Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Charle BY JIM HERSH Asst. Sports Editor Two Saturdays ago a team with a won-loss record around .500 (Vil lanova) and one super-scorer (Tom Ingelsby) came to the Coliseum and was inhospitably upended by the red-hot Carolina Gamecocks. Wed nesday night Fordham and Ken Charles will make the trip South and should be about as successful as Vil lanova. Depth wi to baseb BY SKIP COURTNEY Sports Writer Carolina's baseball team, whose depth is expected to play a major part in their success due to an expanded schedule, will open their season on the road against Baptist College Thursday and N.C. State over the week-end. Depth is the big plus in the Gamecock's favor this year. This depth and an enlarged pitching staff are two necessities that the team needs to be able to cope with their expanded 57-game schedule. Fans may see a facet of the game that was somewhat lacking last year. This new part of the team will be the addition of some power hit ters. "We will run as much as we did last year," Coach Bobby Richar dson said, "but we also have more power to go along with it. If our pitchers can hold the other team to a run or two, we are bound to score. "Any teto.n can win on a given day with a good pitching effort. It is always nice to win the opener to get started on the right foot, a loss would be bad," said Richardson. Alan Hilliard will be starting on the mound for the Gamecocks. Richardson thinks the senior lefth ander has been looking good in workouts Sophomore Earl Bass will be hur ling in the second game of the sea son Friday. Bass is the ace of the staff and will be going against N.C. State. Bass was the most effective pitcher on the staff last year as a freshman. He had a 5-1 record with an ERA of 1.50. George Beam is the coach's choice to be on the mound on Satur day in the second game with the Wolfpack. One factor in this deci sion could be the fact that Beam set the school record for strikeouts (17) SA On All BAG 1212 MAIN STREET OLUMBIA, S. C. 292I Ram's ce s is Fo In other words, it looks like Carolina, who will know whether or not they are NCAA play-off-bound before the game, will make Fordham its 22nd straight Coliseum victim, 19th victim overall this year and ninth consecutive win. Fordham, 13-13, must feel like Joe Frazier did around the middle of the second round in his fight with George Foreman. They have been bouncing from tough team to tough II be key all record in a 3-0 shutout last year against N.C. State. He is a hard-throwing left-hander whose problem has been control. He has hit 22 batters in his three years as a Gamecock. All the starting positions are pre tty well decided with the exception of third base. At that position freshman quarterback Jeff Grantz is giving a senior, Bruce Pudlock, a run for his money. Pudlock will start on opening day because he is experienced and Richardson knows what he can do, but Grantz, like many of the other younger players, will see a good deal of action as the season progresses. Besides being a good fielder, Pudlock was also one of the Gamecock's powermen with six homers last year. Going around the infield back wards, sophomore Eddie Ford will be returning at shortstop. Ford set a record with 153 at-bats last year and hit .275 as a switch hitter. The second base slot will be filled by freshman Al Worthington. Worthington, who played shortstop in high school and batted .317, has made the transition to second base. His father was a pitcher and is now a pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins. First base will be played by soph. more Hank "Hammer" Small. He hit .379 as a freshman and set a school record with 53 hits, including 11 doubles and four home runs. Drew Choate, playing behind the plate, will round out the young infield. Choate is a top defensive player, handling 304 chances with out an error last season. He hit .212 last year after coming off a .165 mark as a freshman. Choate was drafted after high school by the Phillies in the second round of the baseball draft. LE Iolored MS Extra Big Bonus free late show Fri. 2nd March ..s at Miracle Theatre present this ad """ for free ticket to: o' s tse similar to rdh am' team in the second half of their schedule, which reads somewhat like the top twenty. And they have gone down often. Their latest beating came at the hands of Marquette 63-57 Saturday afternoon at- Madison Square Gar den. Before that the Rams played Syracuse, Maryland, St. John's and Notre Dame--all in the month