Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Soccer CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 goal that narrowly missed. It was also the third game during which the coaches tried out a new formation, lining the players up in a 3-4-3 instead of the 2-4-4 in order to bring some of the faster defenders up to play midfield. “We made that change hoping that we could push more guys forward and press the oppo nent,” Berson said. “It worked well the past two games, and to tell you the truth, I thought it worked well tonight. We had some good chances.” Aside from offensive woes, the team put forth a strong ef fort. The defense came six min utes short of its seventh shutout, while Guzan made sev eral impressive saves and end ed up with seven, total. When Guzan was caught out of posi tion, his defense was there for him. The unit produced two saves of its own, including a crucial one on the baseline by mid fielder Ben Link late in the game. With games coming up against College of Charleston, North Carolina and one on the road against Florida International, the Gamecocks need to win at least two of the re maining games in order to have a shot at making the NCAA tour nament. “We have three very big games left and all three teams we face are looking for an NCAA bid, so that’s good that things are in our hands,” Berson said. “All we can do is try to win these last games and hope that things fall into place.” The College of Charleston will come to Columbia Tuesday. The Gamecocks are 12-2-2 against the Cougars, but this year’s team has posted an impressive 10-3-2 record so far. Charleston has also complet ed six-straight shutouts and is led offensively by senior Ricardo Diaz Granados and his eight goals on the season. “There is no question that Charleston is going to be a tough match for us,” Berson said. “They have a very talented and deep team. But we have to recover from this loss and pull ourselves together. This is a very important game for us and we need to come out ready to play.” The game will be played at Stone Stadium and is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com BRIEFLY Women’s tennis wins two matches The USC women’s tennis team finished the Southern Intercollegiate Tournament on Sunday by winning two singles titles and two doubles champi onships. There were seven flights, or groupings, for single players and six flights for the doubles teams. Each singles flight had 16 players and each doubles flight had eight teams. Christyn Lucan took the A2 singles flight by beating Winthrop’s Paula Takahaski. Grace Blakely won her final with Carolina teammate Ayako Suzuki to bring home the Cl singles flight. Lucas and Magda Wojdylo won the A2 doubles championship over Manuela Emmrich and Caroline Grage of Armstrong Atlantic State. Suzuki and Miranda Gutierrez nabbed the B1 flight championship, beating Alison Silverio and Kacie Anson of Georgia Tech. Carolina will next play at the SEC Coaches Fall Tournament Nov. 7-9 in Atlanta, Ga. Cross country to compete in SECs The USC cross country team is participating in the SEC Cross Country Championships today at the UGA golf course in Athens, Ga. The team will be in the women’s 5K, which begins at 10 a.m. USC was last at the UGA golf course on Sept. 20 for the Bulldog Stampede. At that meet, Jenny Lake finished sixth for Carolina. Lake’s fin ish was the best on the team for the race. Lake, Mary Wright, Mary Claire Utsey, Lauren Paige, Shay Shelton, Nicki Breves, Ashley Cruse, Chelsea Kaczmarek, Christine Mudd, Tristan Rackow, Julie Reale and Karen Wigal will be run ning for the Gamecocks in the 5K. Women’s soccer ends year with loss The USC women’s soccer team (10-7-3, 3-4-2 SEC) lost at Florida (14-3-1, 6-2-1 SEC) on Saturday by a score of 2-0. Following the loss, Carolina became the eighth and final seed of the SEC Tournament and will have to face No. 1 Tennessee in the first round. Florida’s first goal came from Gator midfielder Megan McMillan, who broke free from the Carolina defense to hit the shot into the net. The second goal came halfway through the second half when midfielder Robin Fulton stole a pass from the USC defense and knocked in the goal. Fulton did everything for Florida, contributing three shots, two shots on goal, one goal and one assist. Five other Gators also had shots on goal. The Gamecocks finished the game with only four shots and midfielder Camille Toney’s one shot-on-goal. Goalkeeper Elise Matthews allowed the two goals but also made five saves during the match. Midfielder Melissa Hutson led the team with two shots, and defender Kimmy Criss re ceived a yellow card at the 68 minute mark. USC looks to upset the top seeded Volunteers on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. at Orange Beach, Ala. Volleyball breaks losing streak but falls to Tide BY WES WOLFE THE GAMECOCK The USC volleyball team (11 13,5-7 