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USC baseball optimistic about upcoming season BY PETE IACOBELLI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COLUMBIA — South Carolina lefty Matt Campbell has only end ed his seasons one way—at the College World Series. The junior ace doesn’t plan for that to change in his third Gamecock season. “It’s amazing,” Campbell says, €>e part of a team like this.” nd amazing at times to watch ii Carolina’s rise into college baseball’s elite. They’ve been to Omaha, Neb., for the CWS the past two years, been in the NCAA tour nament’s super regional the past four years, and are now on par with Miami and Texas and LSU as a threat to return to the sport’s premier event each season. “When you go to the World Series hack to back that lets ev erybody in the nation know that it’s not a fluke that you got there one year,” said Campbell, South Carolina’s top returning starter who went 6-4 with a 3.48 ERA last season. Still, three-in-a-row is not guar anteed. “It’s difficult to make it back there,” USC head coach Ray AN HISTORIC RESIDENCE Efficiency $525 One Bedroom $585 ’ Two Bedroom $620 Rent includes all utilities and cable TV. All rates quoted are month to month. (Leases available, prices subject to change) Located across from the University Of South Carolina Horseshoe and the State Capital, Cornell Arms offers the premier location for downtown living. (803)799-1442 1230 PENDLETON STREET COLUMBIA, SC 29201 JJ^ . -—*— Tanner says. “There’s a lot of base ball to be played.” To get there, South Carolina will have to find several key re placements. Pitchers David Marchbanks, Steven Bondurant and Chris Hernandez, who com bined for 27 wins last year, are all in pro ball. Third baseman Brian Buscher, the team leader in homers (15), RBIs (66) and aver age (.393), was taken in the third round of the Major League Baseball draft by the San Francisco Giants. Tanner thinks the depth he’s developed over the past few years of success will pay off. Bryan Triplett, last year’s first baseman, will move to third. Trey McDaniel returns to first base wiiere he played early in his freshman sea son last year. There will likely be two new faces in the outfield rotation. Davy Gregg was mostly a pinch-runner last year. Junior college transfer Brendan Winn would start in right if the season began now in stead of Feb. 13 against Charleston Southern. Campbell played with the U.S. national team at the Pan Am Games last summer and is ex pected to anchor the Gamecocks staff. Aaron Rawl, used mostly in relief last year, will again be come a starter. Others who could fill out the rotation are sopho more Cliff Donald, and junior col lege transfers Billy Buckner—no relation—Jason Fletcher and Zac McCamie. Rawl’s closer role could fall to another junior college pitcher, Chad Blackwell who had a 1.69 ERA in the fall. One area that should be rock solid is catcher. More than a few outsiders thought Landon Powell would leave for the majors this summer. But Powell wasn’t taken until the 25th round by the Chicago Cubs and returned for his senior season. And it wasn’t a difficult choice to come back, Powell says. -- Monday, January 26 g _ a Tuesday, January 27 J7\M *rrM Student Government Office, Russell House 227 Safety Week Events ^ , Safety Walk, 8pm, Russell January 28 7 . , House 2nd Floor Lobby January 29 Evening Shuttle Promotion Critical Mass Bike Ride, January jo j:30pm, Horseshoe Self Defense Class, I-3pm, January 3i Strom Thurmond Wellness & Fitness Center, Room 7 75 Co-sponsored with SHARE For more information contact Katie McClendon, Director of Safety, at Mcclendo@gwm.sc.edu www.sg. sc. edul MEN’S BASKETBALL CHALLENGE THE CHALLENGE: Every week, Wes Jonathan Adam Shawn. Gabrielle Traci The Gamecock’s readers and Wolfe Hillyard Beam Rourk Sinclair Hunter staff test their sports knowledge Sports Asst. Sports Editor Head Copy Desk Reader of with game predictions Editor Editor in Chief Designer Chief the Week _ (5-5) (4-6) (9-1) (5-5) (5-5)(7-3) Winthrop at Birmingham So. BSU_Winthrop Winthrop BSU _BSU_ Winthrop VCU at Drexel VCU VCU Drexel VCU- Drexel Drexel Charleston at Georgia So.GSUCharleston Charlestan GSU GSU Charleston 20 Oklahoma at 16 TexasTexasTexasOklahoma Oklahoma TexasTexas 8 Pittsburgh at 13 Syracuse Syracuse Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Syracuse Syracuse Syracuse Georgia at 19 Miss. StateMiss. State Miss. State- Georgia Miss. State Miss. State Georgia Auburn at 17 Florida_Florida Florida Florida Florida Florida Florida 22 Vanderbilt at ArkansasVanderbilt Arkansas Vanderbilt Vanderbilt Vanderbilt Arkansas Alabama at Ole MissAlabama Alabama Alabama Alabama Alabama Alabama LSUat 25 USC USC USCUSC USC _ USC JJSC ”75-60 75-68 69-62 59-51 75-71 65-61 SECOND-WEEK OUTLOOK: Editor in Chief Adam Beam blew away the competition last week, posting an astonishing 9-1 mark and replicated his earlier success in the football challenge. The reader of the week finished at a more than respectable 7-3, while everyone else firted with mediocrity. Sports Editor Wes Wolfe, Head Designer Shawn Rourk and Copy Editor Stephen Van Haren all went 5-5, and Assistant Sports Editor Jonathon Hillyard brought up the rear at 4-6. WANT TO BE READER OF THE