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8 THE GAMECOCK ♦Monday, November 4,2002 nAATrmnmTm I B/ \ I B f I I W 1 MEN’S GOLF in Hawaii, Monday-Tuesday CONTACT US I " m I I—^ I CROSS COUNTRY at SEC Championships in Gainesville, Fla., Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I 1 7 I I ILf MEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Team Nike (exhibition), 7:30 p.m. Thursday E-mailusatgamecocksports@hotmail.com \_/ ■ V_ —MEN'S TENNIS at ITA National Indoors in Dallas, Thursday LATE DRIVE BY UT BURIES GAMECOCKS FOR THIRD STRAIGHT SEASON PHOTO BY TRAVIS LYNN/THE GAMECOCK Carolina quarterback Corey Jenkins was constantly harassed Saturday by an attacking Tennessee defense. Jenkins finished with only five completions for 45 yards, his worst output of the season. The Volunteers have won the last 10 meetings with Carolina. BY NICK YOUNG THE GAMECOCK The year is different, but the re sult is the same. For the third straight year, the USC football team dropped anoth er close game to the Tennessee Volunteers, losing 18-10 Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium. After losing two SEC games in a row, the Volunteers (5-3,2-3 SEC) were in danger of losing three straight for the first time since 1992 — the last time that USC (5-4, 3-3) beat Tennessee. The Gamecocks seemed to have the momentum and a legitimate shot at winning the game after Thez Robinson’s 6-yard touch down run put them within two at the beginning of the fourth quar ter. Tim J ^ U U l A i V/JJJU11UVU II iUi iW I/VU L drive of the season. In a 17-play, 90-yard drive that spanned 8 minutes and 38 seconds, the Volunteers broke the Gamecocks’ spirit — and the hearts of USC fans, who were wearing garnet as part of the Student Gamecock Club’s “Garnet Gameday” promotion. Quarterback Casey Clausen’s gutsy 5-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-one finished the drive and put UT up for good. “We had the momentum, but then they put a good drive on us,” USC cornerback Dunta Robinson said. “We’d have them at third and-four, and they’d just get a first down and keep the drive going.” The one thing that killed the Gamecocks all game was third down. Tennessee excelled in this category both offensively and de fensively. On the offensive side of the ball, UT was successful on nine of 10 third-down attempts from 5 yards or fewer. “We’ve had a problem with third downs all season,” Robinson said. “We’d play well for two downs, and then on third, we’d give up big plays. That’s some where that we really need a gut check. We just really need to work on that.” Overall, the Carolina defense gave up 416 yards to the balanced Tennessee attack. The Gamecocks’ run defense struggled once again, as UT gained 241 yards on the ground. “We knew they were going to run the ball, so it’s nobody’s fault but the defense,” defensive tackle Langston Moore said. The Volunteers held on to the ball for about 38 min utes and left the USC defense frus trated and visibly tired. f' un inai lasi drive, we were Tennessee worn down a good signal- bit,” linebacker caller Lance Laury said. Casey “We made tackles Clausen when we had to, was cool, , , . ’ calm and but we were just collected worn down.” against Offensively, the the USC Gamecocks were defense held to two of 10 on Saturday, third down, and esP®?ially they couldn’t find on third , , ... down. much ofa rhythm Playing with a one-sided attack all night long, Carolina ended the game with 184 rushing yards and 45 passing yards. “We couldn’t throw the football at all,” USC head coach Lou Holtz said. “When you rush for 184 yards and foot 170 in passing, you have decent production. But we got no production out of the passing game. None. GAME 9 T Tennessee 10 (5-3,2-3 SEC) fjSt usc 10 V5P (5-4,3-3) THE QUOTE “I thought we would be better coming off of an off week” LOU HOLTZ use HEAD COACH THE PLAY On fourth-and-one from the 5 yard line, Tennessee quarterback Casey Clausen padded his team’s fourth-quarter lead when he rolled out of the pocket and dove for a touchdown. The gutsy call proved to be the right one, putting IfT up by eight. USC couldn’t sniff Vol territory after that, much less the end zone. mmmmmmrnz mm m msmassm.m-—n I rib b l AI 45 Carolina could muster only 45 passing yards for the game, on five completions. The running game was successful, but neither Corey Jenkins nor Dondrial Pinkins could keep the Vols honest on defense. “We had three interceptions and 40-some yards; the passing game is our biggest problem right now.” Many of USC’s passes were thrown in the dirt, out of bounds or out of reach. Corey Jenkins and Dondrial Pinkins also had a few passes dropped by receivers, some in key situations. “In the first half, we dropped the screen pass where we had a chance to score, then we dropped the third-down pass," Holtz said. “We missed those opportunities.” In the opening drive, Tennessee held the Gamecocks to ♦ TENNESSEE, SEE PAGE 9 Carolina’s passing game just not catching on BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE tlAMKCOCK After losses to LSU and Tennessee, the Gamecock passing game might be best described as an “equal opportunity” system. Nearly everyone has gotten at least one chance to drop or miss a pass. Over the last two games, com pletions have been few and far be tween. It is a fact that has killed any production Carolina would have on offense. After another pitiful performance against the Volunteers Saturday, where Corey Jenkins and Dondrial Pinkins combined for 45 yards pass ing, the throwing game will once again garner plenty of attention from USC head coach Lou Holtz. “Our passing game was just nil,” Holtz said. Tennessee “mixed up their coverages, played some man then bailed, and once they get you behind and down a distance, they would go to their two coverage, and they played it very, very well. “I thought our protection was pretty good overall, but