The Greenville News from Greenville, South Carolina • 9

0) LA.) 9 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1988 OUTDOORS SCOREBOARD SECTION Dan Foster 1Yi 't 1 nsh Dream realized by Rice Sat By Tom Layton News staff writer SOUTH BEND, Ind. There was as much irony as history Saturday in Notre Dame's 31-30 conquest of Miami: The No. 1-ranked Hurricane may have been too good for its own good. Miami stood convinced that it could successfully run a faked punt; that Tony Rice couldn't hurt its defense; that it could afford to pass up three sure points to try for six; that it could even pick a pregame fight with the Fighting Irish. The Hurricane came here with a 36-game regular-season winning streak, including five with Notre Dame's Tony Rice gets ready to pitch out FWuT) Unpredictable LA starts journey LOS ANGELES If we haven't learned by now, it's our own fault.

What we ought to have learned is that what these Los Angeles Dodgers did Saturday, or may do Sunday means nothing, or almost nothing as far as who's going to get the big trophy. If this team of Tommy Lasorda's followed any kind of form, you might know something. But they don't, so we don't. They started this World Series as a huge underdog. They started it at home.

The rule in the World Series is that when an underdog loses its first game at home, it is doomed. If it wins it, it has a chance, but only a chance. The Dodgers don't understand all that. They lost the first one to the Mets right here. With all three New York runs coming in the ninth inning it would have been a heartbreaker for any team that lost it.

For an underdog that had to scrap even to be in the playoffs, and absorbed key injuries along the way, it also should have been a backbreaker. Not for these '88 Dodgers. Against the Mets, they played only .500 ball (2-2) in Dodger Stadium. You don't win even pennants on 500 ball at home. But on the Mets' turf, they played .667 ball (2 to 1) That let them open the World Series at home Saturday night, and that's why the New Yorks Mets office will be busy for the next several weeks mailing out refunds back on 50,000 or so Series tickets.

Local skeptics The world remains unconvinced. A columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News, right here, not only picked Oakland to win this Series, but predicted the Dodgers would win only one game. Dodgers players agree with him to the point that they should be underdogs. Where they disagree with him is the consequences. They hope to sneak up on a highly confident Oakland, slip the rope quietly around the A's necks and a-a-g-g-g-h-h-h just like they did to the Mets.

The Dodgers don't have the power for a frontal assault. They play baseball the way guerilla troops fight wars. If Oakland is like the Mets, even when they get Tigers back in charge of ACC By Tom Layton News staff writer SOUTH BEND, Ind. The alarm went off early in Tony Rice's dream game Saturday, waking him up on the wrong side of Notre Dame's bid to second-half comebacks, and its quarterback, Steve Walsh, totaled the greatest passing yardage ever against Notre Dame. How could Miami lose? The same way as did Oklahoma with it 47-game winning ACC Conference Overall WLTOflDef Off Def Clemson 3 0 0 89 37 5 1 0 173 71 N.

Carolina St. 3 1 0 102 45 5 1 0 196 51 Wake Forest 1 1 0 75 62 4 1 0 150 92 Maryland 2 1 0 67 61 3 3 0 127 152 Duke 1 1 0 55 83 5 1 0 175 162 Virginia 1 2 0 58 64 2 4 0 131 159 North Carolina 0 2 0 27 90 0 6 0 92 234 Georgia Tech 0 4 0 43 74 2 4 0 101 84 Saturday's Games Clemson 49, Duke 17 Georgia Tech 34, S. Carolina 0 Louisville 30, Virginia 28 N. Carolina St. 48, North Carolina 3 Wake Forest 27, Maryland 24 Next Week's Games Clemson at North Carolina St.

Georgia Tech at North Carolina Maryland at Duke Virginia at Wake Forest turnovers, two of which led directly to scores. Duke quarterback Anthony Dilweg, who entered the game ranked second nationally in total offense, was harrassed into his most unstable performance of the season. He completed just 18 passes for 209 yards and was intercepted twice. He was averag hi ii i mi ii -j; im'r'rmmtwm'm tN '77 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 1 J. i aKvr.rl...': A w.Jjl WW upsets ASU, 24-9 Ms fry T' v'' wtflMiiMrti ff upset No.

