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University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 22, 1992
SPORTS
Jayhawks hoping to use rout of Sooners to excel
By Jerry Schmidt
Kansan sportswriter
If the Kansas baseball team could
invoke its performance in Sunday's 15-3
pounding of Oklahoma and unleash it
whenever it played, it is doubtful the
Jayhawks would ever lose.
Kansas dominated the game and routed the Sooners in seven innings. The Jayhawks pounded out 12 hits, including four home runs. Senior pitcher Curtis Schmidt pitched his fourth complete game, helping the Jayhawks win the game.
The team hopes to duplicate its performance against the Creighton Bluejays at 7 p.m. tonight at Hoglund-Maupin Stadium.
"I'm hoping we can build on our play Sunday," said Coach Dave Bingham, who is five victories short of his 700th career victory. "That was the best we played all year long, and maybe we can use it as a springboard."
The Bluejays defeated Kansas 5-0 this season on March 25. The shutout marked the first time in 81 games that hawks were blank on the scoreboard.
der Alan Benes pitched a complete-game shutout for the victory. Benes, brother of San Diego Padre pitcher Andy Benes, allowed five hits, struck out six, and walked three. He is scheduled to pitch tonight's game.
In that game, Creighton right-han-
Kansas will counter the Bluejays with junior righthander Jim Walker, Walker, pitching 5.3, allowed 10 hits and nine runs Friday against Oklahoma. He said he ran into trouble during the game and that he bit off more than he could chew. Walker said since the Oklahoma series was an important series, he tried to take it upon himself to motivate his teammates.
"Istead of concentrating on my job I tried to do too much," he said. "I got too worried about what other people were going to do."
Walker said tonight's game would be different if Kansas put offensive pressure on Benes.
"He made some pretty good pitches last time," he said. "But we didn't put any pressure on him."
Bingham said Walker would pitch about three innings, allowing him to evaluate the performance of other pitchers. He said he was concerned
Baseball standings
Big 8 Overall
OSU 12-4 34-10
Oklahoma 11-5 30-16
Nebraska 7-5 20-16
Missouri 9-11 23-17
Iowa State 6-10 16-18
K-State 6-10 24-20
Kansas 5-11 22-20
with the performance of his pitching staff, especially sophomores David Mever and Chris Corn.
"I want to see them pitch and show some continuity." Bingham said. "I hope you can see it."
After starting the season with three straight victories, Corn lost his last three decisions, and his ERA has risen to 5.44. Meyer is 4-3, with a 6.44 ERA, and he has not pitched past the fourth inning the last two games he pitched.
Creighton enters the game after losing two of three to Indiana State during the weekend. Before the Indiana State series, the Bluejays had 12 of their last 14 games, including two victories against Wichita State.
Lifeless Royals stay in deep freeze lose to Orioles 10-4 on wintry night
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Baseball teams know they are in for a long, mournful summer when they fall out of the race on a day it snows.
The Associated Press
A few scattered flakes dropped lightly out of winter-like skies yesterday morning in Kansas City. Then the Royals — with the wind chill hovering around 18 and about 5,000 hardy souls in attendance — went out and dropped with a thud.
Baltimore, headed in the opposite direction, pounded out 14 base hits, including Brady Anderson's second two-triple game in a week, and won its fifth consecutive game with a 10-4 victory against the major leagues' most woeful team.
Mathematically, of course, the Royals are still very much in the thick of
the American League West. But their major league-worst 1-12 record already has them eight games out of first with no reasonable hopes of plugging a myriad of leaks in a rapidly sinking ship.
"We're looking to make some changes," said a glau Hal McRae, who is beginning his first full season as manager, hoping it will not be his last.
As soon as reporters were herded out of McRae's office after the game, he and general manager Herk Robinson huddled behind closed doors
"I have to talk to the boss," McAzee said without going into detail. "If I don't get the okay, there's nothing I can do. We haven't played good for a long time. When you get outhit by the No. 8 and No. 9 hitters every night, that's pretty discouraging."
bles, twoRBI and tworuns scored. But the night belonged to Anderson, who had a single and two triples. Anderson also drove in three runs as the Orioles raised their record to 8-5, their best start in nine years.
No. 8hitter Chris Hoileshad two dou
Mesa, 1-1, who had been 0-2 with a lifetime 7.94 ERA against Kansas City, gave up eight hits and three runs in six and two-thirds innings. Mark Gubicza, 0-2, who had been 7-3 with a lifetime era of 3.72 against Baltimore, was knocked out in a six-rush fourth.
Anderson, who raised his average 32 points to .327, also tripped twice in Baltimore's 6-5 loss April 15 at Boston.
"Gubicza didn't throw well tonight," McRae said. "The cold weather may have had something to do with it. I don't know. But he didn't throw it as well as he has."
Attack!
