Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 189

Norman leading Open Elliott DENMAN CM down a fairway knows he makes his presence felt Norman, 31, has twice come close to winning major championships. Only six weeks ago, he bogeyed the 18th hole to lose the Masters by a shot to Jack Nicklaus. He has, however, won twice on the PGA Tour in the last five weeks (the Panasonic Las Vegas Invitational and the Kemper Open). As Norman prepared to take his second shot on the 444-yard par-4 14th, a young man in the gallery called out, "you're choking, Greg, you're It's time to settle some issues a spectator that Norman felt most. Stacked up behind the burly Australian at 1-over par are Lee Trevino, who shot a solid 1 -under 69, and Hal Sutton, who tied the competitive course record with a 66.

First-round leader Bob Tway straightened out his swing and shot a 69 to hold third place at 2-over, and five players lurk at 3-over: Mark McCumber (68), Denis Watson (71), Payne Stewart (69), Mike Reid (66) and Ray Floyd (70). There are more snarling lions at 4-over: NCAA champion Scott Ver-plank, playing in his first tournament as a professional, Tom Watson, Bern-hard Langer, Ben Crenshaw and Lennie Clements. Seve Ballesteros and Jack Nicklaus are in a group at 216. With the breezes coming in mildly from the southwest and the sun shining brightly, the time was perfect for the world's elite golfers to shoot the lights out of this difficult course. Instead, it was Norman who nearly punched a fan's lights out.

It happened alongside the 14th fairway, just after Norman had taken a double bogey on 13 and lost a 3-shot lead over playing partner Trevino. New York fans remember Norman from his duel with Fuzzy Zoeller in the 1984 Open at Winged Foot (Zoeller won in a playoff). And anyone who has seen the white-haired, square-shouldered Australian striding boldlv. By BARBARA MATSON Press Staff Writer SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. All the stars come out on Saturday in the Hamptons.

It's no different at the golf course. In the third round of the 86th U.S. Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club yesterday, Greg Norman fought off challenges from the world's best golfers and the world's worst fans to shoot a 1-over par 71 for a 54-hole total of 210, even par, and hold on to a 1-shot lead going into the final round. Fourteen players are within five shots of Norman but it was a shot from GREG NORMAN See NORMAN, page Ml Pats take title 0 IS By JOE ZEDALIS Press Staff Writer 'tt Xi: i 1 Ay. A Ai-' A' -h' PRINCETON Yesterday was probably one of the few times that Freehold Township High School head baseball coach Bernie Goldwater was able to have his cake and eat it too.

And the icing to that cake was provided by his 21st schoolboy baseball team. Goldwater celebrated his 53rd birthday yesterday, but at least until next April he, and Freehold Township, will be No. 1 as his Patriots fulfilled his only real birthday wish by scoring a 6-0 victory over Indian Hills in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Group III finals at Princeton University. "It's the best birthday I've had in a long time," said Goldwater, who collected career victory 305 with his team's triumph. "We knew there was only one birthday present," said senior first baseman Mike Dermer, who contributed two hits and two runs batted in while playing with a 102-degree fever.

"This was it Anything else wouldn't have been good enough." It was the first state baseball title ever for Freehold Township, and the 1986 Patriots set a school standard for victories in a season with their 23rd victory. "This is the best record we've ever had and overall probably the best players we've ever had," Goldwater said. But while Goldwater was elated with the victory, what may have pleased him more than anything was the way his Patriots won. Goldwater is known for his hatred of errors. Freehold Township didn't make any.

Gold-water is reknowned for his dislike of mistakes. The Patriots didn't make any 1 of those either unless you count calling heads instead of tails in the pregame coin flip. That toss was the only boo-boo. But on its way to the state title, Freehold Township lost the coin toss in every game. "We took what they gave us and they gave us a lot," Goldwater said.

It could easily be said that Freehold Township stole the Group III title from Indian Hills. The Patriots were a perfect, and for that matter unbelievea-ble, 13-for-I3 in the stolen base department. Jason Gross had five thefts, Dermer four and Herbie Kunz three. "They just couldn't stop us," Goldwater said. The stolen base figured prominently into Freehold Township's three-run rally in the top of the first inning.

