for only the sec ond time this season, falling 25-30,24 30 and 30-18. Sefferovich once again led USC in kills with 13. In game one, USC hit .200 while ♦ VOLLEYBALL, SEE PAGE 11 Men’s soccer ends winning streak after loss to Clemson BY KYLE ALMOND THE GAMECOCK The Gamecock men’s soccer team will have to wait yet another year to beat its archrivals from Clemson. The No. 24 Tigers scored two first-half goals in a span of 1:06 to defeat the Gamecocks 2-1 Sunday at Riggs Field in Clemson. USC (7-2) has not defeated the Tigers since 1995. Since then, the Gamecocks have lost six and tied once. Riding a six-game winning streak going into Clemson, the No. 17 Gamecocks were con fident they could finally pull out a victory against the Tigers. But it wasn’t to be. Things looked promising for USC early in the game when sophomore Ryan Daley scored in the fifth minute. Daley notched his sixth goal of the season with a brilliant shot out side of the box to beat Clemson goalkeeper Doug Warren. It was the first goal scored for USC in the series since 1996. Carolina had a few more early chances to increase its lead but couldn’t convert them into goals. As the first half progressed, the Tigers be gan to assume control. Clemson controlled possession and kept the Carolina defense on its heels, outshooting USC 10-3 in the first half. At the 34:12 mark, Clemson’s hard work paid off. A long Tiger throw-in deep in USC’s box found junior Dimelon Westfield, who took advantage and tied the game at one. A little over a minute later, a similar play off a throw-in resulted in another Clemson goal. This time, it was sophomore Steven Rhyne who was there to finish. It was just a long throw-in and a goal mouth scramble, and they punched it in,” said USC head coach Mark Berson. “It happened twice. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it; that’s just a very difficult situation to defend against.” Carolina came out attacking in the second half, keeping pressure on the Tigers and out shooting them 8-2, but could not get the equalizer. “We had great attacking play in the first half, and we had great attacking play in the second half,” Berson said. “We just didn’t con vert on our chances.” Berson attributed USC’s offensive strug gles to poor finishing. “I’m very proud of the way we attacked and the number of good scoring chances we cre ated. We just didn’t finish them,” he said. “Sometimes the ball bounces that way, but we need to do a better job.” With the win, the Tigers (7-2) took an 18-10-1 advantage in the overall series with USC. “It’s just unfortunate,” Berson said, “espe cially after the great goal we scored early and then the number of chances we created in the First half. We could have been up 3-0 before the first two (Clemson) goals went in. “When you miss those chances, it often comes back to haunt you, and that’s what it did today.” The Gamecocks will have a week to rest be fore they get back on the field. It will take on Gardner-Webb next Monday at the Graveyard. The time off should benefit USC, which is battered and bruised after a tough week of play. Joey Worthen and Jack Cummings played at Clemson but were not 100 per cent. AMENT _I Anthony Stovall fights for the ball. The Gamecocks haven t defeated Clemson since 1995 . photo by aaron hark