The Battalion
SPORTS
Friday,
Friday, September 7,1990
Sports Editor Nadja Sabawala 845-2i
Even better than last year?
A&M Consolidated ready to build on 1989’s runner-up squad
Associated Press
The coach of undaunted A&M Consol
idated says his team’s first game of the
new season Friday night should be an
early indicator for chances of erasing last
year’s near miss.
More than a thousand other Texas
high schools open the 1990 football sea
son this weekend.
Coach Ross Rogers says A&M Consol
idated hopes to make up for last year,
when it won 14 straight games before be
ing shut out 14-0 by Chapel Hill in the
state 4A championship game.
The Tigers are ranked No. 1 among
the state’s Class 4A teams in the Asso
ciated Press high school pre-season Top
Ten. Running back Cliff Groce and quar
terback Tommy Preston are among 15 re
turning lettermen.
A&M Consolidated opens at nearby
Navasota, a longtime rival and ranked
No. 3 among Texas’ Class 3A teams.
“We’re just 20 miles apart, so it’s a good
rivalry,” Rogers said. “They’re peren
nially tough in Class 3A; they would
match up with most 4A teams across the
state.
“They’ve got a lot of quickness and skill
players. Defensively, they run to the ball
real well.”
Chapel Hill plays at Henderson in the
only other game matching members of
the Top Ten. Chapel Hill is ranked sec
ond and Henderson eighth in 4A.
Additional top-ranked teams are Al-
dine in 5A, Vernon in 3A, Groveton in
2A and Thorndale in 1 A.
Aldine plays at Houston Madison Sat
urday, Vernon goes across the Red River
to play Altus, Okla., Groveton hosts Cold
spring and Thorndale journeys to Frank
lin.
For other Class 4A teams with title as
pirations, the bad news is that Rogers
considers his A&M Consolidated team
better than last year’s team was at the
same time.
“We feel good about where we’re at,
and no doubt we’re ahead of where we
were this time last year,” Rogers said.
“It’s just a question as to how much bet
ter we’ll get,” he said. “Last year, we
didn’t have a lot of confidence at the start
of the year, but once we started winning,
we kept getting better and better.
“It seemed we improved immensely
from week to week. The question is
whether this year we can continue im
proving week to week, like we did last
year.”
A 235-pound tailback, Groce ran for
1,722 yards and 14 touchdowns last year.
Preston, a 6-2 and 190-pound quar
terback, threw for 1,683 yards and 10
touchdowns a year ago. He added 488
yards and eight touchdowns rushing.
In the first day of fall practice, Preston
suffered a separated shoulder and didn’t
get back in pads until Wednesday.
Aldine Coach Bill Smith has 19 letter-
men back,, including five offensive and
seven defensive starters from his team
that took a 14-1 record into last year’s
state championship game with Odessa
Permian.
Permian returns only two starters from
its championship team, but still is ranked
No. 4 in Class 5A.
Running for 1,650 yards, Aldine run
ning back Derrick Johnson was all-
Greater Houston last year.
Center Travis Coleman, also all-
Greater Houston last season, and tackle
Roderick Jordan, who was all district,
head the Mustangs’ offensive line.
On defense, Smith has six players back
who were all-district a year ago.
A year ago, Chapel Hill was one of the
Cinderella teams of Texas schoolboy
football.
The Bulldogs had only a 5-4 record af
ter nine games and finished only second
iti their district, but won their last seven
games, capping off the season with the
victory over A&M Consolidated.
Henderson, this week’s opponent, is
the last team to have beaten Chapel Hill.
Henderson won last year’s game, 22-6.
“I don’t think we could have picked a
much stronger team to start against,”
Chapel Hill coach Dickey Meeks said.
Meeks has 16 lettermen back, includ
ing eight offensive and four defensive
starters.
Meeks’ biggest returning star is run
ning back Kendrick Bell, wfio rushed for
1,737 yards and 23 touchdowns last sea
son. But Bell won’t play against Hender
son, said Meeks.
—
i Ss# . jf
Richard
JT
Tijerina
Senior Sports Writer
Johnny Mac’s
Open comeback a
true success story
J ohn McEnroe has turned the
comeback disappointment of the
year into the biggest story of the
U.S. Open.
McEnroe, tennis’ angry version of
thirtysomething, is poised to make his
first Grand Slam finals appearance for
the first time since 1985. He’s one match
away.
Not seeded at this Open and ranked
20th in the world, McEnroe is playing
better than he has in the last five years.
Somehow, somewhere, McEnroe has
found in the past two weeks the biting
serve, the touch serve-and-volley game
and the desire that has eluded him since
1985.
Frankly, 1990 has been one year the
former No. 1 player in the world would
rather forget.
He was kicked out of the Australian
Open for throwing one too many temper
tantrum. Then he skipped the French
Open because of an back injury.
Next came Wimbledon, the
tournament his game is made for and the
one he’s won three times. But he lost in
the first round —his earliest exit there
since 1978.
But something strange happened as he
made his way through the U.S. Open
draw. He kept winning.
McEnroe has earned his semifinal
appearance. He didn’t lose a set in his
first three matches and has eliminated
two seeded players — No. 10 Andre
Chesnokov and No. 7 Emilio Sanchez.
All that stands in the way of the final
is Sampras, a 19-year old from
California with a booming serve and
powerful groundstrokes.