WEEK? E-mail selections for next week’s games to gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Briefly Women’s golf team makes the grade Women's Golf team mem bers Adrienne Gautreaux and Jenna Pearson both earned a 4.0 GPA in the fall semester and have been named to the USC President's List. Gautreaux earned a 4!0 in the graduate School of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management and is the Gamecocks' senior captain. Freshman Pearson is an engi neering student. Collectively, the team earned a 3.501 GPA, making it the highest among USC women's teams. Track teams travel to SEC Invitational The USC men’s and wom en’s track and field teams are both on the road this Sunday at the SEC Invitational in Gainesville, Fla. Both teams have performed well early in the season, but have fallen in the Trackwire polls. The USC women have fallen eight places to 18th, while the men have fallen two places to 12th. However, both teams have athletes in the top 10 national ly. Erica Whipple is undefeat ed in the 200-meter this seasoh and is ranked fifth in that cat egory, while Stephanie Smith is sixth in the 400-meter and Ronnetta- Alexander is sixth in the 60-meter hurdles. The men have Otis Harris ranked second in the 400-meter, Tony Allmond is third in the long jump, Fred Townsend is sev enth in the heptathlon and Jonathan Fortenberry is eighth in the 400-meter. McKie CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 scored over 500 points in three of his four seasons at Carolina, av eraging 17.2 points a game for his career. In McKie’s first year at Carolina, he became the second player in school history to be named to the All-SEC freshman team. He was the first and still sole USC winner of the SEC’s Rookie of the Year award, given out by the Associated Press. McKie con tinued his success at Carolina, be ing named to the All-SEC team twice, and the All-SEC second team once. In what could have been the highlight of his individ ual career, Basketball Weekly named him a third-team All American in 1998. McKie was one of former USC head coach Eddie Fogler’s team captains in both his junior and senior seasons. “I think his jersey should def initely be retired because he is simply the best player I’ve ever seen play here,” said long-time Carolina fan and current first year Biology student Jeb Benson. “He had a great shot that will be remembered for all of Carolina basketball history.” SURFYOURSELF You can vote to retire BJ. McKie’s number at www.petltiononline/3retire/petition.html Maybe more impressive than individual honors is the USC bas ketball team’s accomplishments while McKie played. The Gamecocks made the NCAA Tournament in both McKie’s sophomore and junior year, be coming the second Carolina team to make it to consecutive NCAA Tournaments. The 1997 team fin ished the season ranked sixth and finished the following season ranked 14th, which was the last time USC had been ranked in the top 25 prior tQ Monday. The list of retired jerseys in the USC basketball program is very short, but extremely presti gious. The first player to have his jersey retired was forward Grady Wallace, who wore number 42 and who played for USC from 1955-57. He was followed by guard John Roche, who made an All America team in each of his three seasons (1968-71) as a Gamecock. Roche wore number 11. Guard Kevin Joyce, wore number 43 and played for USC from 1970 1973. The most recent player to have his jersey retired was English, who wore number 22 and started every game for USC from 1972-1976. However, USC’s policy on re tiring jerseys is a little unclear at this point. “The philosophy of jersey re tirement is something we will have to look into a little closer in the very near future,” said USC associate athletic director Kerry Tharp. The policy has been previous ly rumored to be that a player must have been out of school at least five years in order to be con sidered. This season would mark the fifth since McKie left USC. The petition, at the time of this article contains 341 signatures in less than a week and will be sent to Athletic Director Mike McGee when Beans sees fit. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Columbia's Adult Soccer League is now registering teams or individuals for the Spring '04 season. Registration deadline is February 3rd. Call 781 -6468 or email columbiasoccer@aol.com. Mathis CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 said in the Los Angeles Times. “He has superb aerial ability and has already proved that he can perform each week at the highest level.” The move to Fulham makes sense because of wins, top, since Fulham is in seventh place in the Premier League and Blackburn is 16th in the 20 team league. Fulham has al ready signed another MLS player, Carlos Bocanegra of the Chicago Fire. Bocanegra, who played college soccer at UCLA, was already in action with Fulham after his transfer, playing with the team in a 3-1 loss to Newcastle. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu -1 Where: Monday-Russell House University Union-Room 322 Tuesday thru Friday Russell House University Union 2nd Floor When: Mon. Jan. 19 thru Fri. Jan. 23 Time: 9 AM - 5 PM Sponsor: RUSSELL HOUSE UNIVERSITY UNION ■-|-|-7-----—|-|-1—|—■* ., -"—"-"’./grT".—tW