The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 31, 2003, Page 8, Image 8
8 - ■ THE GAMECOCK ♦Monday, March 31,2003 GAME SCHEDULE
SOFTBALL vs. Tennessee (DH), 5 p.m. Tuesday
nn\Trmnrn TTO ' MEN’S TENNIS at Georgia Tech, 1 p.m. Wednesday
vjUIN 1 Avj 1 L O SOFTBALL vs. Tennessee, 4 p.m. Wednesday
. , _ . „ BASEBALL vs. Clemson, 7 p.m. Wednesday
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USC rebounds with sweep
BY BRAD SENKIW AND NICK
YOUNG
THEOAMECOCK
When wins are becoming hard
to come by, there is nothing better
than a series sweep of an SEC foe.
The USC baseball team (19-9,4-5
SEC) knocked off Vanderbilt (13
13,2-7) in a three-game series with
scores of 2-0,11-7 and 8-3 this week
end, snapping the Gamecocks’
four-game losing streak.
Game 1: USC 2 -
Vanderbilt Q
The Gamecocks started a
three-game weekend series off
with a bang. After going 1-5 in its
past six SEC meetings, the USC
•baseball team took a step in the
right direction with a 2-0 win over
Vanderbilt. With the win, the
Gamecocks ended their losing
streak. The win over Vanderbilt
is USC’s 18th consecutive victory
over the Commodores.
In a game full of big hitters, the
match actually turned into a
pitching duel between Carolina’s
Steven Bondurant and
Vanderbilt’s Jeremy Sowers.
Bondurant came out on top while
allowing only five hits and strik
ing out seven in a complete-game
shutout.
The shutout is the first of
Bondurant’s career. His com
plete-game shutout is also
Carolina’s first since Kip
Bouknight’s in the 2001 NCAA
Regional. Bondurant’s record
improved to 3-1, and he dropped
his earned-run average to 3.56.
Sowers pitched in ei^ht in
nings, allowing nine hits and giv
ing up only one earned run. He
also struck out eight. Sowers, who
leads the SEC in strikeouts, fell
to 0-4, but lowered his earned-run
average to 2.70.
Carolina scored a run in the
second when Justin Harris was
brought home by a Kevin Melillo
single. Jon Coutlangus, who had
two hits, added an unearned run
in the fourth when a single scored
Michael Campbell.
On Vanderbilt’s side, Warner
Jones collected three of the
Commodores’ five hits.
Game 2: USC 11 -
Vanderbilt 7
With a tied game in the bottom
of the 10th inning, Coutlangus
came to the rescue fof the
Gamecocks with a game-winning
walk-off grand slam. USC was
down>7-3 in the eighth inning, but
three home runs in three innings
led the Gamecocks past the
Commodores.
Justin Harris went 4-for-5 with
three RBIs and a home run, and
Steve Tolleson also added a home
run in a 2-for-3 day. Reliever
Chris Hernandez (2-1) picked up
the win, pitching the final 41/3
innings. Hernandez allowed one
run on two hits and struck out
three when he relieved Zach
Reeves, who came in for starter
Conor Lalor.
The Gamecocks were down 3
0 in the first two innings before
they tied it in the third.
Vanderbilt scored three more
runs in the sixth inning and one
in the eighth. But Carolina got a
rally going, scoring three runs in
the eighth, one in the ninth to tie
the game and four to win the
game in the 10th inning.
Jensen Lewis (2-4) got the loss
for the Commodores, and Cesar
Nicholas led the offensive, going
3-for-5 with two RBIs and a home
run.
Game 3: USC 8 -
Vanderbilt 3
Carolina once again came from
behind on Sunday to win 8-3 and
take the series sweep over
Vanderbilt. The Gamecocks
trailed 3-0 after four innings, but
rebounded to score the eight final
runs of the game.
David Marchbanks pitched the
second complete game in the se
ries and recorded the win.
Marchbanks gave up three runs
on seven hits and had seven
strikeouts to shut down the
Commodores when he had to.
Brian Buscher was l-for-4 with
three RBIs, and Melillo added an
RBI in a 2-for-3 performance. The
Gamecocks had 11 hits and three
for extra bases.
Buscher highlighted the four
run fifth inning with a bases-load
ed double that scored three runs.
Once Carolina had the lead, the
team added four more runs over
four innings, including a solo
home run by Bryan Triplett in the
ninth inning.
Ryan Mullins gave up five runs
on seven hits in the loss.
The Carolina baseball team
now turns its attention to a home
game against the Clemson Tigers
on Wednesday.
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PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
USC’s Steven Tolleson slides Into second base as he watches the ball go past Vanderbilt
Infielder Zach Simpson. Carolina swept the Commodores in a three-game series.
Carolina defeats Auburn, loses to Tide
BY MATT ROTHENBERG
THE GAMECOCK .