Playing against a Nebraska Cornhusker, Kansas freshman Manny Ortiz serves a set point in his No. 5 matches match Sunday at Alvamar. The Kansas men's and women's tennis teams competed in a tournament at Missouri yesterday.
Washington Capitals beat Pittsburgh Penguins 6-2
The Associated Press
Mario Lemieux's return gave the Pittsburgh Penguins a spark — for about seven minutes.
Lemieux, who missed Pittsburgh's opening playoff game with a bruised shoulder, returned last night and up a pair of power-play goals in the first 7 minutes, 8 seconds. That's all the Penguins got, though, as the Washington Capitals scored six straight goals for a 6-2 victory and a two-game lead in their Patrick Division semifinal series.
Larry Murphy and Kevin Stevens converted passes from Lemieux to put the Penguins ahead, but Dmitri Khristich, Peter Bondra and Michael Pivonka all scored before the end of the first period to put Washington ahead for good.
"They're not just a different team with him — they're a better team," said goalie Don Beaupre, who stopped the Penguins' last 28 shots. "At least they were in the first few minutes, when he ran the show. He set up a couple of goals early, but I think we just outskated them after that."
Sylvain Cote and Dino Ciccarelli added second-period goals and Kelly Miller scored in the third.
sion semifinal at one game apiece by routing the New York Rangers 7-3. In the Adams Division, Montreal took a two-game lead over Hartford with a 5-2 victory and Boston evened its series against Buffalo with a 3-2 overtime win.
"We feel we can win two games in Pittsburgh," Stevens said. "We're going to have to win a game here soon, because we can't wanna about that right now."
"We're just not jumping on the loose puck as well as we could," Lemieux said. "I think we have to work the puck a little better down low against these guys."
In other playoff action last night, New Jersey evened its Patrick Divi-
Devils 7, Rangers 3
Canadiens 5, Whalers 2
Claude Lemieux and Laurie Boschman scored 56 seconds apart in the second period at Madison Square Garden, as New Jersey took advantage of a rare off-night by Rangers goaltender Van Jannisbrouck.
Denis Savard had one of his finest games in his two seasons in Montreal as he helped the Canadiens break the game with three goals in the second period.
Bruins 3, Sabres 2
Adam Oates scored off a faceoff at 11:14 of overtime as Boston evened its series with Buffalo.
After an icing call, Oates drew his stick back before the faceoff and fired the puck past Tom Draper the instant it hit the ice.
lowa State loss sparks Javhawks
Bv Codv Holt
Kansan sportswriter
Kansas softball coach Kalum Hacka said he wants to use the Jayhawks first Big Eight Conference loss as a learning tool.
State defeated Kansas on Sat-
urday at Jayhawk Field in a rain-
shower.
The Jayhawks had the bases loaded in the top of the sixth with one out and one run in when the rain came. Although the score was tied at two, the score from the last complete inning was recorded as the official score, which was 2-1 in favor of Iowa State.
"I hated losing a ball game like that," Haack said. "It bugged me all night long. There is no doubt in my mind that I had won have had the game continued."
He said he was not disappointed with its team, but just wanted them to learn from it.
"I told them, 'Hey, this is what can happen if we don't take care of business.'"
Haack said that tomorrow's game against SMSU in Shawnee was scheduled, in part, to aid both teams with recruiting in the Kansas City area.
Kansas, 36-6, will take the diamond at 4 and 6 p.m. today against South Carolina.
Despite the Jayhawks' first conference loss, they moved from No. 10 last week to No. 9 this week in the NCAA Division I softball poll.
Junior Shanna Cole, who leads Kansas with a 363 batting average, said the Jayawks could not afford to let the ranking go to their heads.
Kansas pitcher Stephan Williams throws pitches as part of a base-running drill at Anschutz Sports Pavilion.
SPORTS BRIEFS
1992 NIT teams named
The field for the eight annual tournament was announced yesterday by executive director Jack Powers.
NEW YORK — Indiana and UCLA, which met for the West Regional title in the NCAA tournament last month, are among the 16 teams selected to play in the 1992 Preseason National Invitational Tournament.
In addition to the Hoosiers and Bruins, seven other NCAA teams - Seton Hall, Murray State, Florida State, Delaware, University of Texas-El Paso, Tulane and Iowa State - are in the field. Rutgers was the only team invited that played in the postseason NIT last month. The other teams chosen were Wagner, Siena, George Mason University, St. Louis University, Auburn and Indiana State.
The pairings will be announced at a later date, but the first-round games will be played at campus sites Nov. 18 and 19. The second round also will be at campus sites, on Nov. 20 and 21. The finals are for set Madison Square Garden on Nov. 25 and the championship game Nov. 27.
The Preseason NIT, the Tipoff Classic — Connecticut vs. Purdue — and the Great Alaska Shootout will be the only Division I games played before Dec. 1 because legislation limiting the length of the season will take effect this year.
