University of South Carolina Libraries
THE GAMECOCK ♦ Monday, October 21, 2002 Q t _ GAME SCHEDULE CONTACT TIvS ■ J m I ■ j I MEN’S SOCCER at College of Charleston, 6 p.m. Wednesday lnu I ■ ■ | X ■ . MEN’S TENNIS at ITA Fall Regionals in Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I \ 111 WOMEN’S TENNIS at Rolex Regional in Winston-Salem, N.C., E-mail us at gamecocksports@hotmail.com —I— V/ I _JL_ S Thursday-Friday f* Blowout in the Bayou LSU SCORES 32 SECOND-HALF POINTS, DEVASTATES GAMECOCKS IN BATON ROUGE <J}BY MARY FOSTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BATON ROUGE, LA. - LSU faced a big problem going into its game against USC, and it wasn’t the loss of their starting quarterback. Coming off their first victory over Florida in five years, the 14th-ranked Tigers trailed the Gamecocks 14-6 at halftime be fore roaring back for a 38-14 vic tory. “We didn’t handle success very well in the first half, I thought,” said LSU coach Nick Saban, who had cautioned against a letdown all week. JCjven muugxx wc nay* liigix eii ergy in pregame, I don’t think we _ had the kind of focus that we need ™ed. Maybe toughness. I don’t know what it was, but there was some thing missing out there in the first half, especially on defense.” Marcus Randall, replacing Matt Mauck, who was injured in the Florida game, ran and passed for 219 yards and rallied the Tigers (6-1, 3-0 SEC) with a 25 point third quarter in his first col lege start. “I might have had a little jit ters,” Randall said. “But football is football. There was no pressure on me.” The pressure was on the LSU defense, ranked No. 1 in the na tion. The Tigers allowed Carolina (5 3, 3-2) to score on the opening drive, and they allowed more # ♦ FOOTBALL, SEE PAGE 10 PHOTO BY ROBERT GRUEN/THE GAMECOCK USC senior spur Rashad Faison tries to bring down LSU’s Joseph Addai during Saturday’s game at Tiger Stadium. The Gamecocks had trouble containing Addai and the LSU offense, which ran roughshod over USC in the third quarter. The Tigers scored 25 points in the quarter and took control of the game. LSU has now won six straight games since losing its opener to Virginia Tech. Carolina had a four-game winning streak snapped and will probably have to win out to have any chance of winning the SEC East. GAME 8 eusc 14 (5-3,3-2 SEC) LSU 38 “The third quarter, what happened? I do not know.” COREY JENKINS use QUARTERBACK ' Matthew Thomas’ roughing the kicker penalty in the third quarter gave LSU an automatic first down and the ball on the USC 13-yard line. Tigers running back Shyrone Carey ran the ball in on the next play to give LSU a 24-14 lead. Corey Jenkins completed only five passes for 65 yards in the game. One of the passes was a 60-yard touchdown strike to Troy Williamson, meaningJenkinsonly completed four more passes in the game - for a total of 5 yards. Third quarter leaves USC shellshocked BY KYLE ALMOND THE GAMECOCK USC’s football team couldn’t have asked for much more at LSU than a 14-6 halftime lead in rau cous Tiger Stadium. After scor ing on the game’s opening drive, the Gamecocks controlled play and had the 14th-ranked Tigers •4 on the ropes. But when the second half start ed, Carolina crumbled. In a grue some third quarter that saw USC gain only 1 yard from scrimmage, LSU racked up 25 unanswered points within an eight-minute span and left the Gamecocks scratching their heads. “The third quarter, what hap pened?” quarterback Corey Jenkins asked after the game. “I do not know. This place got crazy, and momentum changed, and it was 30-14.” Nose tackle Langston Moore said the team was confident going into the second half. “Everyone was excited,” he said. “Everybody thought that we would not have to pour it on them. But this is the defending SEC champion, and they poured it back on us.” LSU’s rally started on the half s opening drive. The Tigers, aided by a 15-yard pass interference penalty, drove 58 yards on 10 plays, and quarterback Marcus Randall ran for a 12-yard touchdown. Randall then connected with Michael Clayton on the two-point conversion, tying the game at 14. When Carolina got the ball, it turned it over on the first play. Jenkins’ bomb was picked off by LSU cornerback Demetrius Hookfin, and the Tigers capital ized on the miscue, driving 60 yards and taking the lead on a field goal by John Corbello. USC didn’t do much better on its second possession of the sec ond half, going three and out. Corbello hit another field goal for LSU, giving the Tigers a 20-14 lead. But USC’s Matthew Thomas was called for roughing the kick er, and LSU head coach Nick Saban decided to take the penal ty, erasing the three points and continuing the drive. It was the right move to make. On the next play, Shyrone Carey scored on a 13-yard touchdown run nand gave the Tigers a commanding 24 14 lead. “A couple of key plays really got us off our rock er,” Moore said. “We came out and stopped them on Moore second and third down, and we got a pass interference and gave them some momentum back. Then we ran into the kicker, and instead of giving them three points, we gave them six. That really got the crowd and the momentum behind them, and they just got going.” Moore said he was held on Carey’s touchdown run. “We had a blitz going our way, and he shot right pass me and there was no hold call,” Moore said. “I couldn’t get off, and I just knew the momentum was theirs. “I knew the game was lost. All