The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, March 23, 1983, Image 13
Texas A&M ^'hediilciy ervillcj 1 irts wil|| Rudder, - <S OF jfl at i p,jl The Battalion Sports Wednesday, March 23, 1983AThe Battalion/Page 13 Inform#! ;d in les, show est the te drug utralize' )orted can Con" r, a toon iversity ofl equested •is writings ; politics ;r joined staff photo by Bill Schultz and the Aggie tennis team lost to SMU Tuesday- See story page 15. Big hits plentiful as A&M sweeps two from Gophers by John P. Lopez Battalion Staff The Texas A&M baseball team started slow, but eventually made up for lost time as it de voured the Minnesota pitching staff in a 13-10, 11-4 double- header sweep of the Golden Gophers. The Aggies steam-rolled to 26 hits on the night behind clutch hitting and the consistent swing of left-fielder Bobby Beach. After a four-for-seven night Tuesday, Beach has now stepped up to the plate 66 times and hit 33 times for a remark able .500 batting average. Beach and the rest of the Texas A&M bats were overpow ering, but the, Aggie pitching staff was anything but overpow ering as the Texas A&M hurlers gave up 23 hits themselves. The only consolation was that the Aggie pitchers spread the Minnesota basehits through sev eral innings and came up with several key strikouts. In the first game, the Golden Gophers seemed to be cruising to an easy win after capitalizing on several Aggie mistakes to take a 5-2 lead going into the bottom of the 5th inning. Minnesota scored one run in the second inning and one in the top of the fifth but the big dam age was done in the fourth in ning when the Gophers tapped Aggie starter Barry Smith for three runs. Alex Bauer lined up the mid dle to start the rally and Tom Ward added to the damage with a line-shot home run over the left-field wall to score two runs. The Aggies managed to get one out both before the homer and after, but Minnesota scored another run in the inning after two costly Texas A&M mistakes. Minnesota left fielder Pat Phol reached first base on a suc cessful bunt and wound up standing on third after Aggie catcher Ron Devereaux threw the ball into right field trying to throw Phol out. Phol practically walked home for the Gophers’ third run of the inning after Devereaux mis handled a pitch and the ball rol led to the backstop. The Aggies got out of that inning, but found that it was evi dent they would have to put some big numbers on the score- board themselves if Texas A&M was to win. Say no more. The Aggie bats caught fire in the bottom of the fifth inning as the first 11 Texas A&M players that stepped up to the plate reached base and all 11 even tually scored. Shortstop Rusty Roberts opened the onslaught with a single to right field and the rest of the Texas A&M team either followed Roberts’ example or was aided to base by horrendous pitching from the Minnesota staff. Pinch-hitter Don Robison walked, second-baseman Tim Cartwright doubled to right, center-fielder Billy Cannon walked, Beach walked, right- fielder Kevin Smith looped one to right, first-baseman Buddy Haney walked, designated- hitter Kevin Scanlon walked and third-baseman Tony Metoyer slammed a grand-slam home run over the left field fence. To make matters even worse for the Minnesota pitching staff, Roberts batted for the second time in the same inning and once again reached base on an error by shortstop Bill Piwnicos. Robison then doubled to left to bring in Roberts and scored himself later in the inning off a; Cannon single. The total damage was 11 runs; on seven hits, five walks and one' error. The 13-5 lead seemed insure mountable but the Gophers.' staged a rally that made every' one of the 13 runs invaluable for Texas A&M. Minnesota scored three runs in the sixth inning and threatened with two more in the top of the seventh, but the Gophers finally folded. Smith upped his record to 3-1 on the year with the win for Texas A&M as Bob Meyer fell to 0-1 for Minnesota. In the second game, fresh man Scott Deskins gave up seven hits as he went the distance to get his first win of the year against no losses. Fran Lour was the los er for Minnesota. . No. 17-ranked Texas A&M hopes to add two more wins to its 20-5 record today as the Aggies take on the Golden Gophers in another double-header begin ning at 1 p.m. in Olsen Field. The Aggies will be in Hous ton this weekend for a three- game series with the red-hot Houston Cougars. The Coogs currently are ranked No. 4 in the country with a 23-2 record. UK, Louisville hope for feud United Press International If Kentucky and Louisville climb their respective moun tains Thursday, they can raise a feud in the hills back home. No. 10 Kentucky faces No. 5 Indiana and No. 2 Louisville plays No. 9 Arkansas in the NCAA Mideast Regional at Knoxville, Tenn., and if the two Bluegrass representatives sur vive, they will meet in a regional final that is guaranteed to grab attention. Tickets for the possible Ken- tucky-Louisville game were re ported selling Tuesday for $ 150 each, with some ticket holders predicting the price would surge to $1,000. The schools met in the 1959 Midwest Regional with Ken tucky winning 76-61. Last year a meeting looked virtually certain until Middle Tennessee upset Kentucky 50-44. Michael Blair, a Louisville graduate hoping to make it to Knoxville, received several quick offers in response to his classified appeal for tickets but balked at the asking price of $150 each. “I’m still holding out for something better,” laughed Blair, who said a long-awaited Kentucky-Louisville game “would be great.” The University of Kentucky has historically refused to sche dule Louisville even though the two state-run schools are just 70 miles apart in basketball-crazy Kentucky. Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall, who once ordered a network television crew to stop filming in his office when the issue came up, doesn’t like to discuss his re luctance to schedule Louisville but apparently believes UK has FREE BEER FREE BEER THE ULTIMATE FORCE 4TH ANNUAL FIJI SPRING FLING TICKETS $5.00 FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1983 BRAZOS COUNTY PAVILLJON TICKETS $5.00 TICKETS AVAILABLE AT LOUPOT’S AND R. RUSH & CO. BENEFITTING THE BRAZOS VALLEY RED CROSS NO ONE UNDER 19 ADMITTED little to gain by playing the Car dinals. Kentucky has won a record five NCAA championships while Louisville won its first in 1980. Several legislative attempts to mandate an on-court meeting of the schools have failed in Frank fort. In the West Regional at Ogden, Utah, Utah (18-13) plays North Carolina State (22- 10) and Virginia (28-4) meets Boston College (25-6).