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USC's Lauren Ford and the rest of the Gamecocks are playing two tough road games this weekend Volleyball to compete at UGA, No. 3 Florida BY WES WOLFE THE GAMECOCK The USC volleyball team (10-10, 44 SEC) is looking to regroup this weekend, coming off losses against Arkansas and LSU last weekend. Carolina’s 10 losses this season are the most the team has suffered since it went 14-12 in 1999. Carolina has two tough matches when it travels to Georgia (13-7, 6-2) and No. 3 Florida (20-1,8-0). Georgia has reeled off five wins and four straight shutouts coming into Friday’s game against USC. The 3-0 wins over Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss and Mississippi State mark the first time Georgia has recorded that many shutouts since an eight-match shutout run in 1997. The Bulldogs shut out six oth er teams earlier in the season and typically play mistake-free vol leyball. For instance, USC leads Georgia by a significant margin in each statistical category for er rors. The only solace Carolina can take in facing Georgia is that the Bulldogs are only 5-4 at home, as opposed to 5-2 on the road or 3-1 on neutral courts, and USC has won six of the past seven matches be tween the two schools. < The Gamecocks will need to keep an eye on three Georgia players that have been a proven force this year. Outside hitter Julia PetruSchke is only 19 kills away from hitting the 1,000-kill mark in her junior year with the Bulldogs. The six-foot German is also leading the team in digs, beating out teammate Luresa Forsythe. The senior outside hitter has led Georgia in digs the past three sea sons and, if she goes ahead of Petruschke, could be the first player in the history of the school to lead the team in digs for four consecutive years. Setter Margot Wallace is also going at an excellent pace with 904 assists on the season and a fifth place standing on Georgia’s all time assist list. Middle blocker Alexandra Oquendo, coming off an ACL in jury from last spring, is playing very well, leading the team in hit ting at .360 and second on the team in both kills and blocks. Even as tough as Georgia will be, Florida proves to be a bigger challenge for the Gamecocks. The Gators’ only loss of the sea son came to top-ranked Southern Cal. After that loss, Florida has had 20 straight wins and 19 straight shutouts. Historically, Carolina hasn’t been much competition for Florida, who leads the overall se ries 28-6. USC last beat Florida in 1994 and since then, the Gators have held Carolina at bay, win ning the past 18 matches. ironically, the 3-1 by the Gamecocks in 1994 was the last time Florida lost an SEC match.. Last season, the Gators shut out every SEC squad but Arkansas on the way to an SEC title and an NCAA Final Four appearance. Outside hitter Aury Cruz will be sure to cause the Gamecocks trouble this weekend. Cruz cur rently leads Florida in points, kills, serves and digs. In her match against Ole Miss on Oct. 19, Cruz had 13 kills, two service aces, nine digs and four blocks. Performances like Cruz’s last. Sunday are the reason she has been the SEC Player of the Year the past two years and a first team AVCA All-American last year. Middle blocker Benavia Jenkins is another major player on the Florida team. Jenkins has a .465 hitting average, which is sub stantial in comparison to USC’s hitting leader. Carolina middle blocker Lauren Ford only has a 2.96 hitting average. USC will try to make a late-sea son turnaround against Georgia at 7* p.m. in Athens, Ga., and against the stiff competition of Florida on Sunday at 6 p.m. in Gainesville, Fla. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com Rioting West Virginia students could be disciplined by university -THE ASSOCIATED PKESS MORGANTOWN, W.VA. - West Virginia University officials will study videotape and photographs ^^o identify rowdy football fans who jJPknored pre-game pleas and set fires in the streets to celebrate the Mountaineers’ 28-7 upset of No. 3 Virginia Tech on Wednesday night. “If there are students in the pic tures, and I’m sure there will be, they’ll be hearing from our stu dent affairs office and will be dis ciplined accordingly,” university spokeswoman Becky Lofstead said Thursday. At least a dozen of approxi mately 90 fires set early Thursday were described as “sizable” by Monongalia County emergency of ficials. No one was seriously in jured and structural damage was confined to a few porches, said Sgt. g^dike Lantz of the Morgantown ^Police Department. “It’s definitely out of hand,” Lantz said. “We just can’t continue like this every time we have a night game or a national game.” County officials activated an emergency operations center for about two and-a-half hours early Thursday and considered cutting off power to Morgantown’s Sunnyside neighborhood, where many students live. “Some of the fires are large enough to get into the power lines, and we’re running a big risk of ac tive lines shorting and dropping into the streets,” said David Flanigan, public information offi cer for the county’s Office of Emergency Management. Inside the stadium, police used pepper spray on fans who tried to tear down the goal posts after West Virginia’s victory. State Police and dozens of yellow-shirted se curity personnel surrounded the goal posts and kept fans at bay. Brad Anderson said he was hit by the pepper spray when he ran down onto the field. “We can’t breathe. We’re hacking up our lungs, but it was worth it,” Anderson said. Fans retaliated by throwing de bris at the security officials. After West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez pleaded with fans over the public address system to de part, the field cleared quickly. Outside the stadium, an un known number of police and fire officers were struck with rocks and bottles, but all were treated and released from hospitals and no serious injuries were reported, Flanigan said. One student was charged with battery on a police officer after punching an officer who was try ing to take