NCAA nabs coaches
ATLANTA — Georgia Tech basketball coach Bobby Cremins, Syracuse coach Jim Boehme and two other Division I coaches apparently violated an NCAA rule by appearing Sunday on the broadcast of high school all-star
An NCAA rule bars a coach from serving as an announcer or commentator for a high school game broadcast.
game.
The game was played by high school seniors.
The two other coaches were Lour
composer of California and John
Calhoun of California.
"There were 15 coaches on TV," Cremins said. "We can go on TV and talk about different things. That's ridiculous."
While declining to comment specifically on the game, Rick Evrard, NCAA director of legislative services, said that high school all-star events were considered broadcasts of high school contests and that college coaches should not appear on such broadcasts.
Chiefs sign 4 free agents
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs have signed four free agents, including their own sixth-round draft choice from last year.
Defensive back Darrell Malone was released by the club in the 1991 preseason but finished the regular season on the team's practice unit.
Malone, at 5-feet-10, 177 pounds,
has a four-year starter at cornerback
of the line.
Jim Szymanski, a defensive end, spent the 1990 and 1991 season with the Denver Broncos.
The team also signed defensive back Kevin Thompson, who finished the 1991 season on the San Francisco 49ers practice squad.
The team also signed running back George Hemingway, who entered the league as a rookie free agent.
The Associated Press
Two-sport superstars take their chances
David Mitchell Sports columnist
Bo is dead. Long live Deion.
Well, maybe not.
After earning All-Pro honors for the Atlanta Falcons last year, Sanders has started the baseball season on a tear with the Braves.
This season began with two-sport legend Bo Jackson hobbling around the bases before finally undergoing hip-replacement surgery. It is doubtful that Jackson will ever play either sport again. The torch has apparently been passed to Atlanta outfielder/cornerback "Neon" Deion Sanders.
In recent years, American sports fanatics have been awed by two-spot athletes. Fans have long idolized individuals who reach the pinnacle in one sport. To make it in the big leagues of two sports is truly remarkable.
Through the first two weeks, he owned a 14-game hitting streak. Sanders' .407 batting average is second only to Philadelphia's John Kruk. The Braves' centerfielder also has scored 12 runs in the leadoff spot and is leading the major leagues with 24 hits and six triples.
Playing two sports offers the athlete several alluring prospects. In an area of outrageous player salaries, the two-sport athlete can be twice as gross overpaid. And the prospect for endorsements and postseason payoffs are twice as great. Indeed, in 1991, Sanders helped propel both of his teams into the playoffs—a feat Jackson never accomplished.
Sanders seems on track to fulfil the promise Jackson never did. Jackson showed moments of greatness on the baseball field. His raw talent was at times a spectacle. He could make diving catches and blast 400-foot home runs. At other times, his lack of fundamental skills were obvious. He often misplayed easy fly balls and set team records for strike outs—172 in 1989.
On the football field, Jackson was incredible. The Raiders were a different team with him in the backfield. And his ability was obvious when he relegated Marcus Allen to a backup role. However, Jackson never played a full season of his "hobby" And fans will be left to wonder what kind of numbers he might have compiled in a full 16-game schedule.
Bo learned the hard way that although playing two sports can double the chance for fame and fortune, it also doubles the chance for serious injury. Sanders has said he is leaning toward making baseball his full-time job, and is only hope that Sanders makes a choice before he windsup like Jackson.
Like Jackson, Sanders' football skills were never in question. But unlike Jackson, Sanders has proven he can excel in both sports. He has vastly improved his baseball play since his early days when he struggled with the New York Yankees.
It could be argued that the chance for injury would still remain if he played just one sport. However, with the reckless abandon Sanders approaches both games, he seems destined to follow in Bo's footsteps. For the Falcons, Sanders plays both defense and special teams, a task not asked of many athletes of All-Pro caliber. In baseball, Sanders runs the bases and plays the outfield like a bat out of Hell.
Unfortunately, Jackson never took the time to learn the fundamentals of baseball. He apparently thought his speed and incredible strength were good enough. Consequently, the Royals got 170 strikeouts a season from a 270 hitter in exchange for occasional home runs and inconsistent defense. Though it would be absurd to think Sanders can continue his incredible hitting pace, he has proven he can play both sports and play them well. Now he should make a choice—while he still has one.
Sunday's game against Los Angeles was a case in point. In the third inning, Sanders steamrolled Dodger Kal Daniels when the first basemen reached into foul territory for an errant throw. In the sixth, Sanders tripped. On a fly ball, he tagged up and tried to score. When Dodger catcher Mike Sioscia blocked the plate, Sanders knocked him flat. Sure, that's the aggressive nature of the games. But how long can one play two sports year-round without paying the price?
One of the most pathetic sights in sports this year—and there have been a lot of them—was watching Jackson grimice in pain during the excruciating exercise of walking. Here's hoping for a new softball or sport athlete before the Neon burns out.
David Mitchell is a DeSoto senior majoring in journalism.