downfield, every time we threw it, they tend ed to be there.” Jenkins went 5-of-13 for 45 yards, with his longest pass being a 24-yard strike to Michael Ages in the third quarter. Pinkins fin ished 0-for-6. The pair was sacked three times and combined for three interceptions. Carolina’s of fense only converted two of 10 third-down situations. Pinkins offered some answers for the team’s passing difficulties. “I think we just stopped our selves,” he said. “There were a lot of missed assignments, a lot of dropped passes and a lot of bad throws.” While the Tennessee defense has an experienced secondary, its lim ited USC to a little over a third of the Gamecocks’ passing yards against LSU — a team that had one of the top pass defenses in the country. plify our passing game to one or two reads. “I thought that we’d be better on offense — more productive on it. I thought the passing game would be better, but I thought we i uwik we jusi sioppea ourselves, mere were a lot of missed assignments, a lot of dropped passes and a lot of bad throws” DONDRIAL PINKINS use QUARTERBACK With two weeks to prepare for this game, Holtz admitted that the passing game wasn’t so sharp in practices, yet he still thought his team would be better. “We just didn’t throw the ball real well in practice or catch it real well,” he said. “We tried to sim ran the ball pretty well.... It was the passing that was the problem.” Jenkins disagreed, though, say ing that the offensive plans were just fine. “I don’t think it needs to be sim plified because we know what we’re supposed to do,” he said. “Every day in practice, we go and execute, and as soon as a different colored jersey comes, then some times we may overthink. We know as an offense, we have to execute, and we just didn’t do it. “We came into this game with a perfect game plan. We couldn’t ask for much more. We got two weeks to prepare for something. So you study it for two weeks, and, come test day, you should be able to pass.” Without an adequate passing game to supplement the running attack, the Carolina offense couldn’t even mount a decent at tack against the Volunteers. USC’s only two scores — on two. ex tremely short drives — resulted from Tennessee blunders. Plenty of fans cheered Pinkins when he first entered the game in the third quarter, but those same fans quickly clamored for Jenkins when the redshirt sophomore proved ineffective. Holtz said it was offensive co ordinator Skip Holtz’s decision to insert Pinkins, and he stressed that the senior from Columbia will remain the starter. ♦PASSING, SEE PAGE 9 Volleyball finishes home slate with wins Mmsu o (10-16, Ml SEC) u use 3 (19-4,12-1 SEC) BY AL JUDY TIIK (JAMEGOOK After four years of playing vol leyball for tJSC, the Gamecock se niors played their last home matches over the weekend against Ole Miss and Mississippi State. Each senior began their Carolina careers with wins, and they made sure they wouldn’t dis appoint the home crowd in their last appearances at the Volleyball Competition Facility. The 20th-ranked Gamecocks (194,12-1 SEC) easily defeated the Mississippi State Bulldogs 3-0 Sunday, with game scores of 30 18, 30-18 and 30-20, following a similar 3-0 sweep Friday against Ole Miss. In the first game Sunday, Bema Dwyer led Carolina with seven kills, as Mississippi State only hit .188. USC hit .526 in the first stanza but allowed the Bulldogs (10-16,1 11) to come as close as three points before blowing them away. Game two was much of the same. Nadia Sefferovich and Sarah Morgan had four kills apiece for the Gamecocks. Freshman Nicole Miller came off the bench and provided a spark for USC, adding three kills. The Bulldogs hit a match-low .053 and couldn’t get any closer than five points down the stretch. Carolina only hit .378 in the sec ond game, its lowest percentage in the match. USC head coach Kim Christopher thought Sefferovich was one of Carolina’s top per formers this weekend. “Nadia had a great weekend,” Christopher said. “Nadia has been recovering from shoulder surgery, and for her to come in against Mississippi and lead the team with a .350 attack percentage and against Mississippi State with a .435 and 11 kills, she was one of our offensive leaders.” The match ended with a 30-20 win by USC in game three. Miller, Morgan and Niece Curry all led the way for the Gamecocks, while Nicole Broome had four kills for the Bulldogs. USC’s six seniors — Dwyer, Sefferovich, Megan Hosp, Sam Alban, Cally Plummer and Yajaira Cadet — were honored before Friday’s match against Ole Miss as part of the annual Senior Day festivities. And with emotion on its side, Carolina defeated the Rebels 3-0, rebounding from a loss to Florida earlier that week. In a dominating effort, Plummer and Curry, who both had 14 kills in the victory, led USC. Game scores were 30-16,30 22 and 30-17. Plummer had five aces for the Gamecocks, while Hosp set a sea son-high 46 assists and Cadet recorded 19 digs. “This weekend was an emo tional weekend because of all the seniors,” Christopher said. “We were glad to play some of our younger players like Nicole Miller. She’s really such an exciting play er, and today she came in games two and three and hit over .500 in her first time out. ” Christopher is now 11-0 against Mississippi State, and she feels the next few weeks will be the most important part of the season as the team heads into postseason play. The SEC Tournament runs from Nov. 21- 24 in Fayetteville, Ark. The NCAA Tournament starts on Dec. 5. The Gamecocks’ next match will be Nov. 8, when they travel to Knoxville to complete their season series against the Volunteers. USC defeated Tennessee 3-2 in Columbia on Oct. 13 in a thrilling five-game contest. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com ' PHOTO BY AARON HARK/THE GAMECOCK Megan Hosp and USC’s seniors went out wHh a victory in their last match in the Volleyball Competition Facility.