Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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8 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Monday, April 7, 2003 GAME fSCHEDELE ■ 'V ■ 'V FT1 / '''J MEN’S TENNIS vs. Wake Forest, 2 p.m. Wednesday AAATniAnm tto 1 11 ft I Irl I W l SOFTBALL at Georgia (DH), 5 p.m. Wednesday CONTACT US ■ J 1 I 1__J I BASEBALL at Clemson, 7:15 p.m. Wednesday ■ ■ I \ I i MEN’S AND WOMEN’S TRACK at South Carolina Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I \ #ll | ft I State Championship in Columbia, Wednesday E-mailusatgamecocksports@hotmail.com ■ \_/ 1 ■ rV_/ SOFTBALL at Georgia, 5 p.m. Thursday : Tigers take two from USC * • BY BRAD SENKIW THE GAMECOCK The USC baseball team (20-12, 5-7 SEC) dropped a three-game series against the LSU Tigers (21-10-1,9-2-1) on the road in Baton Rouge, La. After losing the first game 5-1 and winning the second game 8-5, the Gamecocks were blown out in the final game 12-4. Game 1: LSU 5 - USC 1 The Gamecocks once again struggled to put runs on the board as they dropped the first game of the series to LSU 5-1. Steven Bondurant (3-2) went seven innings and gave up five runs on eight hits in the loss. Justin Meier was the story for the Tigers as he pitched a complete game, giving up only one run on 10 hits. Ryan Patterson led LSU with a two-run home run in the bottom of the second inning, and Clay Harris also added a home run in the eighth inning. Landon Powell, Trey McDaniel and Bryan Triplett each had a 2-for-4 performance on the day, but the Garnet ocks stranded seven men on base. Down 3-0 with the bases loaded, USC threatened to get back in the game in the fourth. With only one out, Justin Harris grounded into a double play that ended the Gamecocks’ hopes of gaining the lead. Carolina’s lone run came in the seventh inning when Michael Campbell hit into a double play with the bases loaded that scored Triplett from third. LSU added a run in the seventh inning and Clay Harris’ home run in the eighth to secure the first win of the three-game series. Game 2: USC 8-LSU 5 USC broke a five-game road losing streak with a strong offensive performance that landed the Gamecocks an 8-5 win over LSU. Carolina used a big fourth inning, led by Michael ♦ BASEBALL, SEE PAGE 9 NLfc r HU I U bY M Arm bUHILLIINu/ I Hfc UAMtUUUK USC’s Justin Harris had four hits in the Gamecocks’ series against Louisiana State over the weekend. Two of Harris’ hits came in Saturday’s 8-5 win over the Tigers — Carolina’s only victory in the three-game series. Pitching, hitting lead Carolina in sweep FILE PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK Debralee Troesh, left, hit her eighth home run of the 2003 season In Saturday’s 7-0 blanking of the Wildcats. Troesh is now one home run from tying the all-time USC single-season record. BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE GAMECOCK Following a series loss to Tennessee earlier in the week, the 14th-ranked Gamecock soft ball team needed to get back on track during the weekend. They did just that in Lexington, Ky., as USC (28-10,12-5 SEC) swept the Kentucky Wildcats (9-29,1-17) in a three-game series, winning the games by scores of 7-0,7-2 and 6-0. The series against Kentucky is a prelude to a challenging stretch of games for Carolina, with contests against Georgia, Florida and Alabama looming on the horizon. USC 7 - Kentucky 0 Sparked by three home runs, the Gamecocks ended their two game losing streak with a 7-0 win over the Wildcats. USC opened the scoring in the first inning when Kristin Hall hit her first home run of the season to give the Gamecocks a 1-0 lead. Debralee Troesh, who went 2-for 4 with two runs scored and two RBIs, added another solo home run in the fourth inning to ex tend the Carolina lead. With the home run, Troesh has eight on the season, one away from tying the all-time USC record of nine, set by Joyce McMillin in 1999. The Gamecocks put the Wildcats away in the sixth in ning, scoring five runs on five hits. Troesh singled in Nancy Crane to open the onslaught, and Jodi Fittro scored on an error be fore Meghan Cornett sealed the game with a three-run home run. Cornett and Troesh each have nine career home runs, placing them in a tie for seventh overall on the all-time USC list. Stacey Johnson (13-5) shone on the mound for the Gamecocks, earning the shutout while striking out eight batters, a personal high against SEC teams this season. Amy Kendall suf fered the loss for the Wildcats. USC 7-Kentucky 2 Pitching and power hitting vaulted the Gamecocks to a 7-2 victory over Kentucky in the sec ond half of the teams’ double header on Saturday. USC’s Melanie Henkes pitched her first complete game since March 13 and allowed two runs on four hits while striking out eight bat ters en route to the victory. USC got on the board early when Danielle Quinones hit a three-run home run in the first inning, bringing in Fittro and Troesh. Quinones was the top batter at the plate for Carolina, going 2-for-3 with two runs scored and three RBIs. Samantha Jennings and Amber Curtis both crossed the plate in the second inning to give USC a 5-0 lead, and Cornett brought in Troesh and Quinones in the fifth inning to close out the scoring for the Gamecocks. Rachel Frieberg’s single that drove in Jessica Nance in the fifth inning cut the Carolina lead to 7-2, but Henkes (12-2) retired ♦ SOFTBALL, SEE PAGE 9 USC reports additional football violations to NCAA Former Gov. Hodges broke rules by meeting with recruits, officials say COLUMBIA (AP) - USC says former Gov. Jim Hodges met a second time with football re cruits last year, violating NCAA rules. A year ago, South Carolina re ported the first secondary viola tion