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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1988)
s les Wednesday, June 1,1988/The Battaiion/Page 5 Sports uld lose &' ob Case J By Hal L. Hammons ironmenJ Assistant Sports Editor litionsottiBTARKVILLE, Miss. — Before emisphei the bottom of the ninth inning red andif-started Monday, Cal State-Fullerton tic atraos; pitcher Paul Johnson asked his team ? westei: whether they wanted to play another tstroph half-inning or nine more that night. ^■ he Titans trailed Texas A&M 3- to bemoid,and a loss meant the teams would over Bra; have to play another game that night Coast.Tktfor the championship. A Fullerton >f the It win in the afternoon game, however, he hi; would end the South Regional early. ^■hve runs and 20 incredible min is expecifUtes later, Johnson’s question got a lat righir convincing answer, as the Aggies fell 6-3, eliminating A&M from post-sea- Tom June son play one step shy of the College ; with ran World Series. becometfjhe outfielders didn’t even over 7-1 turn around to watch Mike Ross’ IpBee-run game-ending home run ones and lli r over Dudy Noble Field’s left- center field fence. Dominica-looked like it had the game ths with 9 away, and with it a trip to oug^,, CMaha. Not only were there two out days later n * nt h, the Aggies had a well- ricane , rested staff waiting which figured on ^■ng them a big advantage in the di the V H 011 ^ g ame - ph Hurr M^^^ Coach Mark Johnson said, l,ut “With momentum gathered, I i ; thought we’d win. I had a strong feeling we’d go to Omaha.” it was a classic case of putting ■■cart before the horse, fice, saidlJRalph Ramirez walked to start the rball-size inning. But Scott Centala, 5-1, struck out; the next two batters. ■hit then the wheels started to o warnin cortie off. Greg Mannion walked, ght in and Rex Peters and Shane Flores Smith an singled to tie the game at 3. Ross’ damage homer put the game away. ithoritiesstBullerton Coach Larry Cochell said, “Anytime Ross and (Keith) Kaub come to the plate with men on ■■e, we have a chance.” ce g|he Titans were scoreless until cut down by Titans in NCAA regional Infielder named A&M’s 1988 MVP Texas A&M shortstop Chuck Knoblauch added yet another award to his collection Tuesday when he was selected by his team mates as this year’s Marion Pugh Most Valuable Player for the team. Knoblauch led the team in hit ting with a .365 average and in stolen bases with 24. After mov ing from centerfield, where he was an All-Southwest Conference selection last year, to shortstop, the sophomore was a consensus All-SWC selectee again this sea son. Knoblauch was also the MVP of the NCAA South Regional tournament. Senior Sean Snedeker was cho sen by his teammates as the Pat Olsen Outstanding Pitcher for the season. Snedeker had a 9-2 record with a 3.50 earned run av erage. He struck out 87 batters in 97 2 /3 innings and led the team with six complete games. Senior outfielder Tim McWil- liam was awarded the Wally Moon Award, which recognizes the team’s most improved player. McWilliam had a .362 average with seven home runs and 51 runs batted in. Team captain Maury Martin was the recipient of the Marion Pugh Spirit Award for displaying desire and leadership qualities. The Aggies set school records this year in wins with 20, winning percentage with .776, home runs with 80, and saves with 20, which was also a SWC record. Kaub’s solo shot in the eighth. The rup seemed to give Fullerton a little t going into the ninth. ■irent Mayne, who had a 38-game JflC hitting streak snapped in the game, lUv) Sfi, “We came out flat, but our pit( hing kept us close. Anytime — Three fe’re within two or three runs, we’re for loanfrJijhe game. gationinio■ hey didn’t look like they w'ere in ime ring b rame early. The Titans left run- d to a H ners on base in five innings, includ- syndicatt ing three on third base, ay. H^&M starter Fred Riscen, who t force of it ts and ■iieve it is r, extoi n fraud :e Chief ic May H ■-old Heirij rving at j estaurant.* was removed from the rotation ear lier in the tournament because of shoulder trouble, surprised every one by going longer than he had all season. Riscen gave up six hits and walked four, but he allowed no runs through seven innings before yield ing the mound to Centala in the eighth. Mark Johnson said, “I thought Fred did a good job. We extended him; he threw more than he had all year. He’s to be congratulated.” Two baserunning errors cost A&M runs in the middle innings. John Byington, on base with a single, ran halfway through the coach’s “hold” sign at third after Tom Car- cione doubled in the top of the fourth. Byington was caught be tween third and home and was tagged out. Terry Taylor put A&M ahead 2-0 with a single that scored Carcione and would have scored Byington as well. Mike Easley led off the fifth with a single, and Kirk Thompson’s bunt single and a wild pitch put runners on second and third with no outs. ome courts not Important in East es i mother’s® it Boston Garden. lily needse ck to trani| aid. “Whai found kind' ;en glad tol fund ai efray the it. Thomai ch the Lm rth, collets BOSTON (AP) — It’s no sun rise the Detroit Pistons and Bos on Celtics are tied at 2. What is urprising is how it got that way. The Pistons took a 2-1 lead in he best-of-seven Eastern Confer- fence finals thanks to a victory in series opener when they napped a 21-game losing streak The Celtics, by holding