you could do was keep fighting and try to hold the score down.” As devastating as Carey’s touchdown was, USC’s nightmare still wasn’t over yet. On Carolina’s next play from scrimmage, Jenkins floated a screen pass too high, and Hookfin snatched it out of the air and ran the return back for a touchdown and a 30-14 lead. “I read the receiver when he was going to crack the lineback er,” Hookfin said. “I saw the tail back staying in the backfield, so I just read it and picked it off.” If Carey’s touchdown didn’t fin r' ish the Gamecocks, Hookfin’s sure did. In just less than 13 min utes, Carolina had run only five offensive plays and was outscored 25-0. Saban called the third-quarter performance one of the best he had ever seen. “I think it is a real tribute to our players because we didn’t ♦ THIRD, SEEPAGE 10 I Standings EASTERN CONF. OVERALL Georgia4-07-0 use 3-2 5-3 Florida 3-25-3 Kentucky*1-25-2 Tennessee 1-24-2 Vanderbilt 0-4 1-6 WESTERN CONR OVERALL LSU 3-0 6-1 Alabama* 2-1 5-2 OleMiss 2-1 5-2 Auburn 2-2 4-3 Arkansas 1-33-3 Mississippi St. 0-3 3-4 * Under postseason ban - cannot compete in SEC title game PHOTO BY AARON HARK/THE GAMECOCK Senior Melinda Carter assisted on USC’s only score Sunday. Camille Toney’s goal held up for a 1-1 tie with Tennessee. Women’s soccer ties No. 13 Tennessee T Tennessee i (10-5-1,3-2-1 SEC) SUSC 1 (10-5-1,3-3-1) BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE GAMECOCK In an ironic twist on Sunday’s Senior Day at the Graveyard, it was a freshman that provided the major offensive lift for the USC women’s soccer team. Freshman Camille Toney’s goal at 74:31 tied the match, and a stingy Carolina defense kept the 13th-ranked Tennessee Lady Volunteers from victory. The Gamecocks, trying to recover from their 2-1 overtime loss to Georgia on Friday, held Tennessee through two overtimes to a 1-1 draw. It was the third time in four games that USC had a 1-1 game go into overtime. The previous two times, Carolina lost. Both teams played a fairly even first half, each getting solid offen sive attack going. Tennessee held a 5-3 edge on shots at halftime, but the Gamecocks still had numerous chances. Neither squad converted on its opportunities, though, and USC goalkeeper Elise Matthews kept three shots out of the net. The Lady Vols’ Ellen Dean had a rela tively easy time, only stopping one shot on goal in the first half. USC (10-5-1,3-3-1 SEC) found its offensive stride in the second half, constantly putting pressure on Dean and the Tennessee defense. Melinda Carter got a pair of shots off, only to be denied each time, and sophomore Ashley Williams had a couple of her shots hit the crossbar. Yet the Lady Vols (10-5-1,3-2-1), behind Sue Flamini’s three sec ond-half shots, managed to keep their attack going, outshooting the Gamecocks again. At 70:22, Kayla Lockaby found Rhian Wilkinson from 8 yards out, and Wilkinson put home the go-ahead goal, her fifth of the season. But four minutes later, Carter took a pass from Amanda Thurber and knocked it ahead to Toney, who split the defense to bang in her third goal of the year from 8 yards up the middle. Toney knew it was just a matter of time before USC got on the board. “If you noticed, ‘Bullet passed the ball,” she said, referring to Carter. “We’re all in it, we just needed to get on it, and it just hap pened to be me. I was in. the right place at the right time, and it was awesome that Bullet passed it and we got on it.” It was quite a physical game, es pecially in the first half, as 13 fouls were called. The Gamecocks’ de fense fought its way to the ball, stopping the Lady Vols repeatedly in the defensive zone and bringing the ball out to the forwards. USC head coach Shelley Smith praised her starting defensive corps of Becky Leeper, Kanika McAlpine, Sarah Lentz and Alison Jarrow. “The back four, we like to keep them in there,” she said. “They are in sync, and they play well to gether. They’ve done a great job to play together well, and they know how each other plays. That’s been a key in shut ting down oppo nents.” Carolina with stood even more pressure from Tennessee through Toney the two overtime periods, but Matthews remained unfazed, stop ping five shots in the match to se cure the tie. “I think Elise did a great job to day,” Toney said. “She ca^e out and helped us out a lot. We need ed her to pull through, and she def initely did that today.” The draw was the first-ever for the Gamecocks against the Lady Vols—the last SEC team Carolina has yet to beat. USC won their first games against Kentucky and Florida earlier this season. “Today, we had no doubts,” Toney said. “We went in there without any doubts, knowing that we were going to try to put this . game away and not let (the se niors) be on the losing end of it.” Tying the Lady Vols gives Carolina positive feelings as it pre pares for its final SEC games this weekend — road contests against Alabama and Auburn. Everyone contributed Sunday, and that’s what Smith likes to see. “We’re very happy with the ef fort today. The team is proud of what we did,” she said. “It’s al ways disappointing not to finish when you have good chances. To play a team like Tennessee, that’s a very good team, and to get out of here with a point in SEC play against a top team in the country is definitely an accomplishment for us. I’m very proud of the entire team effort.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com