St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 47

E5SEP2 41995' ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SECTION SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1995 wo, SPORTS i IHSIOE mm (GHy) Rival (Bears Size Up Hamis For Slip Job Rookie balaam Fits Bears' Tradition At Running Back 3 Vi J' bleachers where Cub pennants once burned and Teddy bears were hanged in effigy. If Todd Lyght returns another interception for a touchdown as he did two weeks ago against New Orleans instead of finding fans ready to party, he's just as likely to find Rams and Bears fans engaged in fistfights. Ah, the poetry of sport. This noon kickoff at Busch Stadium between the surprising Rams (3-0) and the right-on-schedule Bears (2-1) figures to be a worthy addition to this quaint Midwestern tradition.

Neither team is pretty. Both play with an attitude. Smash-mouth is spoken here, and please don't throw the barstools. "It's going to be a brawl on the Mississippi," Rams assistant head coach Johnny Roland said. "These are going to be two heavyweights going at Rams linebacker Carlos Jenkins said.

"It's going to be a good battle. There's See RAMS, Page 4 By Jim Thomas Of the Post-Dispatch Staff With apologies to Mike Keenan, Rich Brooks won't be taking in Sunday night's Blues-Black-hawks preseason bloodletting. "I don't think I'll make it," Brooks said. "I'd love to, I really would. I'm going to get into hockey when I get the season over." At the moment, he has this football thing to worry about.

Most of his Sunday will be taken up kick-starting the gridiron branch of the St. Louis-Chicago sports rivalry. "Whether I want to get it going or not, it's there because there's a lot of Chicago Bears fans in this area, particularly, I'm sure, since the Cardinals left to go to Arizona," Brooks said. "I think there is a rivalry because of the proximity of the cities. And I think it's a healthy -rivalry, it's a natural rivalry." If he only knew.

Steve McLaughlin will be attempting to kick field goals into the same Bears' Zorich Comes Up Big Both On, Off The Field 3 Bears-Rams Matchups 4 Ex-Kirkwood Player Leeuwenburg Now Shooting For Bigger Turkeys .4 i Game: Rams (3-0) vs. Bears (2-1), noon at Busch Stadium, i RadioTV: KSD (550 AM, 93.7 FM), KSLQ (1350 AM, 104.5 (2). i The Line: Rams by 1V2. 1 The Bottom Line: The St. Louis-Chicago sports rivalry takes on an exciting new twist.

i The Series: The Bears won 27-13 at Soldier Field last Dec. 18, and lead 46-30-3 in a series that began in 1937. Vi AP Rookie Rashaan Salaam has 131 yards on 41 carries and three touchdowns as a pro. In er Wake St. Louis Takes The Heartland Classic To Heart The second LPGA Heartland Classic shouldn't have had a chance this weekend.

The tournament figured to be a tee shot into the woods, an 8-iron into the pond, a triple bogey waiting to happen. The Rams, the Bears, the Cardi Lead Grows To 10 Shots In Heartland By Dan O'Neill Of the Post-Dispatch Staff They are packed together like anxious children, pushing one another for position, gearing up for the furious finish. Only four shots separate 16 golfers. The $525,000 GHP Heartland Classic turned into an angry dog fight Saturday with one slight qualification. The fight is for second place.

As sunshine drenched the green grounds at Forest Hills Country Club and temperatures climbed into the 60s, Annika Sorenstam continued to run for the border. "I'm dumbfounded," said Leta Lindley, who shot a 69 to climb into a tie for fourth place. "What Annika is doing is just awesome. When you're on, you're on, and right now she is very much on. "Maybe she'll get sick or something.

That's about the only thing that could stop her." Sorenstam's 2-under-par round of 70 on Saturday took her to 10 under par for the tournament. No one else is in the same ZIP code. Her closest competitors Jan Stephenson, Robin Walton, Pat Hurst and Mitzi Edge are tied for second at even par after 54 holes. Both Stephenson and Walton moved up with 69s on Saturday. But with Sorenstam playing bogey-less See HEARTLAND, Page 12 nals, the Blues, the Ryder Cup, and Jack Frost all ganged up on this fledgling event.

This was not so last September, when the Heartland Classic became the core of St. Louis sports. We had been deserted by major-league recreation, and, with the winter BERNIE MIKLASZ approaching, indoor soccer stubbornly refused to perish. With a dark arena, a quiet baseball stadium and another autumn of dead Sunday afternoons, the Heartland Classic moved in, with its hatboxes and accessories. Ozzie Smith and Brett Hull were replaced by Liselotte Neumann and Pearl Sinn.

Nancy Lopez received Musial-like worship. Jan Stephenson was more popular Sam LeonePost-Dispatch Because an uneven number of golfers made the cut, Michelle Mackall ended up playing alone in Saturday's third round. i lllini Ride To Victory Behind 1-Hoss Team MU Stars In Remake Of The Great Escape IT Pk. -i a 7-0 victory over East Carolina. The lllini (2-2) have a two-game winning streak despite an offense that has racked up one touchdown in their last nine quarters.

The 9-7 victory over Arizona here last week came when linebacker David James returned a fumble for a late touchdown. Holcombe's score came barely five minutes into the second period. The lllini then assigned him to run out the clock for the remaining 40 minutes. He almost obliged. But it took a goal-line interception See ILLINI, Page 4 By Tom Wheatley Of the Post-Dispatch Staff CHAMPAIGN, 111.

