Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Carolina Meets Rugged Houston Against local amai Basebai Carolina gets v chance to stretch its baseball muscle tonight when they meet the Columbia Jets at 7:30 at the Roost. Lefthander Tim Lewis and righthander Raymond Lavigne are expected to handle most of Carolina's pitching load tonight. Lewis posted an 11-2 record last season, while Lavigne was 5-0. The Jets will send Billy Moore to the mound. 'Moore posted a 6-2 record and a 1.83 earned run average for Columbia this sum mer. DGET 'j HA Iusions On A DoublDei TRIUMVIRAT Give It To The People RIGHTEOUS THERS PLUS: JOH SA 919 SURIN BY STEVE PARKER -Sports Editor After seeing two of their first three op'ponents set school rushing records against them, it must seem comforting to the Gamecocks to -know that Saturday night's foe, Houston's Cougars, is an unlikely candidate for any rushing records. Not because Houston doesn't run well, because they do. And not because Carolina's defense will stop them, because past showings say they probably won't. But, instead because the Cougars rushed for 555 yards in a 1968 lopsided 100-6 thrashing of Tulsa University. And while this year's Cougars have a full crop of talented running backs, the school's individual rushing mark is also likely to stand up through Saturday night on the strength of a 280-yard-plus game by Paul Gibson years ago. Nonetheless, unless Carolina's defense has improved drastically since Georgia's 52-14, 502-yard game, Houston's running backs should enjoy a field day. Donnie "Quick Draw" McGraw is the leading Cougar rusher, lugging the ball for an average of eurs I team p The Jets are a local amateui baseball team from the Central Carolina League. Their coach Teddy Heffner, thinks the game will help both teams. "The game if being played mainly to dra%% publicity to each team," Heffner said. "We don't expect to wir because USC has a lot of talent. I would say that if we were at our mid-season form the game would be very close." The Jets were 18-E last summer. USC has almost everyone back from last season's nationally 'APES AND S MORE SAV N LENNON (HIS LATES L E PR ICE - *79 e lER I Across Frnon UASC. Hacr 6.4 .yards a trip. Marshall. Johnson is just a step behind, at 6.0 a trip. % Reggie Cherry, who gave the Gamecocks fits last year in Houston's 27-19 win in the Astrodome, is second string, as is John Housman. But both play a considerable- amount of time. Houston's entire team is big and extremely fast, but the squad picked to finish high nationally has been somewhat disappointing. The 2-2 record of the Cougars is about two games shy of the number of wins they figured to have at this point of the season. Arizona State upset the Cougars handily 30-9 in the opener behind seven Houston fumbles, two returned for touchdowns by the Sun Devils. Miami of Florida handed Houston its other loss, physically pounding the Cougars 20-3 on national television. After Houston dropped its opener, the team regained some of its 10th ranked defense of last year to shut out rival Rice, 21-0. And this past weekend the Cougars put on an awesome display against the Gobblers of Virginia Tech and turned back the Turkeys, 49-12. Houston's defense has been the team's strong point, and, with the tys exhibit ranked team. Richardson thinks his club will be better than last year's because many that he ex pected to turn pro did not. Back are people like Hank Small at first base. Small led the team in hitting last season with a .360 average. Earl Bass, an All America pitcher, is also back for t Carolina, although he is not slated to start against Columbia. Greg Keatley, a transfer from Miami Dade, will start at catcher, and Mark VanBerver, also from Miami Dade, will start at RECORDS INGS Powr And'The Gfny . T RELEASE) och unshoeb exception of Miami, no team has beaten the Cougars on offense. The defensive tackles, Wilson Whitley and Lee Canalito, weigh in at 286 and 269. DONNIE MCGRAW ...leads Houston runners. Houston's offense is a football tradition, with a host of former Cougars now playing professional football. Paul Gibson, Robert Newhouse, Elmo Wright, Riley Odoms and Warren McVea are just a few. Coach Bill Yeoman invented the veer offense and so it seems unlikely,even if Carolina regains the veer form it had last year but not yet this year, that the Gamecocks could outveer the Cougars. 0i ion gamet second base. Both were top draft picks this June in the annual pro baseball draft. USC appears to have the talent to have another good year this spring. Coach Bobby Richardson says the exhibition game against Columbia will give his team a chance to play against top com Columbia c-Eddie Hill lb-Teddy Heffner 2b-Bailey McClinton ss-Tommy Moody 3b-Pete Carpenter If-Mike Toma cf-Robby Rogers rf-Bob Kleinknecht p-Billy Moore MOE I Has received a Pin-Wale C 11 9 differs Moe Levy Headquarte 1.30 Carolina's 'offense has yet to get unttacked, but this fact has been largely hidden by the defense's weak showings. Although Carolina has run well, with Jay Lynn Hodgin's 8.5 yards a carry tops, the offense has bogged down in the crucial situations. The passing game has been poor. The combined totals of Jeff Grantz, Ron Bass and one option attempt by Hodgin have piled up just 182 yards on 12 completions in 32 attempts. Five passes have been intercepted with just one touchdown thrown. But, to make light of a woeful situation caused by the rushing defense, the opponent's passing has been statistically worse in everything but percentage of completions. Three opponents have 141 yards in passing and no touchdowns. But opponents sure have been able to run. Georgia Tech, Duke and Georgia gained 1334 yards on the groundaveraging 6.4 yards per trip. Hours after Saturday night's 7:30 kickoff USC could find itself 0-4 after the first four games of a season for the first time since 1940 when the team ended up 3-6. onight petition. The two teams are also scheduled to play next Monday and Tuesday . The Columbia Jets will bring a two-year 36-9 record into the game. They won the Central Carolina's title in 1973 and several members of the team participated in an all star game in Alaska last Jul Carolina c-Greg Keatley lb-Hank Small 2b-Mark VanBerver ss-Jim Fleming 3b-Jim Pankovits If-Steve Cook cf-Gary Hancock rf-Don Repsher dh-Steve King EVY'S r Shipment brduroys mt colors s and Britches Brew re for almost Anythin Assembly