Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Oct. 21, 1996, edition 1 / Page 9
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<lift Satly (Tar H??l Senior leaves bench to produce 4 goals BY M. LEE TAFT ASSISTANT SPORTSATURDAY EDITOR GREENSBORO -r- Before this weekend’sMetLife Spartan Invitational, Alex Gros-Piron was seeing regular play ing time off the bench with the men’s soccer team but didn’t feel like he was contributing enough. But at the tour nament, Gros- Piron scored four goals in two games, including two goals on Friday night that pulled UNO to within one goal of Florida Interna tional. Gros-Piron’s ar rival as a scoring threat has come from one thing % UNC forward ALEX GROS-PIRON scored three goals this weekend on headers. persistance. “I’ve really kind of been waiting on that all year,” he said. “I’ve been working on it, and it hasn’t been working, but finally it came for me this weekend.” UNC coach Elmar Bolowich said that Gros-Piron’s determination and work ethic are inspiring not only for himself, but for the team as well. The only thing he has been missing is the right mindset. Panthers stay perfect in West behind Kasay’s 4 field goals THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CHARLOTTE When your No. 1 running back goes down with a season ending knee injury, your rushing game usually goes with him. For the Carolina Panthers, it’s been just the opposite. Continuing his relief role for Tshimanga Biakabutuka, halfback An thony Johnson had his third consecutive 100-yard rushing game Sunday to lead the Panthers to a 19-7 victory over New Orleans. “He makes it easy to block for him,” center Curtis Whitley said. “He works so hard and you know he’s going to keep giving it everything he’s got and keep hitting the hole hard and fast.” Carolina (5-2) stayed atop the NFC West l?y winning for the fourth time in as many games at Ericsson Stadium. “It’s a great thing to have 70,000 people rooting for you,” Johnson said, “and it’s a great thing to be able to give them something to root for. This team’s really starting to come together.” John Kasay kicked four field goals to help the Panthers improve to 5-0 in the NFC West and remain the only team in the NFL with a perfect mark in division play. The Saints (2-6) built a 7-6 halftime lead but were held to 62 yards in the second half and lost for the first time in three games. Saints coach Jim Mora launched into Bull’s Head Bookshop’s Sidewalk sa l e (think Xmas) art books, fiction, cookbooks, kid’s books, gardening books, gift bookstand more! at the Bull’s Head Bookshop rgr UNC Student Stores • 962-5060 X&K “The goals on Friday gave him a big boost in his confidence,” he said. “He is working for his opportunities, he works hard up front, he doesn’t give up, he goes through a brick wall, and that gives him the opportunities that he has created for himself.” The first three of Gros-Piron’s goals came in the air, as he headed in two passes from Temoc Suarez and one from Carey Talley. While most players find head-shots difficult, Gros-Piron seems to thrive when he leaves the ground. “I’m stronger in the air usually,” he said. “But it was really because of the three good balls I got, and I had a lot of other opportunities I missed. I just got good feeds that I hadn’t been getting in other games, and I finally put them away. ” Gros-Piron came offthe bench as usual in his two-goal outing against Florida International. He started the Hartwick contest but sat out part of the game. When he returned from the bench, he scored two goals within five minutes of each other. Team captain Brian Mascia said Gros- Piron’s ability to score as a substitute is the sign of a team that is on the rise. “That’s what we’ve needed all along,” he said. “That’s what good teams have, good depth. It’s nice to finally see him finish ing some of those off.” a profanity-laced tirade at his postgame news conference before stomping away from the podium and kicking open the door on his way out of the interview room. “We were terrible, absolutely terrible," Mora said. “It was an embarrassing, shameful coaching and playing perfor mance by the New Orleans Saints. New Orleans’ Ray Zellars, coming off a career-high 174 rushing yards a week earlier, finished with 61 yards on 17 car ries. “It’s going to be a real challenge for this team to respond,” fumed Mora. “I don’t know if they will or not, to be honest with you." Johnson had 123 yards on 29 rushes Sunday against the league’s worst rush ing defense. He also caught five passes for 41 yards to help the Panthers defeat New Orleans for die third time in four meetings. The Panthers took a 9-7 lead midway through the period on a 26-yard field goal by Kasay that capped a 13-play, 72-yard march. The drive appeared to have ended five plays earlier when Kerry Collins was sacked on third down, fumbled and New Orleans defensive end Fred Stokes re covered. But linebacker Mark Fields was called for holding before the fumble, giv ing the Panthers the ball and anew set of downs. BASKETBALL FROM PAGE 14 When sophomores Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace left forthe pros in 1995, Smith was left with a team with limited experience —and few bodies. Smith started two freshmen —a rotation of Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter and Okulaja in almost every game last season, and the new bodies simply couldn’t catch on quick enough to put the man-moves on the floor. And with limited players, there weren’t enough Tar Heels to spell the youngsters, so zone ‘D’ became a mainstay. In fact, senior center Serge Zwikker is the only Tar Heel with old ‘D’ experi ence. “And he’s probably forgotten it,” Smith said. But a year, Smith hopes, should make the difference. Jamison has added eight pounds to his lanky 6-foot-8, now-224 pound frame, Okulaja remains a bull dozer under the boards and Carter’s look ing to wipe away the defensive lack that benched him at times last season. “Coach Smith has us doing