The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 18, 2003, Page 9, Image 9
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Leaping forward
Track star Corey Taylor carries
on USC, family legacies in hurdles
I r BY MATT ROTHENBERG
THE GAMECOCK
•
The hurdles seem to be an
event that suits USC men’s track
star Corey Taylor rather well.
Taylor has met and surpassed
numerous expectations through
out his life as a runner, leaping
at the opportunity each time. As
a member of the men’s track
team, which finished sixth at
both the 2002 NCAA indoor and
outdoor track championships
and fifth at this year’s NCAA in
door championship, Taylor has
completely emerged as a force to
be reckoned with.
Taylor, a native of Decatur,
Ga., started running track
I when he was nine years old,
participating in the East
Atlanta club team. Two years
later, he began hurdling and
continues to do it to this day. But
track wasn’t Taylor’s first sport
of choice.
“I played soccer and I played
basketball before I started run
ning track, and I was the fastest
guy on the team. The same coach
that I had for the soccer team
and my basketball team —
Coach Johnson—he was coach
ing the track team,” Taylor said.
“He told me about it, and I went
out there and tried it out. I ran
the 100-meter dash and the 200
< meters my first year. And then
the second year, he thought he’d
put me in the hurdles, and I’ve
! been running it ever since. ”
' At Southwest DeKalb High
School in Decatur, Taylor en
countered some additional com
petition from former teammate
and USC track standout
Terrence Trammell.
Trammell, in turn, helped
Taylor become a Gamecock,
along with another current
teammate, Clint Crenshaw. The
coaching staff at USC also played
a strong role in attracting
Taylor.
“I went to high school with
them. They talked to me about
coming up here. It was a re
building year on the men’s side,
and I just came up here to run
with them,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he
knew USC . 2
track head coach
Curtis Frye, who spe
cializes in coaching hur
dies, as
well as
volunteer
coach
Allen
Johnson.
Taylor saw
how Frye
worked
with
Johnson,
Trammell
and people
all over the
world.
“So I fig
ured, why not train with two of
the best hurdlers in the world?”
he said.
Frye noted that Taylor’s back
ground brought a good deal to
use.
“Athletically, he’s meant fan
tastic things because he’s con
tinued to help us in the tradition
of Carolina track by being an All
American. He’s fallen in line
with what’s expected from an
athlete,” Frye said. “He brought
the tradition of winning and
came in behind Terrence and fol
lowed the high expectations
from Terrance and those were
the
things he brought to the table.”
While at Carolina, Taylor has
given his all to help the
Gamecock cause. During his
first two seasons, he had numer
ous top 10 finishes, but he man
aged to surpass those with a sol
id junior year. Taylor became an
All-American, as he finished
sixth in the 60 hurdles at the SEC
Indoor Championships and
eighth at the NCAA
Championships in the same
event. Outdoors, he helped the
4x100 relay team finish in third
place at the SECs and fourth at
the NCAAs, earning him All
American status.
This year, he repeated his All
American status in the indoor
60 hurdles with a fifth-place
finish at the NCAA
Championships. In
February, Taylor was
W named SEC indoor track
athlete of the week after
breaking a facility record in
the 55 hurdles at the USC
Invitational. He also finished
first in the outdoor 110 hur
v dies at the Weems
Baskin Relays near
. ly a month ago
■k ♦TAYLOR,
SEE PAGE 10
_
Corey Taylor, who has been running track since
he was 9 years old, is a three-time All-American
in his time at USC. Taylor was named SEC Indoor
track athlete of the week in February.
PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK
Hitting his stride
After two years at community
college, Brian Buscher has found
a true home at Sarge Frye Field
BY HOLLI ARMSTRONG
THE GAMECOCK
Trotting back to the dugout af
ter his first at-bat, Brian Buscher
is disappointed.
He can hear his coach al
ready: “Don’t worry about it; you
are going to get three more at
bats.” But the senior third base
man does worry about it, until
he spots the Gamecock player in
the clean uniform.
“Then I can’t believe I am
complaining about not
getting a hit, and
there is this guy sit
ting in the dugout
who hasn’t played a
■ game, and he has a
I big smile on his face,”
Buscher said. “He is happy just
to be standing there with us.”
Buscher might not realize it,
but the team’s top hitter and the
team’s nonhitter have something
in common: They are both grate
ful.
Two years ago, the Jackson
ville, Fla., native was playing
j ball in a stadium that on a good
day held enough people to fill a
bus, and most of those folks were
family. But Central Florida
Community College offered
Buscher what Carolina could not
— a chance to start.
“When I got here, I had al
ready played at least 125 games,
so I understood the game on a
college level instead of a high
school level,” Buscher said.
USC head coach Ray Tanner
I thinks that junior-college play
ers are more mature and better
prepared. Buscher is a testament
to that.
“He was good from day
one,” Tanner said.
Good enough to lead ;
the team in homers / ~ jf
with eight and in
hits with 55. He
recently went on a tear, hitting
in 14 consecutive games.
Buscher boils it down to luck.
“I remember a couple of
games where I got one hit, and I
hit it off the fist, and it went over
the second baseman’s head and
just blooped in there,” Buscher
said. “Then, the other day, I hit a
couple of balls hard and didn’t
get a hit.”
Buscher is quick to point out
that 70 percent of baseball is fail
ing, and you are
doing
good to
get one
hit in ev
ery three or
four at-bats.
At times, it is
hard to keep '
those numbers
in perspective.
“He is ex
tremely hard on
himself,”
Tanner said. /
■ “Some people {
expect them
seilves to be
perfect, and
that is
hard to
do in athletics and life in gener
al.”