Detroit :o 10 points in both the first and fourth quarters, broke a nine- game losing streak at the Pontiac Silverdome Monday with a 79-78 victory. It was the first time since 1956 that a team won a playoff game with fewer than 80 points. Game 5 will be at Boston Gar- said, corf den Wednesday night, with nei ther team as confident about win ning at home as it was before the series began. “The homecourt advantage iisn’t going to win it for us,” Celtics guard Danny Ainge said. “They ie left - si iorts of vet course, wdj d, it wonV ie will fik" in Califoc ■ movie wl| Whether) ries hasn't! seventh at B- Md$ McGill f« daughter. beat us at home and we beat them at the Silverdome.” “It’s 2-2 and both teams are ca pable of beating eadh other on their homecourt,” Pistons guard Isiah Thomas said. “It’s a matter of who’s playing the best that night. “There’s a lot of basketball left to be played by both teams.” “We know we can play with them, win against them,” De troit’s Vinnie Johnson said. “We’re just going to have to go up there and steal another game.” On Monday, the Celtics contin ued in a series-long shooting slump, but their drought has never reached the proportions that Detroit’s did in Game 4. Boston shot 40 percent from the field. The much-maligned Celtics bench, outscored 128-36 in the series, had one point. But the Pistons were 26-for-78 from the field — 33.3 percent. When Is Your Rental Ho Secret Jkt All? READ IT IN yThe Battalion Get into circulation! Let our classified section display your rental services . . . it’s a fast, efficient way to do business! Easley was caught off base when Chuck Knoblauch grounded hard to third and was tagged out. Tim Mc William singled to score Thompson from second, but the score was 3-0 and not 5-0 like it easily could have been. Knoblauch, voted the All-South Regional Tournament Most Valu able Player, said, “Those things hap pen. You make mistakes. When you lose everybody looks to find what went wrong. We had a big lead, and we shouldn’t have lost it.” Knoblauch went 7-for-l7 in the tournament with a home run and two steals. He also made several ster ling defensive plays, robbing oppo nents of hits up the middle. Teammate Scott Livingstone, who broke the Southwest Conference re cord for career hits during the tour nament, was voted to the All-Re gional team. He w;ent 7-for-16 with a homer and a steal, but he was hitless in four at-fyats in the championship game. Also on the team were Titans Johnson, Kaub, and Longo Garcia — the winner of Saturday af ternoon’s game against host team Mississippi State. Johnson pitched 7!/s innings Sun day night against Mississippi State to pick up the win and eliminate the Bulldogs. With his five innings of work against A&M, he gave up a to tal of 10 hits and two runs. He pitched against A&M with less than a full day’s rest. The Aggies ended their season at 52-15 — a team record for wins in a season. Fullerton goes to 41-16. The Aggies started regional play in poor fashion, losing to sixth- seeded Middle Tennessee State 3-1 Thursday. The Blue Raiders were led by a sterling performance by pitcher Dave Richardson. Richardson scat tered six A&M hits, walked one, and continually forced the Aggies into easy outs. A&M had 12 fly outs in the game. Livingstone said after the game, “We don’t even know if they can play defense. All they had to do was catch the ball. “Throughout the season we were used to sitting back and letting things happen. When you get up against a good pitcher, you can’t do that.” , Livingstone’s home run in the sixth was the only run for A&M. The Aggies wasted a six-hit effort by Sean Snedeker, 9-1. After giving up three runs in the first three in nings, Snedeker allowed only one hit and one walk. A&M rebounded for an 8-6 wan Friday afternoon in an elimination game against Western Carolina, who had taken Mississippi State to 12 in nings before losing the night before. WCU has played eight post-sea son game in the past four years and lost all of them. All but one of them have been either extra-inning games or had margins of fewer than three runs. All four years they have lost to the No. 1 seed. The Aggies stayed alive with a 6-2 win over Missouri Sunday af ternoon, eliminating the Tigers. Centala came on to relieve Randy Pryor, 8-5, in the sixth inning and held the Tigers to one hit the rest of the way. A&M was led by the top of their batting order, as Chuck Knoblauch, Tim McWilliam and Scott Liv ingstone combined to go 8-for-13 and score four runs. Forum welcome sight for Lakers INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — There is a Forum here and smog, too. And when it comes to basket ball, both the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks agree those things are in the Lakers’ favor. “No one has figured out why the Forum is so tough for us,” Dallas center James Donaldson center. “We don’t know if it’s because the Lakers play that much better.” The Mavericks have not won any of the eight playoff games they’ve played in the Forum since 1980. Mychal Thompson of the Lakers also thinks the smog helps. “We’re a lot more comfortable breathing air that we can see,” Thompson said. The Lakers and Mavericks met Tuesday night for Game 5 of their best-of-seven Western Conference final. Tied at 2-2, the Lakers won the first two games of the series at the Forum before moving to Reunion Arena in Dallas and losing two in a Winning isn’t everything, not