a lot of things that I have not done since I’ve been here,” Williams said. “Everyone’s basically new at this. We’re very happy with the strides that we’re making, and hopefully we can continue making those strides and be a great team.” Ndiaye decision still pending Smith said Friday that he expected a decision this week about whether junior Mahktar Ndiaye committed NCAA vio 0N THE BOAD FROM PAGE 14 the first game of the Classic on Friday. Debbie Keller headed in the game’s first goal during the seventh minute. Staci Wilson followed 12 minutes later by shooting the ball off the right post and into the net to give UNC a 2-0 advantage. Cross country places high in NCAA preview meet North Carolina’s women’s crosscoun try team finished eighth at the Pre-NCAA Invitational in Tuscon, Ariz., on Satur day, while the UNC men’s team placed 12th. Senior Karen Godlock led the women’s squad with a seventh-place fin ish. Sara Majka followed 28th, andßlake Phillips claimed 44th. Bryan Calloway topped the Tar Heel runners by taking 35th in 27:45. Dave Moise nabbed 61st and Bill Jackson grabbed 67th for UNC. Although their top runners were in Your complete source for quality laboratory glassware SPORTS 1 * DTH/BRAD SMITH North Carolina coach Dean Smith returns three starters to a team that finished 1995-96 with a 21-11 record and a second-round loss in the NCAA tourney. lations when he accepted a plane ticket from adidas executive Sonny Vaccaro. Ndiaye, a 6-9 center, told UNC offi cials several weeks ago that he accepted the ticket as a counselor at a summer camp, but Vaccaro later said thatNdiaye never served as a counselor. Arizona, the Tar Heels still fielded teams in the North Carolina Intercollegiate Meet in Charlotte on Saturday. The women’s team finished sixth, while the men’s squad finished fourth. Women's golf grabs 7th The North Carolina women’s golf team finished one stroke ahead of Ala bama and Georgia to claim seventh at the Lady Paladin Invitational in Greenville, S.C. The Tar Heels tallied a 925,12 shots behind co-champs Wake Forest and Ten nessee. Burnette wins tennis title Tar Heel freshman Jeni Burnette de feated Minnesota’s Jana Hrdinova 6-1, 6-4, to win the Flight C Singles Champi onship at the Wolfpack Tennis Classic this weekend in Raleigh. Burnette was the top seed in the flight and won four matches en route to the title. She failed to drop a game in her first two matches and lost only one set in the tournament. Ndiaye has yet to play a game for the Tar Heels. He originally signed with W ake Forest out of Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, but the NCAA found viola tions in Wake’s recruiting of Ndiaye. He then signed with Michigan, where he started as a sophomore. He wasn’t happy SOCCER FROM PAGE 14 headed it past Doneit, putting UNC up 5- 2. Just four minutes later, Gros-Piron busted through a confused Hartwick de fense and score his second goal, his fourth of the two-game tournament. The out burst was complete. “It’s impressive,” team captain Brian Mascia said. “It’s what we needed com ing off a couple losses. It was really im portant to get a good result, and we were pretty happy with the game.” The physicality of the game further injured the Tar Heel lineup, with several starters playing limited roles. James Johnson reinjured his nose, which he broke in the 3-3 tie against Virginia. Anson Ashby was hit in the face and possibly broke his jaw. On Friday, UNC suffered a defensive collapse in the 4-2 loss to Florida Interna tional. While held scoreless for the first 20 minutes of the half, the Golden Pan thers scored on their first scoring oppor UNC-Chapel Hill Monday, October 21,1996 there, so he transferred to UNC and took a redshirt year last season in order to play for the Tar Heels. “The poor guy didn’t do anything wrong, and Wake Forest got in trouble with recruiting, and then he goes to Michi gan and then chose to come here,” Smith said. It’s unlikely, though, that Ndaiye will be punished by the NCAA because he once lived with Vaccaro prior to attend ing college. Under NCAA rules, players may accept gifts from people with who they’ve had a former relationship. Smith said Friday that before the in vestigation began, he was unaware that Ndiaye had lived with Vaccaro. Battle of the point* Williams has always been a point guard, a fact most people don’t realize, he said, because of his unorthodox dribble. In fact, last season marked the first year he’d played the off-guard position. Is he set to move back to his ‘natural’ spot? “Coach wants me to play the point guard position as well as the shooting guard position,” Williams said. “Me myself, I’m actually just willing to help the team in any way I can.” Freshman Ed Cota is Williams’ No. 1 combatant for the starting spot. Cota, 6- 1, 170 pounds, played at St. Thomas More Academy in Connecticut. Terrence Newby, a 6-2, 215-pound guard from Jordan-Matthew High School in Siler City, will also compete for the spot. tunity, a free kick just outside the box. UNC traded the ball back and forth with FIU until the 41:31 mark, when Ignace Moleka put a rebound of UNC goal keeper Dimitry Drouin into the back of the net. The Golden Panthers scored again just 45 seconds later as a shot again rebounded offDrouin. This time, Tyrone Marshall was there for the score. “After their first goal, we started to panic in the back and we exposed our selves too early too quickly,” Bolowich said. “Too many players made runs for ward, and we had to play uneven in the back and it allowed them to counterat tack, and they scored two goals right after their free kick.” UNC staged a comeback attempt be hind Gros-Piron, who scored his first two goals of the year off headers from Talley and Suarez, cutting the FIU lead to one. But the Panthers scored again with under five minutes left by shutting down a Tar Heel breakaway and turning the momentum. 9
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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