1-ranked Miami. Rice scored the first rushing touchdown Miami has allowed since last November, threw one completion 65 yards in the See Rice, Page 8D streak in 1957, Georgia Tech with its 31-game unbeaten streak in 1953, and Texas with its 30-game winning streak in 1971. The same way as did No. 1-ranked Alabama See Irish, Page 8D ODES ing 362.8 yards a game. "For the kind of explosive team Duke is, this was the best we could have hoped to play against them," Clemson linebacker Levon Kirkland said.

Offensively, the same Tigers who had trouble scoring last week against Virginia were quite efficient, even dazzling at times. Terry Allen rushed for 134 of Clemson's 388 yards on the ground, and Rodney Williams had to pass just 11 times to become the second Clemson quarterback to pass for more than 4,000 career yards. More impressive, it was almost as if Ford had taken a page from Bobby Bowden's playbook. On the Tigers' first play from scrimmage with 2:08 left in the first quarter, Ford sneaked third-string quarterback DeChane See Tigers, Page 6D blocked an ASU field-goal try, and the verdict was never again in doubt. "Being able to do this without Kennet Goldsmith (who incurred a knee injury on the first play of the second quarter) is amazing," said Furman Coach Jimmy Sat-terfield.

Early indications are that Goldsmith will miss the rest of the season with ligament damage in his right knee. "I can't say enough about our defense; it was steady all day. And our offensive See Furman, Page 6D land manager Tony La Russa said. If recent history holds, the extra days off will benefit the Athletics. The pattern shows that teams with time to set up their rotations usually win.

Last year, Minnesota needed only five games to beat Detroit in the AL playoffs. That gave the Twins time to have Frank Viola ready to start the opener against St. Louis, and he pitched three times in the World Series and won Game 7 and was MVP. The Cardinals, however, needed seven games to stop San Francisco in the NL playoffs. John Tudor wasn't ready to start the opener, so the job fell to rookie Joe Magrane, who was hit hard.

In 1984, Detroit dominated during the regular season and swept a three-game playoff from Kansas City. The Tigers were set for the World Series and easily defeated San Diego, which scrambled to win the NL playoffs in five games. In 1982, the Cardinals had plenty of rest before meeting Milwaukee in the World Series, and it paid off as St. Louis wore down the Brewers. Paladins prove mettle in 'door-die' game, Page 3D.

opening minutes and musculed its way to a 24-3 lead before the hefty Mountaineers (4-2) scored in the closing minutes. Furman, playing the entire second half without veteran fullback Kennet Goldsmith, stunned the stadium-record homecoming crowd of 25,301 with two third-quarter touchdown drives that turned a 7-3 lead into a 17-3 bulge. Moments later, Julius Dixon By Mike Hunt News staff writer CLEMSON It was a race between which would wear out first, the Clemson Memorial Stadium scoreboard or the Duke quarterbacks' arms. Fifty-one times they threw, but they could have stayed all night and almost did and not kept up with the innovative Tigers. To burst Duke's pipe-dream season was one thing; to do it 49-17 was quite another.

Representatives from seven bowls (includ-ing the Sugar) and a homecoming crowd of 83,500, the second-largest ever at Death Valley, saw the llth-ranked Tigers return to form with a vengeance. "We looked," Clemson Coach Danny Ford said, "like Clem-son's supposed to look." In giving the Blue Devils their first loss, Clemson rolled up 533 yards on offense and forced Duke into five Furman By Abe Hardesty News staff writer BOONE, N.C. Furman's rebuilding season took a dramatic turn Saturday. The Paladins, dominating the game in every department, handed third-ranked Appalachian State its first home defeat in four years a 24-9 verdict that lifts Furman back into contention for a Southern Conference championship. Furman, 2-1 in the league and 5-2 overall, set the tone in the THE NEWS RAY GRONBERG Gamecocks had whipped Georgia.