even in NCAA regionals Let’s talk about heroes. I’m not talking about foot-long sandwiches or Milton-esque caricatures. I don’t mean HaTT: modern-day HammOnS demigods such as Babe Ruth or Johnny Unitas. I mean real heroes. Men of women who fight considerable odds in the face of adversity — struggling, frequently losing, but usually doing better than was expected, and always doing their best. Such a man is Middle Tennessee State pitcher David Richardson. Richardson will go down in the record books as having pitched in three games in the South Regional with a record of 1-0 and a 3.77 earned run average. Hardly eye-catching numbers. The story goes beyond the numbers, though. His first game was the one he’d like to remember — the one that gets a full page in the family scrapbook. It was the first game of the tournament, and he was leading his sixth-seeded Blue Raiders against top-seeded, fifth- ranked Texas A&M. He wasn’t overpowering. He just won, holding the Aggies to six hits and one run. Very few balls were hit hard, as A&M hit into an amazing 12 fly outs. Richardson simply didn’t let the Aggies get into the game. The results: MTSU vaulted into the winners bracket; A&M was put into permanent “win-or-die” status. MTSU looked like legitimate shots to take it all; behind Richardson’s pitching they were a tough team to beat. Reality started to set in Saturday against Missouri. The Tigers pounded Raider pitching; even their outs were line drives. The dam broke in the eighth; Missouri erupted for six runs in the inning. Richardson w'as asked to come in with one out to stop the tide, but with only one day’s rest he was no help. He too was lifted one out and three runs later. But the real heroics came the next day. Mississippi State scored five runs in the first three innings off starter George Zimmerman, and Coach Steve Peterson called on Richardson yet again. Against all odds, he shut the Bulldogs down. MSU scored only one run off him through the seventh, and the Raiders closed to within two runs. But reality would not be denied. After a single run in the eighth, the flood gates opened wide in the ninth. Peterson left him in for batter after batter, knowing his best pitcher was ah ead y on the mound — who else was he going to put in? After he finally did pull Richardson, who risked serious injury if he had continued, Peterson looked pretty good for leaving him in so long — two replacement pitchers yielded four more runs before finally getting the Bulldogs out. It wasn’t the way the senior pitcher wanted to end his career —walking off the mound after being shelled for the second day in a row, his team irreversibly headed for a season-ending disaster. He might not even have heard the standing ovation he received from the partisan Bulldog crowd. But he didn’t have anything to be ashamed of. And no matter how low his head was drooped, he probably knew that deep down. And even though there were 10 pitchers in the tournament with better ERAs, I didn’t hesitate about putting him on my ballot for All-Regional honors. There are more important things than numbers. Even in baseball. row. The Lakers maintain home- court advantage now that the series is a best-of-three contest. Both teams view Game 5 as piv otal. “I don’t know what it is that makes us play our best in those situations,” Byron Scott of the Lakers said. “Maybe it’s all the veterans we have. But I think everyone on this team senses it.” Dallas’ Mark Aguirre believes the Lakers have asked too much of team leader Magic Johnson. “He was playing the power for ward spot and at guard, so they were counting on him to rebound and run the fast break,” he said of his long time friend. “That is a little much to ask.” The Mavericks’ Derek Harper was in an apparent slump during the first two games of the series and was heavily criticized, but all that ended in Dallas. Rose returns to dugout following 30-day hiatus CHICAGO — Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose, who returns to the dugout Wednesday after a 30- day suspension for bumping an ump, says his stay on the sidelines could have been worse. “I’ve seen every pitch, I’ve made out every lineup,” said Rose, who was with the team in the clubhouse before and after every game. “It would have been worse if I hadn’t been allowed to come out to the ballpark,” he said. “But I’ve been able to sit back and evaluate the bal- klub.” Rose was suspended and fined $10,000 for shoving and bumping umpire Dave Pallone in an April 30 game against the New York Mets. Rose said he is not looking to his return as anything special. “All June 1 means is I can come back,” he said. “I don’t look at it as a big deal. “I hope it’s the kind of game where the people of Chicago don’t even know I’m in the dugout. 1 hope there are no arguments where I have to go out there with my hand cuffs on.” Handcuffs? Rose laughed again. “Yes. I don’t know how I’ll react if the ump hits me in the face again. It’s hard to control your reactions and emotions. But if the ump makes a bad call again, I’m going to go out there.” He contends that when Pallone was pointing at him, the umpire poked him in the face with his fin ger. COUNTRY PLACE APARTMENTS Low Summer Special EFF, STUDIOS, 1&2 BEDROOMS FALL SHUTTLE BUS l/z MILE TO CAMPUS 3 LAUNDRY ROOMS SWIMMING POOL BASKETBALL COURT PICNIC AREAS SPACIOUS CLOSETS CLUBROOM w/POOL TABLE & LARGE SCREEN T.V. 3902 College Main (409) 846-0515