Gross walked, stole second, took third on a deep fly to center field by Jim Darmody and scored on a ground We believe in laissez-faire around here. We say "let 'em." Let 'em in (the league.) Let 'em over (the border.) Let him start (pitching or packing). Let the Trumps into the National Football League, already. Let 'em play the game with the big boys, and prove just how good they really arearen't. Let all this antitrust warfare come to an immediate, crashing end.

Let the great legal minds collect their great fees and then let them clear out. All this time into the Great NFL Challenge Case, it's the lawyers scoring the only points, as the only clear winners. Let's leave this to the players, and the networks, and the purveyors of shaving cream, beer and new automobiles, the real "owners" of football. Let the Trumps and the Stallions and the Stars, who've proven they can make it past the 50-yard line, stay in business. Let 'em in not because it may be legally expedient but because these are teams that fill a need.

Having lost two of its own, New York City needs a pro football team to call its personal property and the Trumps fill the bill. They've got talent and pizzazz and Herschel and if they're going to make it anywhere, they might as well make it in Shea-by-the-Bay. Having lost its fly-by-night Colts, Baltimore desperately needs an NFL team to embrace. Let it be the Stars, a quality club that will not let down a quality football town. Let the Stallions claim Alabama as NFL turf.

Let's recognize just how intense football frenzy is in that part of America by giving this team legitimacy. Let 'em in and they'll do the NFL proud. OK, let 'em pay $28 million apiece for the privilege of settling out of court and slicing into the pie. Let 'em pay, but please, let 'em play. Let 'em over the border, if it's going to keep the Shot Put event at the 1988 Summer Olympic Games from evolving into the Hand Grenade Heave.

Let North Korea have a share of the action if that's what it's going to take to save the International Olympic Committee from its own idiocy. South Korean instability was no late-breaking development at the time the IOC settled on Seoul as its '88 site. Let it be known too many IOC voters were caught looking some other idealistic direction when that choice was made. Let North Korea have the archery, table tennis, cycling and soccer, if that's the price that's to be paid. Let's go on and on.

Let the marathon race start 13.1 miles one side of the border and finish 13.1 up the other. Let the 400-meter individual medley be butterflybackstroke in the South, breaststrokefreestyle North. Let long jumpers take off in the South, land in the North. Let's do anything we possibly can to open the border to an Army of Olympic athletes, journalists, and just-plain-fans. It sure would top a real invasion.

If there's any way we can high jump the.38th parallel in the name of sport, let's never hesitate giving it the good try. Try planting the parallel bars on the 38th parallel, maybe. The North-South war was horrendous; officially speaking, it's still going on. If we can use the honest perspiration of amateur athletes to pole vault past Panmunjom, let's not let the opportunity flit on past. The Olympics have already gone three Games without "everybody" there.

Let that situation come to a crashing halt Let's turn sharpened javelins into plowshares. Let Eddie Lee Whitson perform or clear out. He's apparently back in the Yankees' starting rotation. The Red Sox come on down to Yankee Stadium for an apparently crucial series starting tomorrow. Apparently, Yankee manager Lou Piniella has enough confidence to hand Whitson the ball somewhere in the series.

Let it be the troubled Yankee pitcher's trial-by-fire. Let him prove he can still do it, still wants to do it, still has the gutsiness to do it, and still has pride in his pinstripes. Let's hear no more of his insecurities. No one's scattered nails in his driveway lately. That excuse no longer flies.

Stadium fans have been downright encouraging to "Ed-die, Ed-die" lately. Now let him explain his strange numbers: 5-2 W-L but 7.07 ERA; 1-2 W-L, 7.94 ERA in four starts, 4-0 W-L, 6.48 ERA in relief. "It's time he does the job he's capable of," Piniella says. No more sweet stuff from Sweet Lou. Let's say it's about time.

Elliott Denman is an Asbury Park Press staff writer. His column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Manasquan Group II champs "The shutout is what I wanted, that was the goal." Mike Mahady strikeouts. Four base runners is all Jefferson was allowed, two of those by errors. Mahady is a hero in Manasquan, the star of an impromptu parade down the boro's Main Street after the game.