The arrival of autumn was a lovely day for a walk here on the Illinois prairie. So Robert Holcombe, a native of Arizona's year-round summer, took advantage of Saturday's congenial conditions. Clutching a football, Holcombe strolled through the plastic grass of Memorial Stadium a school-record 49 times. Fortunately for the lllini, one of those jaunts was a 1-yard touchdown run, which they frugally parlayed into SIS I 1 J'-" gram remains in its embryonic stages under Smith. For that reason, if nothing else, he walks away proud or at least unashamed that his team didn't crumple as it was being steam-rolled by momentum.

"Our defense toughened up when it had to, and the offense took the bull by the horns there so I'm dadgum proud of this football team right now, I tell you that," he said, adding, "I don't care how it looked. The bottom line is we won 31-22. We're 2-2. "We had to fight and scratch but we got the job done, so I'm not going to make any apologies for anybody." But the Tigers didn't seal the victory until Mark "Chuck" Norris kicked a 23-yard field goal with 28 seconds left. "We call him 'Chuck' Norris," MU tailback Brock Olivo said, "because he can kick." It was on the mighty shoulders of Borgia High's Olivo, though, that the Tigers salvaged a victory and saved some face.

Olivo scored 20 points and rushed for a staggering 222 yards, the third-best output in MU history. Twelve of his carries came on the game-saving final drive. "I want to stress the fact that the holes were as wide as this room," SeeMIZZOU, Page 7 By Vahe Gregorian Of the Post-Dispatch Staff COLUMBIA, Mo. Maybe Hou-dini squirmed out of more gnarly scenarios, but he only had his own life at risk. On Saturday at Faurot Field, what scant credibility remains to University of Missouri football was imperiled before the Tigers wriggled out a victory over Northeast' Louisiana.

"We knew we had to win this game," defensive tackle Pat Ivey said. A loss "would have been devastating. I wouldn't have wanted to go buy a paper tomorrow." The Tigers, though, had the pluck to recover from bungling a 28-7 half-time lead and concocted a 31-22 victory despite being outgained 255 yards to 116 in the second half, committing more crucial second-half turnovers and thanks to two dropped touchdown passes by Northeast Louisiana. So as MU coach Larry Smith saw it Voila. "A victory is a victory," said Smith, in his second year as MU coach.

"And I tell you what, as I told the team, as the ol' snake started crawling up your leg there in the second half, I thought our guys grew up a little bit." Even if the Tigers have had 11 successive losing seasons, the pro 1 1 Howard Makes It Three In A Row, Beating UA-Pine Bluff In Gateway Doug, is a quarterback for the Pine Bluff Golden Lions. The Howard Bison, from Washington, evened its record at 2-2, and coach Steve Wilson hopes his team is back on track. "We've been here three times, we've won three times, and we hope to be back," Wilson said. "We made some mistakes, but we held them off. See CLASSIC, Page 7 By Jeremy Rutherford Of the Post-Dispatch Staff The football players at Howard University probably think of St.

Louis as a second home. On Saturday, they won their third consecutive St. Louis Gateway Classic, beating the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff 23-7 at Busch Stadium. The college football game attracted 27,467 fans, including Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer. His son, L.G.

PattersonAP MU defenders Kay Blake (28), Darryl Chatman (back, center) and Clayton Baker tackle Northeast Louisiana's David Smith. Pavin's Chip Takes Chunk Out Of Europeans; Americans Lead 9-7 Sunday's final day at Oak Hill Country Club, the Americans need to win just five of those to retain the Cup. The reaction to Pavin's 18-foot chip told everything you needed to know. From teammates Ben Crenshaw and Jeff Maggert jumping around like kids and high-fiving to the gallery's massive roar; from Pavin's wife standing on the green weeping with joy in the aftermath to Europe's Faldo walking somberly off the green and raising his eyebrows in slight disbelief. It was Faldo who missed a 15-foot putt that would have tied the hole and the match to give the Europeans a desperately needed half point.

His miss clinched a 1-up victory for Pavin and Roberts. While Oak Hill celebrated, Faldo just stared at the hole dejectedly. And as Pavin and Roberts embraced, as Maggert and Tom Lehman raced up Compiled From News Services ROCHESTER, N.Y. Corey Pa-vin chipped in from the fringe of the 18th green as he and Loren Roberts defeated Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer 1-up Saturday to give the United States a 9-7 lead over Europe in the Ryder Cup. The lead looks nearly insurmountable, because the Americans are notoriously better at singles play, and with 12 matches to be played on to the green to mob Pavin and Roberts, Faldo placed his ball back down and putted once more.

He missed again, perhaps signifying that the Europeans are truly done. For Pavin, it was but another clutch shot in a year for him that until now was symbolized by his four-wood approach that clinched his victory on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in June. this to anything. The rookie Ryder Cup player is now 3-0 in the competition after teaming with Peter Ja-cobsen in the morning to secure the Americans' only point and it was his solid play at 18 that Pavin credited with enabling him to go for it on his chip.

"It's got to be the Cinderella story, doesn't it," Roberts said. See RYDER, Page 12 Which shot was bigger? "This one is so exciting and so fresh," Pavin said. "It's hard to say. The chip was probably, in a lot of ways, more exhilarating. All the teammates were watching, all our wives were watching, the U.S.

was watching. "It was a little different feeling than the U.S. Open. I'm gonna call it a draw." Roberts, though, can't compare.