of NCAA rules. Athletics Director Mike McGee says that when the violation was reported in February 2002, a second inci dent was also reported to the NCAA. Previously, the school publicly disclosed only the first incident, when offensive lineman Brandon Jeffries visited to the Governor’s IVJansion in February 2002. The undisclosed incident came when Hodges met with a group of re cruits during a home basketball game against Vanderbilt on Jan. 19,2002. Hodges, who left office in January, is an avid Gamecocks fan. A bookcase behind his desk was lined with football helmets, with South Carolina’s headgear in a favored spot above the rest. Hodges, who earned his law degree at USC, was a nonvoting member of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees while in office. NCAA bylaws prohibit any con tact “on or off campus between a member of the institution’s board of governors and a prospect.” Other meetings took place, records and former recruits say. Hodges’ appointment sched ule, obtained by The State news paper, shows the governor was scheduled to talk to recruits at halftime during a Jan. 15, 2000, South Carolina-Kentucky bas ketball game at Carolina Coliseum. It says the governor would “briefly speak to football recruits.” The entry lists Clyde Wrenn, USC’s assistant athletics direc tor, in charge of high school re lations, as the contact person at the game and says, “Coach Wrenn will find you during the first half to let you know where they (recruits) will be having dinner.” Wrenn told USC sports infor mation director Kerry Tharp that he remembered Hodges coming to the Kentucky game, Tharp said. The Anderson Independent Mail reported Friday that Miami freshman receiver Ryan Moore said he and four or five other re cruits met Hodges while standing on the sideline before USC’s home game against Clemson in November 2001. Tharp said South Carolina of ficials would try to determine if the school broke any NCAA rules involving those allega tions. “We will look into any infor mation that is brought to our at tention and handle it accordingly if need be with the Southeastern Conference office,” McGee said in a statement. On Saturday, coach Lou Holtz said he asked the coach involved in the new incidents to provide a report of what a happened. He said game over a year served ice cream halftime.” Holtz The incidents South Carolina previously report ed were considered secondary vi olations by the NCAA, which asked that school officials send a letter of reprimand to the coach or coaches involved. Tharp said he didn’t know if Wrenn had received such a letter after the Jan. 2002 incident.. ■ Athletes’ falls as dramatic as rises BRAD SENKIW GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM It’s hard to understand how athletes lose edge. There is nothing better than seeing an athlete rise to greatness. Day after day we watch, read, write and discuss how men and women have overcome remark able odds, physically and mental ly, to amaze the sports world as well as themselves. But have you ever thought about the reverse side of this rise to greatness? This weekend, I noticed that Ken Griffey Jr. suf fered yet another injury early in the season that will cost him six weeks off the field. I thought about how Griffey went from an All-Century outfielder and pos- Griffey Jr. sibly the greatest baseball player ever to being booed in Cincinnati by fans for dislocating his shoulder. How did * Griffey fall so fast? Why isn’t he smashing deep balls like he did in Seattle? Evidently, Griffey has caught the injury bug since joining the Reds, but why isn’t he coming back and performing well after these injuries? Could it be a men tal problem? It seems that throughout the years, there have been several of these types of cases. Athletes go from the top of their profession to the depths, seemingly overnight. Diagnosing the problems or the ef fects is not easy. Many players, like Griffey, can’t seem to stay healthy, while some guys forget the simplest things that got them I to the pros. One example would be Rick Ankiel, who went from look ing like the next Nolan Ryan to making the backstop behind the plate his only target. Ankiel fell apart in the 2000 playoffs, strug gled in 2001 and missed all of last season with an injury. Bad luck surely has played a part in his demise and his rise back to the majors, but no one saw this in Ankiel, just as no one saw this in Mark Wohlers. Wohlers went from being an ace closer with the Braves to just recently trying to get his career back on track with the Cleveland Indians after sever al years of struggling with control of his pitches. These guys claim they saw several psychiatrists, but ^ overcoming these “tragedies” has not been easy. lino 10 uui oumciuiiig juu acc just in baseball. And how about Ian Baker-Finch? The golfer went from winning the British Open to not being able to make contact with a grapefruit. Finch was a guy who repeatedly challenged for top spots on the leader board, and then all of a sud Baker-FInch den, he couldn’t break 80. I think the mind of an athlete is much more complex than we, as regular people, understand. These people are put under intense pres sure by fans, media, family, et cetera. It just seems so odd that ^ they can do something like throw ing a baseball their entire lives, and one day the ability just disappears. Obviously, Ankiel and Finch are the extremes, but when was the last time Griffey showed any flashes of his athletic ability? He used to leap over walls to save home runs and blast 98-mph fast balls over 400 feet. Now, the 33 year-old player can’t even stay healthy enough to play the first week of the baseball season. Maybe Griffey doesn’t take care of ♦ SENKIW, SEE PAGE 9