The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 45

QOfte fitkMpfaa Inquirer Section worships nature in hills of New Jersey. 019. Horse Racing D16 NBA Notes D2 NHL Notes D5 Sports in Brief D3 Weather, D20. Sunday, November 21, 1993 What a kick! BC nips Notre Dame Sports 1 Penn iff Walk-on gives Irish the boot in 41-39 win 7 I I i i-h if- if -r -h fcnrninmi i ralliesto Ivy title dud 10-0 Cornell led by 14-0 at halftime. Penn didn't panic, and its reward was a 17-14 victory.

By Joe Juliana INljl'IHKK STAFF WRITER It all happened so fast for Dave Betten. With Penn's unbeaten season on the line, the Quakers' marvelous outside linebacker ricocheted off two Cornell blockers and grabbed the legs of Big Red running back Chad Levitt, all in less than a second. The problem was, being at the bottom of the pile, Betten couldn't hear the roar from the Penn side of windswept Franklin Field and started glancing about to see if he had stopped Cornell's last-ditch, fourth-and-2 effort from the Quakers' 21. Betten stopped Levitt a yard short of a first down with 59 seconds to play and preserved a 17-14 victory over Cornell that gave the Quakers their third unbeaten and untied team this century and their first Ivy title since 1988. It also was a fitting conclusion as the defense kept Penn (10-0, 7-0) in the game until its mistake-prone offense could get untracked.

"I was looking for some of the other guys because I couldn't tell where I was," Betten said. "I finally saw a couple of our guys jumping up and down, and all I did was cling to his legs as hard as I could." Before a vocal crowd of 22,618, the Quakers never led this 100th anniversary meeting until Mark Horowitz drilled the game-winning 30-yard field goal with 5 minutes, 44 seconds to play, capping their comeback from a 14-0 halftime deficit. The Penn offense turned the ball over four times in the first two periods. One turnover set up a 37-yard touchdown drive. Another Terry Golden's interception of Jimmy McGeehan was returned 33 yards for a score late in the first half.

But when the Quakers reported back to the locker room for their halftime break, there was no sense of panic. "We've been through a lot; I guess we "wanted to go through everything," said McGeehan, who threw a 17-yard pass to Miles Macik for the tying touchdown with 10:19 to play. "We always have a guy every game who steps up. That's why this team is so good, this team just does not panic." Terrance Stokes, who gained only 29 yards on 11 carries and lost two fumbles in the first half, had a much better second half and finished with 98 yards to become only the second Penn running back to gain 1,200 yards in a season. Stokes finished with 1,211.

"I was real uptight the whole week," Stokes said. "With all the 100th anniversary stuff and wanting to go 10-0, I came out really tight. There was a lack of concentration, See PENN on D12 Penn finishes off a perfect season. Bill Lyon, D12. Inside Sports 4 Michigan's Mercury Hayes stretches for a touchdown pass in the 28-0 rout of Ohio State.

FROM INQUIRER WIRE SERVICES SOUTH BEND, Ind. A walk-on kicker from Boston College, showing little regard for football lore, interrupted Notre Dame's latest miracle in progress yesterday. David Gordon thumbed his nose at the Irish and raised his left foot to send a last- second field goal through the uprights and beat the nation's No. 1 team. The 41-yard kick, a low knuckler that was the longest of Gordon's career, gave Boston College an extraordinary 41-39 victory, wiping out a brilliant 22-point offensive by Notre Dame in the final 10 minutes and capping off one of the wildest finishes ever in college football.

Boston College quarterback Glenn Foley, a senior from Cherry Hill East, made Gordon's heroics possible. He completed 30 of 48 passes for 31S yards and four touchdowns and brought BC back in the final minute. On the last drive, which began at the BC 25 after Notre Dame was called for a personal foul on the kickoff, Foley threw two incomple-tions and then hit four of five passes. That brought on Gordon, who was a tennis and soccer star at Avon Old Farms prep school, outside Hartford, Conn. He walked on two years ago after transferring from Vermont, where he played soccer.

"He had poor leg strength," Boston College coach Tom Coughlin said. "But he has worked, really, like a dog, to become a better kicker." The ball was spotted in the middle of the field. Gordon swung through and hit a wobbly shot that barely cleared Notre Dame safety Jeff Burns. "I didn't hit it very well, I knew that," Gordon said. But straight.

"Dave's kicks go from right to left," Foley said. "I looked up and it was right at the right pipe, so I knew it was going through." After that, euphoria. "I didn't know what to do," Foley said. "I just ran around like an idiot." Notre Dame players lay on the ground, so near where they had celebrated a victory over Florida State last week that had given them the nation's No. 1 ranking.

They had been lackluster for much of the game. "To come back like that and then to lose, it's heartbreaking," Irish coach Lou Holtz said, "It was a devastating loss. If you want to know, do we hurt? Yes, we hurt." See BOSTON COLLEGE on D13 Steve Heinze cut the Flyers' lead to 4-3 when he tipped in a shot from the point by David Shaw at 11:35. And Cam Neely tied the score at 16:28, when he tipped in a point shot by Paul Stanton on a power play. The Flyers didn't know what hit them.

