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GAME SCHEDULE _ MEN’S GOLF at Kiawah Island Intercollegiate in Charleston, CONTACT US „„„„„„ , Monday-Tuesday VOLLEYBALL vs. Clemson, 7 p.m. Tuesday Story ideas? Questions? Comments? WOMEN’S SOCCER vs. Clemson, 7 p.m. Wednesday E-mail us at gamecochsports@hotmail.com MEN’S SOCCER vs. New Hampshire, 7:30 p.m. Friday USC fumbles its way to first loss Turnovers translate into first defeat for Carolina BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE GAMECOCK If the number seven is lucky, the Virginia Cavaliers would certainly agree. With six lost fumbles and an intercep tion, turnovers doomed the Gamecocks on Saturday night as USC lost to the Cavaliers 34-21 in Charlottesville, Va. USC head coach Lou Holtz could not comprehend the outcome, but he pointed out Virginia’s positives. “How many turnovers did we have? Seven? It seemed like more,” he said. “Seven turnovers and 11 penalties. I don’t ever remember being in a situation like that. “But talking about our turnovers doesn’t give Virginia credit. Virginia played very well. They converted on third down. They made the nlavs. and we didn’t.” Things looked promising early for Carolina (1-1) after Matthew Thomas caught Corey Jenkins’ 10-yard pass for a touchdown in the first quarter. Thomas also returned a kickoff for a touchdown in the second quarter to give USC a 21-20 edge going into halftime. But Virginia (1-2) closed out the game in the third quarter, scoring two passing touchdowns — the second from Heath Miller, a tight end originally recruited as a quarterback — and shutting down the USC offense. Jenkins was Carolina’s leading rush er and passer for the second week in a row, with 119 yards through the air and 94 yards on the ground, but his sloppiness with the football cost USC a chance to come back. The senior accounted for three fumbles and an interception in the game, and his last fumble — on the Virginia 5 yard line with 6:17 remaining, sealed the Gamecocks’ fate. Jenkins, making only his second ca reer start at quarterback, was apologetic after the game. “It only takes a split second to make a bad decision, and I made a bad decision four times,” he told The State newspaper. “I've just got to let it go. I'm not glad it happened, but I’m glad it happened early. “I just hope the guys still have faith in me to be their quarterback.” Holtz was asked about Jenkins trying too hard, thereby causing the giveaways. “He may be,” he responded. “He’s try ing to make plays. But sometimes you have to eliminate the bad plays. You don’t always need the great play.” James Adkisson was the Gamecocks’ receiving leader with three catches for 39 yards, but he left the game early with a knee injury. The Gamecocks’ defense, the question mark going into the game after allowing 419 yards to New Mexico State in the sea son opener, allowed 339 yards to Virginia. Defensive linemen Langston Moore and Moe Thompson each had an interception, but Holtz still thinks that the defense needs work. “On third downs, we had far too many missed assignments and allowed the quar terback to break containment,” he said. As Holtz hinted at earlier in the week, there were changes in the USC defensive lineup. Thompson, a freshman, started at defensive end. Defensive end George Gause was moved to linebacker, lineback er Jermaine Lemon was moved to spur, and spur Rashad Faison started at strong safety. Wide receiver Andrea Gause start ed at comerback. But even with the defensive struggles, turnovers were USC’s ultimate demise. Three of USC’s six fumbles resulted in touchdowns. Cavaliers quarterback Matt Schaub went 20-for-30 for 170 yards and two touch downs. Receiver Billy McMullen caught four passes for 72 yards and a touchdown. Virginia head coach A1 Groh was com plimentary about his offense’s play. “We got some good plays from a lot of players,” he said. “Billy McMullen was magnificent. He probably had two of the best catches that anybody has ever had in the state of Virginia tonight. He’s a great competitor. Schaub ran the game very well.” Groh was excited about the win and what it means for his young program. PHOTO BY AARON HARK/THE GAMECOCK The Gamecock defense scrambles for the ball after defensive tackle Langston Moore (No. 57) fumbled an Interception in the second half of USC’s 34-21 loss to Virginia. The Gamecocks fumbled seven times during the game, six of which were recovered by the Cavaliers. GAME 2 0 21 X Vi$f 34 THE QUOTE “I just hope the guys still have faith in me to be their quarterback.” COREY JENKINS USC QUARTERBACK When USC QB Corey Jenkins fumbled on the Virginia 5-yard line with 6:17 remaining, the '* Gamecocks lost their last chance at a comeback. A score would have put USC within six points, but instead, Virginia was able to run out most of the clock. 7 Number of turnovers for USC, off six fumbles and one interception. The Gamecocks only had 15 turnovers in all of last season,* seven of which were fumbles. “The game had absolutely everything; it was pretty wild,” he said. “It is a big step forward for our team. They can be very proud of what we accomplished.” Virginia has a bye next week, but the Gamecocks will get a chance to quickly make up for their poor showing Saturday night. USC, which dropped out of both polls with the loss, plays host to Georgia, ranked No. 9 by the Associated Press, next Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com Volleyball team victorious in annual Carolina Classic BY ROBIN NURRE THE GAMECOCK Carolina once again proved its superiori ty on the volleyball court, going undefeated this weekend and dominating an elite field of teams in the Carolina Classic.1 USC (5-1) defeated Arizona State, Creighton and 13th-ranked Pacific, sweep ing the latter two to lay claim to the title. “We really came together as a team,” sophomore