It won’t be an easy match for
McEnroe — Sampras beat him in the
Canadian Open just last month.
But McEnroe pointed out that he’s
playing much better now than he was
then. And he said the New York crowd
gives him the energy he needs to play
well.
McEnroe knows that at 31, he won’t
be around for too many more Opens.
And he’ll be playing someone that he
said may be the next great player in
tennis.
“There aren’t that many out there who
play like me,” McEnroe said after his
quarterfinals win over David Wheaton.
“They’re all big hitters these days. But
I’m sure that soon there’ll be a young
guy who comes up that’ll play my kind
of game.
“Tennis is that way. I’d like to say he
won’t play as good as me, but I’m sure
pretty soon you’ll see a bigger and better
version of John McEnroe.”
He dominated Wheaton in the
quarters. And if he continues playing the
way he has, he’ll make mincemeat of
Sampras. That will give him a finals
opponent of either Boris Becker or
Andre Agassi.
And whether he wins the Open or not,
it doesn’t matter. Mac is back. For how
long, we don’t know. But his
improbable path through the tournament
has become exactly what he’s wanted to
do these past five years: a true
comeback.
Becker, Agassi roll
U.S. Open down to four
NEW YORK (AP) — Andre Agassi put
on a show of blast-away tennis to set up a fi
ery match against Boris Becker in the U.S.
Open semifinals.
Agassi, hungry for his first Grand Slam,
chewed up Soviet Andrei Cherkasov 6-2, 6-
2, 6-3 Thursday night.
America’s top player and the leader of
the pack of young sluggers on the tour,
Agassi, 20, walloped deep shots relentlessly
and kept Cherkasov on the defensive in ev
ery set.
Cherkasov beat baseliner Michael Chang
in the third round. Agassi took every op
portunity to charge the net and kill the ball
on the run.
Agassi took a 4-2 lead in the first set. He
finished the set with a service winner to take
the game at love.
It was more of the same in the second set
and third, Cherkasov breaking Agassi a few
times but Agassi coming right back with his
relentless assault.
“He has powerful groundstrokes. I think
the best in the world,” said Cherkasov, a 20-
year-old born on the Fourth of July. “He
was too good. He was always quicker and
quicker. I feel tired.”
“I wanted to stay disciplined and discour
age him early,” Agassi said.
Becker, the defending champion, took a
slower approach in winning, awakening
from a first-set stupor after a flare-up at the
umpire, then breaking down Aaron
Krickstein’s one-dimensional baseline
game.
After winning 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-3, Becker
smiled slyly and said his chances of captur
ing his first Grand Slam title this year were
“pretty good,” now that Ivan Lendl has fol
lowed top seed Stefan Edberg out of the
tournament.
Becker predicted a long match against
Agassi.
“He puts so many balls back. You have to
run down so many balls,” Becker said.
Asked to forecast the outcome, Becker
said, “6-4 in the fifth set for me.”
Mavs’ Tarpley given
two years’ probation
DALLAS (AP) — Dallas Mavericks for
ward Roy Tarpley was put on two years’
probation Thursday for driving drunk in
Dallas last year — an arrest that led to his
third suspension from the NBA team.
Tarpley was arrested Nov. 15 on a north
Dallas freeway and charged with driving
while intoxicated and resisting arrest. His
trial was to start Monday in Dallas.
Charges of resisting arrest were dropped
after Tarpley’s guilty plea to the DWI
charge, Dallas County Criminal Court
Judge Mike Schwille’s court coordinator
said.
Su
Mavericks spokesman Kev
said the probation would have no impact
Tarpley’s status with the team, because!;
pley has already served a 33-game susptj
sion following his arrest.
Tarpley was suspended in 1987 ai
again in 1989 for drug use. He has undi
gone treatment and has since tested nc
ative for drug or alcohol use.
Tarpley returned to the team Jan. 22
was suspended again for two games in Ap
after missing practice.
He averaged 16.8 points and 13
bounds in 45 games last season.
Aggie Spotlight: Sheila Morgan
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Photo by J.Janner
Sheila Morgan has been impressing
Coach AI Givens so far this season.
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over the
AD
Lady Ag Morgan getting
chance to shine in 1990
By SCOTT WUDEL
Of The Battalion Staff
The waiting is the hardest part.
Sheila Morgan has been playing the wait
ing game for almost two years. Until last
weekend’s rrtatch in Hawaii against the sec
ond-ranked Rainbow Wahines, she hadn’t
competed in a single volleyball match as a
Lady Aggie.
Morgan was forced to sit out her fresh
man year to recover from a knee injury suf
fered when playing basketball in high
school. She spent last year rehabilitating
and waiting to make her collegiate debut in
an Aggie uniform.
Coach Al Givens didn’t hesitate to put
Morgan in the starting rotation in the lii
match of the season.
“Physically, Sheila is fine,” Givens sat
“In fact, her left knee that was injured!
tested stronger than her right knee, a
she’s becoming a little more confident
competing each day.”
Morgan said her first match was an intf
esting experience.
“I went out on the court at Hawaii at
said ... whoa!,” Morgan said.
She eased into the two matches and"
glad to be on the court again after spend!
day after day last year watching the rest
the team practice.
“At first 1 thought it (not competif
See Morgan/Page 9
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