"They always have five guys going to the net," Yushkevich said. "And that Oates is a very smart guy with eyes in the back of his head." Said Mark Recchi: "We thought we had them. But when they get one See FLYERS on D4 nightmare What a mess it became. tion Center, "this guy's got no money." As Roberts and other former Phillies told it, by the time the three-day card show had ended, it had collapsed like a house of cards. A combination of naive business moves, bull-headed thinking and just plain bad luck had left Leicht, a Princeton promoter, with $200,000 in debts to ballplayers, restaurants, ad agencies and financial backers.

In addition, Ronald Musser, a Bensalem heating contractor and a co-sponsor, said he had lost $25,000 on the venture. "I don't have fat pockets," said Leicht, 49. "I lost my entire life on this show. It was a disaster." See CARD SHOW on D16 Boston College's David Gordon (14) Saxton after kicking the game-winning Flyers give up leads and get only a tie with Bruins Associated Press JOE RAYMOND field goal against Notre Dame. front of the net," Flyers coach Terry Simpson said.

"We can't give up scoring opportunities in the slot." Leading by 4-1 on goals by Rod Brind'Amour, Dimitri Yushkevich, Viacheslav Butsayev and Brent Fe-dyk, the Flyers saw the Bruins score three straight in the second period and march back into the game. Adam Oates scored his second of the game at 10 minutes, 44 seconds of the second period, when he zipped a shot past Flyers goalie Tommy Soder-strom from just above the right from the point and get rebounds. You call them garbage goals, but IPhill Esposito made a career out of it here." The rink at Boston Garden, one of the oldest in the NHL, is smaller than most behind the goal lines and in the neutral zone. And the Bruins have nearly perfected the art of playing the puck off the back boards and jamming the net. That was how they turned a three-goal deficit in the second period into a 44 tie.

"We've got to do a better job with rebounds and controlling guys in celebrates with teammate Brian 1. It was up by 5-4. But it small rink advantage. own against a pretty good Bruins team. "We're not real happy with the way things turned out," said winger Kevin Dineen, who shook off an injured right shoulder to play for the first time in three games.

"We were in control, but those guys know this rink so well, and they play the rink so well. They just shoot NFL Game Plan The Eagles need to win a battle or the 1993 season may be lost. The coaches, the players and all of the NFC East knows it. D9. A matchup page, with statistical charts and position-by-position previews for today's Eagles game against the New York Giants.

D7. It is possible that today's Giants-Eagles matchup will mark the last time Lawrence Taylor plays football in front of a Veterans Stadium audience. D8. Pro Basketball Bill Laimbeer doesn't mind being hated on the road. In fact, he likes it.

But when Laimbeer instigated a with teammate Isiah Thomas last week, Laimbeer's fear was that his own teammates and fans would turn on him. D2. A dream that turned What a baseball card show it was going to be. Philadelphia was up by 4 was Boston that had the By Gary Miles INQUIRER STAFF WRITER BOSTON Keeping a lead was impossible for the Flyers last night, so they were forced to settle for a 5-5 tie with the Boston Bruins. The Flyers blew a three-goal lead in the second period and a one-goal lead in the third, but they went away satisfied that they had held their College Football Highlights With a spirited offensive and defensive effort, unranked Michigan shuts out No.

5 Ohio State, 28-0, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Dll Quarterback Jake Kelchner sparks ninth-ranked West Virginia to a 17-14 upset victory over No. 4 Miami in Morgantown, W. Va. D14 Mike Archie runs for 173 yards as Penn State rocks Northwestern, 43-21, in a Big Ten Conference game in Evanston, III.

Dll Auburn 22, Alabama 14 Wisconsin 35, Illinois 10 UCLA 27, USC 21 Florida State 62, N.C. State 3 Pitt 28, Temple 18 Liberty 27, Villanova 13 Complete coverage, Cll-15 By Glen Macnow and Tim Panaccio INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Only a few months earlier, the idea had seemed so sweet. Ray Leicht, sports entrepreneur, fan, promoter, was going to hold the baseball card show of shows. The biggest and best autograph-signing memorabilia shindig the city ever had seen. He would call it "Sports America: Phillies Reunion" and give this baseball-crazed town its biggest-ever gathering of current Phils and franchise legends.

He would pay them fees to show up and add an extra incentive by promising that their efforts would raise thousands for charity. Fans would pay big bucks to see those names from Philadelphia's baseball past and present, to get those names in ink on a bat or a glove. He would make a lot of money. The old-timers showed up at the September show. So did many of the players from the 1993 National League pennant-winners.

Thirty-seven Phils in all. Then the show was over. And there stood Robin Roberts. And Bubba Church, Stan Lopata, Manny Trillo and Andy Seminick men Leicht had worshipped through the years. All ready to kill him.

"Bubba," said Roberts, who had just emerged from a long, crazy meeting with Leicht at the Conven- IT.