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10 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, June 4, 2003 GAME SCHEDULE jj?^ "1 ) m BASEBALL vs. UNC in NCAA Super Regional, 3:05 p.m. Friday „ , _ ^ -a IK I MEN’S AND WOMEN’S TRACK at NCAA Championships in E-mail us at gamecocksports@hotmail.com V7X L kJ Sacramento, Calif., June ll Gamecocks take Atlanta Regional BY BRAD SENKIW THE GAMECOCK The USC baseball team (42-20) found themselves in a familiar po sition this past weekend when it advanced to its fourth-consecutive NCAA Super Regional after win ning the Atlanta Regional. The Gamecocks were led by strong pitching and Landon Powell, who had six hits and three RBIs to help knock off East Carolina (33-26-1) in the first game Powell and Stetson (41-24) twice. Carolina will take on the UNC Tar Heels in Columbia on Friday. Game 1: USC 4 — East Carolina 0 Starting pitcher Chris Hernandez (5-4) wasted no time getting the Gamecocks off to a su perb start with a complete-game shutout, allowing five hits and striking out seven Pirate batters with a 4-0 win. Carolina had 11 hits and was led offensively by Kevin Melillo’s 3-for4 and two RBI performance. Brian Buscher and Bryan Triplett both went 2-for4 in the victory. The Gamecocks struck early in the first inning with two runs on errors and an RBI single by Melillo. Melillo hit a solo home run in the third inning off Will Brinson (34) as USC took the first game be FILE PHOTO BY CANDI HAUGUJN/THE GAMECOCK Steven Tolleson eyes a pitch earlier this season against Duquense. Tolleson helped Carolina advance to the Super Regional by going 6-for-10 with three RBIs In Atlanta. USC plays UNC In a best-of-three-game series on Friday. hind Hernandez, who USC head coach Ray Tanner was happy to see perform well. “Chris Hernandez did a tremen dous job for us,” Tanner said. “We knew that he had the ability to go out and have the kind of game that he did today.” Game 2: USC 7 - Stetson 2 Powell, who was named Most Outstanding Player at the Atlanta Regional, went 4-for-5 and drove in two runs, while David Marchbanks (14-2) pitched the team’s second-consecutive com plete game to knock off Stetson 7-2. Steve Tolleson added a pair of ♦ BASEBALL, SEE PAGE 11 SEC officials to discuss league problems DESTIN, FLA. (AP) - The Southeastern Conference will dis tribute more than $100 million in revenues this year, yet another gaudy reflection of the strength of the nation’s richest league. Then there are the facts and fig ures nobody at this week’s annual conference meetings wants to dis cuss. Three of the SEC’s 12 schools have football teams on probation. Six more have had football or men’s basketball teams under NCAA in vestigation in the past 24 months. In addition, Alabama is reeling from an embarrassing coaching scandal, and when the Crimson Tide failed to hire a black coach, Jesse Jackson called the confer ence a bastion for racists. “I know we’ve got our issues and our problems,” LSU football coach Nick Saban said. “But I think we’re trying to correct these things as quickly as possible.” The man trying to make the fix es is new commissioner Mike Slive. Soon after he took over for Roy Kramer last July, the former commissioner of Conference USA issued a bold — some said unreal istic — challenge: In five years, he wants every school in the SEC off probation. He reiterated that point last week to football coaches, and he seems to have sold everyone on the idea, no matter how farfetched it may seem. “I started saying that a little earlier and I haven’t really wa vered from that at this point,” Slive said. “I really believe we can get there.” Cleaning up this mess won’t be easy. Academic fraud, overzealous boosters, recruit ing violations and comer-cutting coaches have re sulted in proba tions and investi Slive gations from Knoxville to Starkville. It’s a daunting task to keep tabs on it all. “You educate, audit, double check and keep your fingers crossed,” said Florida athletic di rector Jeremy Foley, an assistant in the 1980s when the Gators were on probation. “We’ve learned some painful lessons. We know it could happen again tomorrow. All it takes is for one person to step out of line.” Most painful? When that single person is someone inside the pro gram who should have intricate knowledge of what’s right and wrong in the voluminous NCAA rulebook. Georgia officials recently sent a letter to the NCAA stating assis tant basketball coach Jim Harrick Jr. was solely responsible for aca demic fraud that left two players ineligible and compelled the Bulldogs to withdraw from the NCAA tournament last season. Harrick Jr. was fired in March and his father, Jim Harrick, re signed as head coach shortly after. Since then, nine football play ers have been declared ineligible for violating NCAA rules by sell ing their SEC championship rings. University presidents still are tinkering with the idea of an over sight committee to help schools deal with athletics compliance. The Pac-10 has a similar system, but Slive said he is against giving ♦ SEC, SEE PAGE 11