Going into this past weekend,
the 37th-ranked USC women’s
tennis team had won 18 consecu
tive matches against teams from
the SEC Western Division. The
Gamecocks briefly continued that
streak against 59th-ranked
Auburn and 20th-ranked
Alabama, coming out with a 5-2
victory over Auburn and a 6-1 loss
to the Crimson Tide.
USC 5 - Auburn 2
USC won a big doubles point
against the Tigers. Gamecocks
Catherine Brown and Justine
Walsh dropped the third doubles
match 8-4 to Sarah Suitor and
Isabel Rosenbrock of Auburn. But
Carolina rebounded as Jodi
Kenoyer and Danielle Wiggins de
feated Auburn’s pair of Ashley
Cowart and Liz Sauerbom 8-4 to
tie things up.
In the tiebreaker, USC’s Kathy
Boyanovich and Magda Wojdylo
made a comeback from being
down 2-5 to winning the match 9-8.
In singles play, Boyanovich
coasted to an easy 6-1,6-1 win over
Carolina Ramirez; and in No. 2
singles, Kenoyer defeated Petra
Bercik 6-3,6-4 to pick up another
point for USC. Brown lost her No.
5 singles match to Suitor 2-6,2-6,
yet Wiggins also had a relatively
easy time, beating Rosenbrock 6
3,6-1 in the No. 3 singles position.
Wiggins’ victory clinched the
competition for the Gamecocks,
and she leads the team in singles
wins. Walsh grabbed the final
point in singles for the
Gamecocks with a 7-5,4-6,1-0 (7)
win over Martina Janska. Despite
being down through most of the
tiebreaker, Walsh pulled it out
over Janska.
With the win, the Gamecocks
increased their winning streak
over SEC Western Division teams
to 19 matches.
“Any SEC win is a big win,”
USC head coach Arlo Elkins said.
“The SEC is the toughest confer
ence in the country, and any time
you win, it helps you prepare for
the NCAA Tournament.”
Alabama 6 - USC 1
The Gamecocks (12-6,5-3 SEC)
were sent inside because of in
clement weather, but that didn’t
help USC against the Crimson
Tide. Alabama (15-4,5-3) took the
doubles point, with three victo
ries over the Gamecocks.
Alabama’s Robin Stephenson
and Natalie McElveen took the
first doubles match over
The season isn’t over yet for
the Gamecocks. They will travel
to Georgia on Friday for a match
with the sixth-ranked Bulldogs,
and then on to Knoxville for a
Sunday meeting with seventh
ranked Volunteers.
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Duyanuvicii auu
Wojdylo 84, while
Ashley Bentley
and Nathalie
Koppelle took an 8
5 decision over
Wiggins and
Kenoyer.
Brown and
Walsh failed to sal
vage a doubles
win, losing 8-3 to
Sophie Cremers
and Marie Lord
Andrade.
Carolina was
largely unsuc
cessful in singles
play, as well, with
Walsh providing
the lone point for
USC. She won her
sixth doubles
match 4-6, 6-3,1-0
(10-5) over
McElveen of
Alabama. Walsh’s
overall record im
proved to 13-6 with
the win.
PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
USC’s Jodi Kenoyer returns the ball during her match against Alabama’s
Robin Stephenson. Carolina beat Auburn on Friday to go 1-1 this weekend.
BRIEFLY
Bradley leads USC to
20th at NCAA meet
The USC men’s swimming
team placed 20th at the NCAA
Championships in Austin, Texas,
this weekend. This was the
team’s third top 20 finish in the
past four years. Auburn won the
team championship, and USC fin
ished with 31 points in the com
petition.
Diver Andy Bradley placed sec
ond on the 1-meter board and sev
enth on the 3-meter board. With
those finishes, he earned two All
American honors, and Bradley’s
results were the best by any men’s
diver in USC history.
Tamas Szucs, a swimmer, fin
ished in 15th place in the 200-me
ter freestyle with a time of 1:36.97.
He garnered his first honorable
mention All-American honors
with his performance.
Both swimming and diving
teams will return most of their
athletes, with each losing only one
senior — Cory Conway and
Kristen Butler — to graduation.
Softball wins two of three versus Tigers
Stacey Johnson earns the victory
in first and third games of series
BY SHAWN ROURK
THE GAMECOCK
USC’s softball team took two
out of three games against
Auburn this past weekend in
Alabama. The 15th-ranked
Gamecocks (24-8,8-3 SEC) split
a doubleheader on Saturday
and shut out the Tigers (19-20,
7-8 SEC) on Sunday.
USC 12-Auburn 1
Junior Stacey Johnson im
proved to 10-4 on
the season as she
held the Tigers
to one run on
two hits. The
Gamecocks beat
Auburn 12-1 in
the first game of
a Saturday dou
Johnson bleheader in
Auburn.
Debralee Troesh earned a
season-high five RBIs on 2-of-3
at the plate. She also scored
twice.