SEC) beat Auburn but lost to Alabama in a weekend swing through the Yellowhammer State. Carolina started the road trip by stopping in Auburn (10-14,1-11 SEC) to defeat the Tigers 3-0 on Friday. The loss snapped a six match losing streak for USC and was the first sweep of an opponent since a 3-0 win over Mississippi State on Oct. 5. “It is good to get back on track. I thought we looked good tonight. We kept our errors down,” USC head coach Kim Hudson Christopher said. “We have been practicing well all week and it was good to see us play relaxed.” Outside hitter Iris Santos had a career match, knocking in 10 kills and a career-high .444 hitting average while only allowing two errors. Also, right-side blocker Lynae Vanden Hull led Carolina with 12 kills. The Gamecocks dominated Auburn in every facet of the match, out-hitting the Tigers .317 to .047, out-blocking Auburn 14-7 and ending the match with 13 few er errors. Carolina easily took game one by 30-26, on outstanding play by Santos, who hit .857 and had six kills. The Gamecocks went up by eight points at two different times in the game before watch ing the lead drop to three at the end of the game before Vanden Hull hit the ball across the net for a kill, cementing the win. USC had lost five consecutive games before winning the first game against Auburn. Game two was a 13-point blowout for Carolina, who held Auburn to a .000 hitting average and recorded nine blocks. USC closed out the match with a 30-23 win in game three, in which the Gamecocks once again held the Tigers to a mediocre .000 hitting average. Carolina had to battle back from an early deficit in the game, but setter Katelyn Panzau hit two service aces to put USC ahead 14-13. The two teams kept the scoring close un til the end, when USC pulled away. The Gamecocks weren’t so lucky in a 3-1 loss to Alabama (13 11,7-5 SEC) on Sunday afternoon. Though Carolina kept it close and only lost 31-29 in the first game and won the second game 30-22. However, USC couldn’t keep it up for the final two games and dropped both by the scores of 30 23 and 30-22, respectively. « “We played much better as a team today but we just made mis takes at bad times in the match,” Christopher said. “We made too many hitting and service errors in games three and four and that is what hurt us.” ' Carolina hit well in the first two games, going .485 with two er rors in the first game, and hit .481 with five errors in the second game. USC fell apart in the third game, though, hitting only .147 and allowing nine errors. Even though the Gamecocks played close with Alabama through the fourth game, they fell on the short end of an 11-4 run and lost the game and the match. Three Carolina players fin ished the match with double-dig its in kills. Vanden Hull had 16 kills on the day, while Santos had a career-high of 12 and outside hit ter Shonda Cole had 13. Panzau managed a career-high hitting av erage of .583 against the Crimson Tide. Carolina plays the last of its five consecutive road matches at Kentucky on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and returns to Columbia to play host to Tennessee on Nov. 9 at 1:30 •p.m. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com Football CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 through Pinkins’ hands and rolled behind him towards the end zone. In a mad scramble for the ball, Pinkins alertly scooped up the ball at the 2-yard line and chucked it out of bounds just as the Ole Miss defenders were arriving on the scene. The officials ruled Pinkins was in the end zone when the foul oc curred, which by rule is a safety. Holtz hotly debated the decision, but the call stood. Despite creating two turnovers, the Gamecocks were not able to stop the Rebels from taking a 30 14 halftime lead. The Rebels continued to roll in the third quarter, adding two touchdowns to take a command ing 43-14 lead. However, the Gamecocks defense would be tight the rest of the way and not allow the Rebels to score any more points as they rallied to within three points on a 20-yard touch down pass from Pinkins to Whiteside with 1:40 remaining in the game. With two timeouts, the Gamecocks had to stop the Rebels from picking up a first down in or der to have a chance to win. They put Ole Miss in a third-and-inch es situation, but were not able to stop Manning from picking up the game-winning first down on a quarterback sneak, after which the Rebels were able to run out the clock. The Gamecocks will not have much time to recover from Saturday’s loss, with a game against conference foe Arkansas scheduled for 7:45 p.m. Thursday. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com . ' '/■ ■ - WILLIAMS-BRICE STADIUM! GAMECOCKS / V Why Sterling Oaks? -Brand New Apartments (Complete in Fall 2004) -Free Shuttle -Jacuzzi -24 Hour Fitness Center -Computer Lab -Game Room -Limited Coyered Parking and much more!