"There's not a whole lot you can say about this one," Morrison said. "They played extremely well today. Like Vince Dooley said a few weeks ago, they took us to the wood shed." Unlike the whippings administered in a wood shed, this one was applied in public, in front of a Bobby Dodd Stadium crowd of See USC, Page 6D THE NEWS BON MUNNERLYN Tiger Doug Brewster celebrates a fumble recovery Dodgers expect to play well vs. A's use blasted, 34-0 in trouble, as soon as they get out of it, they'll again become sure that the Dodgers can't do it to them. About three or four publications have a habit of going through the positions of the teams and saying who has "the edge." When the two teams opened their Los Angeles Times on Saturday, they found only three positions where the Dodgers were considered superior and one of them is extremely suspect.

The Dodgers were accorded higher marks at catcher (Mike Sciosia) and second base (Steve Sax). Although LA's Kirk Gibson seems more injured now than he did even Wednesday, the raters gave the Dodgers left field. For power, Oakland batted .299 in its playoffs against Boston. LA hit .214 against the Mets. The intangibles If the Dodgers beat a Mets team they couldn't beat, can they beat an Oakland team they can't beat the same way? What was the formula? Orel -Hershiser was weapon No.l.

Emotion was weapon No. 2. Eventually, some way, some how, the two combined to put enough pressure on the Mets that by the seventh game the Mets played like a team totally obsessed with not losing. They cracked. They went from a team overconfident to a team afraid.

There were no stops in between. In the decisive game, they fielded the ball like it had a disease and hit it like it was a shotput. The Dodgers, clinging to beads, palm leaves and other intangibles, may find some solace in a few comments from old Whitey Herzog, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. Herzog (and everybody else, in cluding Lasorda) said the Mets were a better team than the Dodgers.

He adds that the best teams win divi sions but not always the playoffs, nor the World Series. Says Herzog, writing for the New York Times during the Series, "Over 162 games, form holds up. In seven games chance shows up." That 11 give the Dodgers a boost. As lone as they're sure the best team doesn't always win, they have hope. l.tllWMWtllWllliifililiMtlllAltl-1 1,) i- "iv LOS ANGELES (AP) The Oakland Athletics are rested and ready.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are tired of being heavy underdogs. "If we don't play well and lose to the A's, I don't think anybody will be surprised but us," said Tim Belcher, the Dodgers' starter in Game 1 Saturday night. Belcher is starting the opener because ace Orel Hershiser isn't ready yet. Hershiser pitched Wednesday night when the Dodgers beat the New York Mets 6-0 in Game 7 of the National League playoffs. Oakland's pitching plans are set.

Dave Stewart will start Game 1 on four days' rest and be followed by Storm Davis and Bob Welch, the same rotation the Athletics used in sweeping Boston in the American League playoffs. While the Dodgers struggled past the Mets, the Athletics were able to relax. They finished off the Red Sox last Sunday, took off Tuesday and then lightly practiced the rest of the week. "Our guys have really been getting antsy the last two days. I guess more than anything you worry about the pitchers' timing, but it's really no big thing," Oak USC's Todd Ellis fumbles the ball and Georgia Tech's Dean Smith recovers One of those days, Page 3D By Charles Bennett News staff writer ATLANTA South Carolina could do nothing right, and Georgia Tech could do no wrong.

Final score: Georgia Tech 34, South Carolina 0. That may seem like a simplistic way to describe how a 1-4 Georgia Tech team could upset the previously unbeaten and eighth-ranked Gamecocks, but there's no explanation quite as accurate. The enormity of the whipping the Yellow Jackets administered to the Gamecocks Saturday was underscored by the fact that Georgia Tech had not beaten a Division I-A school since 1986. For the Gamecocks, it was their worst loss since a 56-14 defeat at the hands of Florida State in 1985, and the first time they had been shut out since 1981. It also almost assuredly kills any national title hopes the Gamecocks, 6-1, may have had.

"It was one of those days when everything went our way," said Georgia Tech Coach Bobby Ross. "I think we were due for that for a long while. I'm going to take everything we got and not turn anything away. I thought it was a complete football game. We played almost a perfect football game." South Carolina Coach Joe Morrison, meanwhile, harkened back to a post game speech delivered by Georgia's Vince Dooley earlier in the season after the.