Auburn took the lead early
when Kasey Angulo hit a solo
shot over the wall in the second
inning. USC bounced back in
the top of the third with five
runs on five hits to put itself up
5-1.
Carolina added two more
runs in the third while batting
around the order.
Meghan Cornett put USC up
10-1 off a three-run homer, her
second of the season. USC put
two more runs on the board in
the fifth inning to finish off
Auburn.
Auburn 2-USC 1
Auburn bounced back in the
second game of
the Saturday
doubleheader
with a 2-1 victory
in eight innings.
No team was
able to manufac
ture a run until,
in the bottom of Curtis
the sixth inning,
Auburn’s Ashley Griffin scored
from third on a wild pitch by
Aleca Johnson to put Auburn up
1-0.
USC tied the game in the sev
enth when Amber Curtis drove
in Kim Evans and forced extra
innings.
Auburn strung together a se
ries of hits in the eighth inning
to win the second game of the
doubleheader
The Gamecocks stranded 11
runners on base in the losing
effort. Johnson fell to 2-2 on the
season in the loss.
USC 4—Auburn 0
USC ended the final day of
games in Alabama with a 4-0
shutout of the Tigers.
Stacey Johnson had another
strong performance in the game,
and allowed only five hits. With
the win, she improves to 11-4 on
the season.
The Gamecocks jumped ahead
in the first inning when Amber
Curtis led off the game with a
double and later scored on a
groundout from Troesh. In the
second inning, freshman Ashley
Smith hit a two-run homer to
widen USC’s lead to 3-0.
Curtis scored her second run
of the game in the third when
she scored off a Danielle
Quinones single to left center.
Johnson finished off the rest
of the Tiger batters to earn a
complete-game shutout.
The Gamecocks return home
this week to face off against
Tennessee in a doubleheader.
First pitch is set for 5 p.m.
-
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Where
are all
the real
boxers?
jt/a— ,
BRAD SENKIW
GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM
Best matches are on
HBO’s documentaries.
I was watching a little television
the other night and came across
something that captivated me.
HBO has been doing a special on
some of the greatest boxing match
es in history for the past couple of
weeks, and I finally caught one.
“Marvelous” Marvin Hagler
was taking on Thomas “The Hit
man” Hearns in an epic battle be
tween two amazing athletes. There
was trash talking, pure hatred, a
bloody battle, big hits, a dynamite
finish and two men shaking hands
at the end. Everything you could
ever want in boxing.
Watching this made me ask
some questions. Why does this not
' happen anymore? Why has a great
individual sport that tests the men
tal and physical wills of men gone
down the toilet?
In this day and
age, boxing looks
more like a circus
than a true sport.
You have ele
phants (Lennox
Lewis), lions (Roy
Jones Jr.) and, of
course, clowns
(Mike Tyson). Jones
In my lifetime,
there have been
omy a iew ligms uiai wouiu sianu
out as remarkable, none of which I
can say have occurred over the
past several years.
Some people would argue that
boxing saw a resurgence this past
month with Tyson finally knock
ing someone out, a 193-pound Jones
beating down a 224-pound John
Ruiz, and Wladimir Klitschko be
ing dominated by some nobody
from South Africa. (
The entire sports world thought
it was right to stop everything be
cause of these so-called amazing
bouts. Three or four decades ago,
these wouldn’t even be a story in a
boxing magazine.
First, Tyson should never be a
story, even though he did beat
someone and didn’t bite any ears
or get pummeled by a giant. And
as big a fan of Jones as I am, box
ing shouldn’t resort to David beat
ing Goliath to make major head
lines.
Wladimir, oh Wladimir. How I
prayed for the day you would step
onto the canvas and annihilate that
sorry excuse for a champion,
Lennox Lewis. Instead, you decid
ed to get knocked off your feet,
again and again and again and
again by Corrie Sanders. I was al
most sure Lewis’ days as king of the
boxing world were ending when
you got a hold of him. But, now, I
wonder whether you could last
with the overrated Hasim Rahman.
Speaking of Lewis, how nice is
it to have a heavyweight champ
who refuses to fight everyone? He
claims no one is good enough to
get into the ring with him. Great,
then let them step through the
ropes and knock their jaw off.
As much as I want to get excited
about boxing, there is no one to
feel good about. The best boxing
might be from the smaller fight
ers, such as Bernard Hopkins,
Fernando Vargas and the retired
Felix Trinidad. I wish I could have
lived to see the prime fighting days
of Ali, Frazier and Foreman — the
younger version, not the over
weight, middle-aged grill promot
er.
It s almost as if boxing should
just be done away with, and the
only fights we should watch are
the documentaries that come on
HBO. I guess I’ll just hope that an
other Hagler, Leonard or
March inano can take hold off an
entire sports world. When that
happens, someone wake me up
from this boxing hibernation.
Senkiw is a third-year print
journalism student.