Mahady was opposed by Jefferson's ace, Keven Erminio (8-1), and it was a tasty pitching duel from the start. For five innings. Then the 25-4 Big Blue got a bizarre run in the sixth, and got five runs in the seventh. Five authoritative runs. "That one run loosened us up," said Ty Hawkins, the shortstop and pitcher-in-waiting who never made it to the mound during crunch time because Mahady's three wins over the last week were complete games.

Each on three-days rest Justin Charpentier singled to open the sixth and Hawkins, the No. 3 hitter, bunted him to second. With Mahady See SQUAN, page 1-7 By BOB JORDAN Press Staff Writer PRINCETON Winning a state baseball championship took 15 years, Mike Mahady says. Ever since Little League he's wanted one. And now that it has been done, with Manasquan's 6-0 win over Jefferson for the Group II title yesterday, Mahady says it's the best feeling of his life.

Hold on there, Mike Mahady. You threw a two-hitter, struck out 12. Your third win in eight days, with 34 Ks. Feel good about it later, there are people who would like to talk with you. First it was Paul MacLaughlin, the coach at Brookdale Community College.

He offered congratulations right there at Princeton University's Clarke Field. And the phone will ring this weekend. It will be a representative of the Chicago Cubs, which made Mahady a 20th-round selection in the recent free-agent draft. Mahady's stock is sure- tims would bite. Oh-one count, right away.

"I was using my forkball. It was staying low," he said. "I figure that pitch adds about five miles an hour to his fast ball, relatively," said Big Blue coach Jake Landfr-ied. "I'm impressed with his off-speed pitch," said Jefferson coach Mike Yahnko. "He says he throws a forkball, sometimes they call it a split-finger fastball.

He kept us off balance with it. I think if he stayed straight heat, we would have kept up with him." The forkballs, the fastballs, the ly sky high now. Perhaps there may be talks with Florida junior colleges. All the courters are lining up, Mike Mahady. "The shutout is what I wanted, that was the goal," Mahady said.

And then, with his 12-1 record, he threatened. "If we had to go extra innings, I would have pitched. I felt great," he said. Can you imagine? He retired the first 14 hitters he faced. His strikeouts, two an inning for the first six innings, were a dirty dozen.

He started most of his victims with a breaking ball in the dirt, and the vic See PATS, page 1-7 RBC falls short in Parochial A MA 1 vs "It's not how many hits you have, it's when you get them," said Cross, who watched his senior right-hander Lee Jupinka nearly disarm Don Bosco. Jupinka, who struck out nine and walked six (two intentional) carried a no-hit game, tied 1-1, into the last of the sixth as both teams traded early unearned runs. "Unfortunately, they slapped that one through there," said Cross of the tie-breaking hit by Ed Leskauskas. Jupinka opened the sixth by striking out Graham Macinnis before sophomore catcher Anthony Criscuolo flared his team's first hit into right field. Criscuolo's second stolen base of the game and an intentional walk followed before Jupinka struck out cleanup hitter Mike Attanasio for the second out of the inning.

But the left-hand batting -Leskaus- See RBC, page 1-7 By TONY GRAHAM Press Staff Writer PRINCETON Heavy hitting Don Bosco Tech of Ramsey, armed with a .346 team batting average, didn't hit the ball hard enough yesterday to break a pane of glass. But two seeing-eye singles in the sixth inning were enough to pain Red Bank Catholic in a 2-1 loss to the Ironmen in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Parochial A championship baseball game at Princeton University. "Like I said you could take all the statistics and throw them out the window," said RBC coach Ken Cross, whose team was held to one hit by two Don Bosco pitchers, starter Lou Gehr-ing and reliever Frank Laviano. Craig Ralston's line single to center in the second was the only hit of the day for the Caseys. ViCl 2 1 K- 'v.

Vy rsh -JvAjir RUSS DE SANTIS Asbury Par Press Red Bank Catholic shortstop Clem Meccia (center) and his teammates are a sad. bunch Caseys lost to Don Bosco, 2-1. in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Parochml A final..