alcohol from him, Lantz said. About 20 other people were arrested on charges of set ting fires, disorderly conduct and public intoxication. Lantz could not identify the stu dents or give an exact number of arrests because police reports were still incomplete. At one point there were about 5,000 students on Grant Avenue, a main street in Sunnyside. “It’s as bad as we feared it would be,” Flanigan said. “We’re as prepared as we could have been, and we’re utilizing every re source we have.” Earlier this month, the univer sity disciplined three students who participated in similar post game mayhem after the Mountaineers’ 22-20 loss to No. 2 Miami, Lofstead said. One was ex pelled, another is facing expulsion and a third is on what the school calls deferred suspension, mean ing he is one infraction away from expulsion. Some of those students were identified through newspaper pho tographs. Early Thursday, about 130 po lice officers waded through the crowds, including 50 of Bowden ready to pass Paterno this week BY BRENT KALLESTAD •THE ASSOCIATED PRESS TALLAHASSEE, FLA. -Wake Forest is no longer taking up space on Florida State’s schedule between big games. A pushover for years, Wake ^^Forest visits the sixth-ranked IjBpSeminoles on Saturday with a ' "winning record and an offense that gives Florida State coach Bobby Bowden a reason to pause as he stands poised to possibly be come the winningest coach in Division 1-A. Florida State (6-1,5-0 ACC) can move a victory closer to its 11th league title in a 12 seasons and a 12th straight win over the Demon Deacons (4-3, 2-2) also will give Bowden his 339th victory. Bowden is tied at 338 with Penn State’s Joe Paterno, whose Nittany Lions take on No. 16 Iowa on Saturday. Paterno shrugged off the possi bility he might relinquish the record to Bowden. “I don’t care about the record,” Paterno told ESPN’s “College GameDay” in an interview to be broadcast Saturday. “If it was some body else, I might feel differently.” A victory would give Bowden a rare chance to celebrate a mile stone at home. Bowden collected win No. 200 at home, a 42-3 over Louisiana State in 1990. But his 100th and 300th wins came at Virginia Tech and Clemson. He passed former SPORTSCHALLENGE THE CHALLENGE: Brad Wes Charles Adam Stacl Matt The Gamecock’s readers and Senkiw Wolfe Tomlinson Beam Jordan Hammond staff test their sports knowledge Sports Asst.. Sports Editor in Managing Page Reader of with Dredictions of the Editor Editor Chief Editor Designer the Week weekend’s games. (Frankings are (46-34) (46-34) (46-34) (52-28) (50-30) (40-38) from The Associated Press.) Oregon St. at 6 Wash. St. Wash. St. Wash. St. Wash. St. Wash. St. Wash. St. Wash. St 15 TCU at Houston TCU Houston TCU TCU TCU TCU Miss. St. at Kentucky_Kentucky Kentucky Kentucky Kentucky Kentucky Kentucky 12 N. Illinois at 23 B. Green N. Illinois N. Illinois B. Green B. Green N. Illinois B. Green 10 Purdue at 13 Michigan Michigan Purdue Michigan Michigan Michigan _ Michigan 4M^21 Arkansas at Ole Miss Arkansas Ole Miss_Arkansas Ole Miss Ole Miss Arkansas " ’22 Tennessee at Alabama_ Tenn. Alabama Tenn. Tenn. Tenn. Tenn. 17 Auburn at 9 LSU_ _Auburn LSU LSU LSU LSU Auburn North Carolina at Clemson Clemson Clemson UNC Clemson UNC Clemson Vanderbilt at USC USC USC USC USC USC USC 27-14 31-10 27-10 35-3 24-17 27-10 SPORTS CHALLENGE a tiGHIn-wttK UUTLOOK: Keaaerorine weeKjasuri oiewaruinany represented Tortne readers with a tie for first with Asst.. News Editor Alexis Stratton. Stewart was the first to win a free T-shirt and capture the coveted weekly title. Brad Senkiw and Wes Wolfe caught up with Charles Tomlinson last week and look to leave their boss in the dust after this week. There was an error in Wednesday’s games. Miss. St. at Kentucky was left off but will be inlcuded this week. Be sure to get your picks in next week by Thursday at 2 p.m. WANT TO BE READER OF THE WEEK? E-mail your selections next week to gamecocksports@hotmail.com. If you’re picked and have the best record, you’ll win a free Gamecock T-shirt and be able to talk all the trash you want. Alabama coach Bear Bryant with win No. 324 in Kansas City last year with a 38-31 victory over Iowa State. Bowden claims that the record is secondary to pushing his team back into national title contention. “If you start looking down the road, trying to prepare down the road, you will get beat this game and won’t even have a chance to compete in it,” Bowden said. With No. 3 Virginia Tech los ing Wednesday, Florida State like ly would move back into the top 5 if the Seminoles beat Wake Forest. Florida State has not been chal lenged by the Demon Deacons in five previous home league games, outscoring Wake Forest by 188 points. But a year ago, Wake Forest jumped to a 14-0 lead and led 21-7 before the Seminoles closed with 27 straight points and won 34-21. Wake Forest is averaging 26.7 points and 322 yards. The Demon Deacons will depend on a run ning attack that averages 169.4 yards against a Florida State de fense giving up less than 82 yards rushing and just over 10 points a game. Wake Forest has been vulner able to a strong passing game, though, allowing nearly 285 yards a game. Florida State coaches would like nothing better than to give junior quarterback Chris Rix an opportunity to boost his confidence heading into the final month of the season that includes road tests at Notre Dame, Clemson and Florida and a home finale against North Carolina State. Morgantown’s 54-strong police force with help from State Police, WVU campus security and officers from neighboring cities and towns. - “I saw people burning couches, mattresses, recliners,” said stu dent Harrison Hume. Fire and police officials had spent two days before the game re moving garbage and couches from citizens’ front porches. This week Rodriguez left recorded messages on students’ answering machines, taped a video message shown on the sta dium’s scoreboard and made other requests through the media, im ploring fans to act responsibly. 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