Niece Curry said. “We’ve made our presence known. Beating the schools we beat, we’ll get recognized.” Friday night, USC met Arizona State and went toe-to-toe with them before finally as serting their dominance and downing the Sun Devils in four games—33-31,31-33,30-26 and 30-25. Senior Cally Plummer led the team in kills with 18, while three other Gamecocks had double-digit kills as well. In their second match of the Classic, USC put Creighton away quickly, sweeping them 30-16,30-18 and 30-17. Curry led with 10 kills and a .563 hitting percentage. Senior Megan Hosp added 31 as sists and tied Plummer’s school record of service aces in a game (8). In the tournament’s final game, Carolina came up against Pacific and showed their experience and talent, de feating the Tigers in three games — 30-21, 30-19 and 30-24. USC came out strong, controlling Pacific in the first two games of the match. In the third game, the Tigers dug in but came up short, and the enthusiastic Carolina fans helped carry the team to victory. Plummer led the team with 12 kills against Pacific, while senior Berna Dwyer was right behind her with 11 kills and a .526 hitting percentage. Curry also came up big again, providing 10 kills, many of them at key moments in the match. “Offensively, we put up big numbers,” USC head coach Kim Christopher said. “Niece and Berna both hit over .500.” Hosp dished out 38 assists on her way to being named the tournament’s most valu PHOTO BY SARAH WALKER/THE GAMECOCK The USC volleyball team won three matches this weekend and won the Carolina Classic. Next up for the Gamecocks will be Clemson at home on Tuesday night. able player. Being named with Hosp on the All-Tournament Team were Curry and se nior Sam Alban. “Niece Curry had a great tournament, and enough can’t be said about setter Megan Hosp’s play,” Christopher said. “Sam came up with some huge blocking for us, which was vital during the tournament.” USC now hopes to take the momentum it gained this weekend into Tuesday night, when Clemson comes to Columbia for the annual rivalry match. “This is the game,” Curry said. “It’s time to get the (in-state) title again. We have won the last two years. ” Clemson will bring a lot of experience, however. The Tigers return 10 lettermen and four starters, including their lone senior, setter Jessi Betcher, who was the ACC’s Rookie of the Year in 1999. Christopher feels her team is ready for the challenge and knows her team will be ready if it can stay relaxed and keep the en ergy up. “With Clemson/Carolina, you just throw the ball out and see what happens,” Christopher said. The Clemson match will be played at 7 p.m. at the Volleyball Competition Facility. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com BRIEFLY Men’s soccer wins Duke tournament The USC men’s soccer team, ranked No. 10 in the nation, re mains undefeated after toppling Duke 3-0 on Sunday to win the Duke/Adidas Classic in Durham, N.C. Duke was able to outshoot Carolina 11-6, but the Gamecocks (4-0) were able to capitalize on their opportunities. Anthony Stovall came off the bench in the first half to score Carolina’s first goal at the 35:22 mark, and Jordan Quinn notched another goal less than two minutes later to give the Gamecocks a 2-0 halftime advan tage. Freshman Josh Alcala then scored his first goal of his career to give Carolina the 3-0 lead. Quinn was named the tourna ment’s most valuable player. He also scored the game-winning goal in Friday’s 2-1 win over North Carolina State. Making the all-tournament team along with Quinn were goalkeeper Michael Bachmeyer, midfielder Jack Cummings and defender Jordan Smith. Women’s soccer improves to 3-1 Senior Melinda Carter scored twice in the second half, and ju nior midfielder Melissa Hutson added a goal and an assist as the USC women’s soccer team de feated East Carolina 4-1 on Sunday afternoon in the Puma Classic. Carolina improved to 3-1 with the win. The Gamecocks lost their first match of the season Friday, 2-0 to Charlotte, the host team of the tournament. “We dominated on the offen sive side for a majority of the game, and we are happy to come away with a win,” USC head coach Shelley Smith said after the win over ECU. “We still need to learn to compete for °0 min utes and not have any letdowns. ' “Melinda stepped up and came through for us in the second half and really was a leader out on the field. Our team is learning, and we need to continue to step it up.” Carolina outshot the Pirates 18 4 and didn’t allow a shot until the early part of the second half. USC scored its first goal of the match early in the first period at 13:15. Senior Morgan McIntyre took a pass near the top of the box from freshman midfielder Stacy Bunchman and beat ECU goalie Lauren Church with a goal to the right comer. East Carolina scored its lone goal in the 59th minute to tie the match. USC came right back on the of fensive, scoring in less then five minutes. Junior midfielder Erica Bowie served a ball into the box that was tipped by Jess Julin and headed into the goal by Carter to TY11+ TTQP am USC finishes second in cross country meet In Saturday’s Charlotte Relay Invitational, the USC cross coun try team was edged out of first place by the host team. The Charlotte 49ers’ score of 10 points was enough to defeat the Gamecocks, who were right be hind with 11 points. Queens College finished in third with 24 points. The Gamecocks’ team of Jenny Lake and Lauren Paige finished in second place overall with a time of 22 minutes, 26.4 seconds. The j 6,000-meter relay race was ran in teams of two, with each person running 3,000 meters. Charlotte’s Jen Taylor and j Cassie Ficken placed first with a time of 22:03.1. The Gamecocks had four teams finish in the top 10, in cluding Shay Shelton/Kinsey Eschenburg (fourth place) and Katie Harbert/Mary Utsey (fifth place).