“I’ve tried to tell him that all
you can do is all you can do, and
that is good enough. Many times
he has said that he has let the
team down, and he hasn’t,”
Tanner said.
Hitting safely in 33 of 37
games is certainly not something
to hang your head about. Neither
is a .374 batting average or the
respect of being named team cap
tain. Last season, he set school
records for a third baseman in
putouts with 60 and in assists
with 139. His fielding percentage
of .938 was the best by a
Gamecock in more than 25 years.
He even managed to tack on a
couple of grand slams.
“I’m not a rah-rah type of
guy,” said Buscher, who leads by
example. “I never have
been.”
1
In his second season with
the Gamecocks, Brian
Buscher has proven to be a
reliable player both In the
field and at the plate. He
currently leads the team In
batting average and home
runs.
FILE PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/
THE GAMECOCK
Instead, it is his discipline and
dedication to the game of base
ball that has made him success
ful. At age three, Buscher re
members carting his big red bat
to the park, where his father,
Bernard Buscher, who played
professional baseball, would
pitch to him. A year later, he was
playing little league ball and get
ting in plenty of practice time
■playing pick-up games with the
neighborhood kids. No wonder
he takes such a serious, hard
working and, at times, stubborn
approach to the game.
It will take all of those quali
ties for the Gamecocks to earn a
bid to the SEC Tournament, hold
a regional and return to Omaha.
Buscher knows what it takes
to reach a goal, and it is tough
when you are doing the same
things you did the year before,
but not seeing the same results.
So Buscher tries to keep
morale up and remain fo
U cused on finishing up his se
knior season in style. He
lives by a basic motto.
“My dad tells me to
have fun, and if you aren’t
having fun doing it, then
don’t do it,” Buscher said.
For the time being,
“Bushwacker,” must be having
afineol’ time.
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Harris leads
USC to victory
W VVbfford i
immarn (6-26)
eusc 7
(25-12)
BY SHAWN ROURK
THE GAMECOCK
Justin Harris went 3-for-4 at
the plate and made shortstop
plays deserving of ESPN’s “Web
Gems” as he helped to lift
Carolina (25-12, 7-8 SEC) over
Wofford (6-26) 7-1 .on Wednesday
at Sarge Frye Field.
“ItTeels really good because
hitting has a lot to do with confi
dence. Over the last week or so,
I’ve been picking up the ball out
ot the pitcher s
hand and see
ing it well. The
balls are just
seeming to fall
in for me,”
Harris said.
Harris ex
tended his hit
ting streak to 15
games with a
double and two
singles in the
game. Harris is
16-for-24 in his
latest streak,
the longest in the SEC right now.
The senior did have one error dur
ing the second inning on a bad
hop off the bat of Wofford’s Blake
Timanus, but made up for it with
a diving stop that stole a hit from
Wofford later in the game.
“I don’t think you can explain
those things. Sometimes, hitters
go through periods where they
don’t feel that good, and other
times they see it pretty good. And
he feels pretty good right now,”
USC head coach Ray Tanner said.
“He had two four-hit games down
in Florida and hit the ball well
tonight. I just hope it continues.”
Freshman Conor Lalor went 6
1/3 innings to get the win and im
prove his record to 5-0 on the sea
son. He struck out four and al
lowed only four hits during the
game.
Carolina jumped on the board
early when J'on Coutlangus
walked, and Harris got on with a
base hit. Brian Buscher hit a deep
double to bring in one run and
Landon Powell hit a sacrifice fly
to bring in the Gamecocks’ second
run of the game.
i That would be all Carolina
needed to win, but the team was
not finished with its offense.
In the third, Buscher recorded
his eighth homer of the season
when he belted a shot*over the
right field fence to put the
Gamecocks up 4-0.
Lalor was pulled in the top of
the seventh inning after Timanus
earned his sixth homer of the sea
son and two other Wofford play
ers strung together a couple of
hits. Reliever Stephen Broome
came in and replaced Lalor dur
ing a sticky situation: Two on
base and no outs. However,
Broome swept up the Terriers
with three strikeouts to get out of
the inning.
“We were pretty solid. Last
time we played Wofford, it was a
29-run night, and I told our guys
belore the
game, if you
respect base
bail, that
doesn’t happen
very often.
Wofford’s been
playing better
lately, and
they hit some
balls hard
tonight. It was
a good win for
us,” Tanner
said.
Next up for
the Gamecocks is a three-game se
ries against Mississippi State this
weekend. This is a conference
match-up during which Carolina
will look to keep itself tied with
Tennessee atop the SEC Eastern
Division standings.
The eighth-ranked Bulldogs
will come into the game off a win
against Samford at home.
The only thing missing from
the equation is pitcher Aaron
Rawl, who has been out for sev
eral games because of an injury
to his hand. Rawl suffered the in
jury on March 23 against
Tennessee.
Tanner said after the game that
Rawl is possible, but not probable,
to return to the rotation next
week.
“He’s out for the rest of this
week. So we’re just going to have
to take it one week at a time right
now,’’Tanner said.
The series starts today, and
the first pitch is scheduled for 7
p.m.
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“We were pretty solid.
Last time we played
Wofford, it was a 29-run
night, and I told our
guys before the game, if
you respect baseball,
that doesn’t happen
very often.”
RAY TANNER
BASEBALL HEAD COACH
FILE PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Justin Harris went 3-for-4 lplth three runs scored In Carolina’s "J,
1 win over the Wofford Terriers on Wednesday. Harris Increased
his hitting streak to 15 games with a double and two singles.