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Briefly Men’s tennis serves up 2 solid defeats The USC men’s tennis team started its season off solidly by defeating the College of Charleston and UNC Wilmington on Saturday. The 23rd-ranked Gamecocks jumped all over C-of-C by notch ing wins in the first and third doubles matches 8-3 and 8-1, re spectively. Tom Eklund gave Carolina a 2-0 lead by defeating Time Siebert 6-1,6-1. USC’s Carl Wermee added a victory 6-4,6-2 ^ over Basiten Moldhenke. Ben * Atkinson and GeraldoKnorr fin ished off the Cougars with 6-3,2 6,6-3 and 6-1,6-4 victories. USC then won in tremendous comeback fashion against UNC Wilmington. The Seahawks won the doubles point, taking an ear ly 1-0 lead. Tom Eklund then dis posed of his competition in quick 6-1,6-0 fashion. The match then took a rough turn for the Gamecocks, as they lost the third and fourth singles matches to go down 3-2. In the key match of the day, USC’s Rob Cassidy was down one set to none, and five games to none in the second set. Cassidy would put on a clinic, winning the second set 7-6 and sweeping the third set 6-0. Geraldo Knorr closed the door on UNC-W with a 6-0, 6-2 win over the Seahawks’ Grant Holland. Recruiting CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 and Justin Burgess. The class will also include two-star line prospects Evan Spanogians and John Paul Gillis. The Gamecocks are still waiting on word from three-star offensive lineman James Thompson. USC also has 11 players re turning on their offensive line. Seniors Jonathan Alston, John ^ Strickland and Chad Walker will P be the anchors of the offensive line, along with two-year starters Jabari Levey and Na’shan Goddard. Playing time will be at a high price for lineman at USC in 2004. USC recently lost recruiting battles on the offensive line to rivals Auburn, Alabama and Clemson. Columbia’s super prospect Leon Hart is headed to Auburn, Greenville’s Cory Lambert is on his way to Clemson and four-star prospect B.J. Stabler will attend Alabama. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Basketball CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 Carolina can do that to you with their defense. I raised my inten sity level, and the rest of the team was able to feed off of it.” Guard Josh Gonner went 6-of 12 from the field and hit 5-of-7 from the charity stripe to lead Carolina with 20 points for the game. Both Gonner and Boynton played 39 minutes of the 40 minute game, a testament to the ^ fact USC was fighting hard to try ® and win. Carolina was stellar from the free-throw line, hitting 18-of-22 in the losing effort. Forward Renaldo Balkman was ruled ineligible to play for the game because of his fight with Vanderbilt forward Corey Smith in the game between the two teams on Wednesday. “It was very clear the SEC Commissioner wanted the right thing for all parties, and I sup port his decision,” Odom said. “He was diligent, and I have great respect for him. I support the SEC, his decision and I re spect it. I will support it, but I did tell him I would state publicly I don’t agree with it.” USC next takes the court against Alabama on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Colonial Center. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Sinclair CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 going to spend a weekend in Barcelona just to catch an NFL game. Why is there a need to move our game overseas? Thankfully, the English do not share their soccer (or “football”) leagues with us. I would rather have a severe case of mad cow disease then watch that stuff all day. In addition, this move is just not right for the players for sever al reasons. Sure, it would open up more opportunities to play in the NFL, but this would cheapen the honor of being a National Football League play'er. With expansion, guys who would normally be on a practice squad will find them selves lining up opposite of Ray Lewis, Keith Brooking and Brian Urlacher. We already ask our athletes to spend hours practicing, lifting weights and studying film to be the best that they can be. Flying to Madrid, London, Barcelona and Frankfurt makes the time com mitment almost unbearable. Think this is ridiculous? Well, I think it would be ridiculous to spend $50 on a great ticket to a Falcons game and have Mike Vick credit his terrible game to jet lag from the game last week against Thailand. Want more reasons why ex panding outside the United States is not a good idea? How about the fact that major markets like Los Angeles, San Antonio and, some would even argue Detroit, do not host a professional football fran chise. Take care of all the places in the United States that need foot ball before we start international izing our game. Tagliabue concluded his state of the league address by adding that maybe there is a “Yao Fling” in the future of the NFL. I would not doubt this one bit. In fact, I sin cerely hope that it happens. I just do not see why “Yao Fling” needs his own franchise and cannot play in the United States like Yao Ming, Chan Ho Park, Ichiro, Dirk Novitzki or any of the other for eign-bom players playing profes sional sports today. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Super Bowl CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 the ball back, but Brady made a rare mistake — throwing an off balance pass that Reggie Howard intercepted in the end zone. Two plays later, Delhomme found Muhammad behind the New England defense for an 85 yard score, the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history, to give the Panthers a 22-21 lead with 6:53 left. Fox again went for the 2-point conversion and failed. Brady came back with the TD pass to linebacker Mike Vrabel with 2:51 remaining, and Kevin Faulk ran in for the 2-point con version to give New England a 29 22 lead. No rebirth necessary as Phoenix scorch Terriers THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SPARTANBURG - Jackson Atoyebi scored 22 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to lead Elon to a 77-64 victory against Wofford on Saturday. The Phoenix (7-13,3-5) won their ' second straight Southern Conference game as they con trolled the boards. Elon outre bounded Wofford by a 46-21 advan tage, including 21-3 on the offensive end. The Terriers (6-13,2-6) opened the game with a 14-4 run before the Phoenix stormed back to take a 42-32 halftime lead. A jumper by Ryan Jones gave Elon the lead for good at 26-25 with 5:56 to play in the first half. USC slams Davidson •v ___ PHOTO BY MARK.SCHILLING/THE GAMECOCK Sophomore Danielle Wiggins knocks a forehand against Davidson in Carolina’s match on Wednesday. Wiggins’ win In the first singles match gave the women a 3-0 lead on their way to a 7-0 victory. :___ Swimming CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10 of its events. First place went to Istvan Bathazi in the 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard indi vidual medley. His teammate Tamas Szucs placed first in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle events. Bathazi and Tamas were also part of the freestyle relay team, which won first place. USC’s men’s diving team also performed well. In the three-me ter event, the men’s diving team took first, second and third place. Every four years, two things happen — the presidential elec tion and the Olympics. This year the summer Olympics will be held in Athens, Greece. USC ath letes are preparing and compet ing now for a chance to compete later this year in Greece. . The next big swim meet is the SEC Championships, which will show how good USC swimmers really are. The USC swimming and diving teams will continue to prepare for the SEC Championships and possible Olympic spots when both the men’s and women’s teams will compete in their last home meet Feb. 7 at 3 p.m. against the Georgia Bulldogs at the Carolina Natatorium. 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