of February. Carolina might not be the last to knock them down since the EARL BASS ...to open at home. The Gamecock outfield will also be comprised of young players. A freshman, Steve King, will be the leftfielder. King is another con verted player, switching from catcher to the outfield. He batted .513 with nine homers for his state champion high school team. Junior John Gambrell is the start ing centerfielder. He plans to try switch hitting this year after hitting .301 and .321 right-handed the past two seasons. Gambrell set school marks for doubles with 12, and sto len bases with 21, last season. He has a career average of .314 and 33 stolen bases. The starter in right-field will be Ken Schull. Schull, a walk-on, had second highest batting average last year at .345. He was used as a utility man before becoming the regular secondbaseman. The Gamecocks will return from their week-end road trip to play a six-game home series. The team's expanded schedule has 31 games in store for them in the first 32 days of the season. II, brar~ 2-28 it year te show 'kets at "Bottoms 8 T " anlev Sweetheart /illanova ssole i Rams still have to play Mas sachusetts, who has beaten Pennsyl vania in the Palestra, and Manhat tan, who beat Michigan and gave Carolina a hard time in the Holiday Festival. After those two games the Rams should be down for good. An NIT team last year who had hopes of going back, there will be no invi tation for them this year. Charles, like Ingelsby did for Vil lanova, will probably keep the Rams from total annihilation on Wednes day. His average of around 25 points is among the top ten in the nation and the Gamecocks will most likely find him difficult to stop. But if USC contains the rest of Fordham's team like they did Villanova, the Rams should not present Carolina with Tennis tear by Ga. Sc BY SHARR Sports The USC tennis team won it with a convincing 8-1 victoi Statesboro, Ga. on Saturday. The Gamecocks took a str< winning all but the number < mier singles spot Kevin McC victory over Charles Ellis of to win the match with set sci USC took all of the remain Kefalos leading the way in th< easy wins of 6-3 and 6-1 ovei The number three spot sav Fiumano 6-4,6-1. In the fourti defeated Bill Charles 6-4, 6-; fifth match-up for the Gamec lis. Finally in the sixth spot,] Ted Dansby 6-0, 6-1. All three of the doubles m only one team running into team spot McCarthy and Br: Fuimino with scores of 7-5 ar bles Kefalos and Hufschmid Charles in three sets, 6-2, 4-6, followed with an easy victory scores of 6-3 and 6-2. The next opponent that the pton Institute, which is favo division. Coach Ron Smarr a match. Smarr also said that Desan1 tion singles for the Hamptoi will be played on March 3, he NOW OPEN 7 D THE WINNEI RESTAL (1111 GREEN STREET -- E BY POPULAR DEMAND WE AND EFFICIENT BUFFET FOR Includes one meat with all the plate, bread and butter, and coffe FOROC .hreat any great threat, especially in the Coliseum. Besides Charles, who starts at forward but can play in the back court, Fordham will have 6-6 Bart Woytowicz at forward and sopho more Darryl Brown at center. In the backcourt will be Frank Hayward and Tom Pipich, neither of whom score very much. But, for that mat ter, other than Charles no one really scores r - much for the Rams. Compar, .nat with Carolina's bal anced attack--where Kevin Joyce is averaging 20 points, Mike Dunleavy 10 and the other starters some where in between--and you can forsee a USC win, something in the same mold as the one over Vil lanova. T1 blitzes )Uthern ON SEJMAN Writer s opening match of the season ry over Georgia Southern in mg attack against the Eagles, me singles match. In the pre arthy opened with an easy set Southern, but Ellis recovered res of 7-5, 6-3. ing singles matches with Jeff number two position, gaining Bunner Smith. Doc Mallory defeating Drew position, Andreas Hufschmid . Tom Collins easily took the ocks by 6-2,6-3 over Tim Wal diark Rosenblum romped over atches went to Carolina, with three sets. In the top-seeded tan Desatnik slid by Ellis and id 7-6. In the number two dou lowned the team of Smith and and 7-5. Tom Craig and Collins over Dansby and Wallis with Gamecocks will face is Ham red to win the NCAA College aid it should be a very good lik would start in the one posi ulInstitute match. The match re on the Maxcy Gregg Tennis AYS A WEEK! 4S CIRCLE RANT EHIND S.C. BOOKSTORE) ~RE NOW SERVING A FAST LUNCH AND SUPPER! vegetables you can put on your 9, tea, or Coke. NLY *1.5O ECK IT Otraa