Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 28

Austin American-Statesman Monday, March 11, 1991 rD2 5A playoff plan up for vote this month Pate grabs windy 3-shot PGA victory 279 score highest win total of season i 'v 'w 1 i AwMfcit AP Associated Press CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. At one point, Steve Pate appeared positively embarassed by his bizarre victory in the wind tunnel that was the Honda Classic. "I feel like such a wimp, bailing out all the time," Pate said Sunday, grinning sheepishly and ducking his head. "It's certainly not a fun week. It's not fun at all.

It's a lot like work." Pate followed a grind-it-out formula, let wind and nerves and frustration destroy the chances of any challengers and staggered to a 3-shot victory. He needed only a final round of 75 to win in winds that gusted to 35 miles per hour, frayed the tempers of some of golfs greatest players and produced some scores that defied belief. Take, for example, Curtis Strange. He slashed and thrashed to what is believed to be the highest score of his 15-year pro career, an unlikely 86. Pate's 3-over-par effort on the final 18 holes served as another illustration.

It was the highest by a winner on the PGA Tour since Larry Nelson had the same last-round total in winning the Greensboro Open 10 years ago. Among Pate's last-round adventures: He made a double bogey. He blew a five-shot lead, then got it back. He played the last three holes 2 over par. He came within 15 seconds of suffering a lost ball in high rough near the 18th green in full view of the national television cameras and thousands of spectators with a crew of more than a dozen combing a small area.

He won with a 279 total, the highest winning total of the year by three strokes. Paul Azinger, the victim of a day-late disqualification last week in the Doral Open, was the only man able to make a run at the winner. He made up six strokes over the first 10 holes an 8-foot eagle putt by Azinger on the fifth hole and Pate's double bogey disaster on the seventh were the big swings and actually had a share of the lead. Then Azinger, too, began to falter under the extreme conditions. "I gave it a good run," Azinger said after he'd finished with a 72 and tied for second at 282 with Canadian Dan Halldorson, who shot 70.

Davies wins Inamori POWAY, Calif. England's Laura Davies shot a 5-under-par 67 to win the Inamori Classic by four strokes over Judy Dickinson and Lynn Connelly. Davies won the fourth tournament of her four-year LPGA career and first since the 1989 Lady Keystone Open by completing four rounds over the StoneRidge Country Club course with an 11-under-par 277 total. Benz edges Sheehan TAMAGUSUKUSON, Japan Amy Benz shot a 4-under-par 68 Sunday and beat fellow American Patty Sheehan by one shot in the Steve Pate found a way to slice through 35 mph wind gusts to claim a three-stroke victory at the Honda Classic on Sunday. Daikin Orchid Women's tournament.

Benz also shot five birdies and one bogey on the par-72 Ryukyu Golf Club course on Okinawa, finishing with a 54-hole total of 9-under-par 207 to win the $368,000 event. Coston survives Hogan playoff SHREVEPORT, La. Jeff Coston of Orlando, defeated Beau Baugh of Tampa, in a sudden-death playoff to win the $125,000 Ben Hogan Shreveport Open. Coston shot a 70 in the final round to tie Baugh at the end of regulation as both players ended with a 54-hole total of 6-under 210 on Southern Trace Country Club. The two matched each other stroke-for-stroke until the fifth playoff hole when Coston lagged a.

90-foot putt to within 5 feet and Baugh three-putted for par. dent School District. The three-team football playoff idea came from NISD two years ago and the Sunday change "was exactly how we originally proposed it." If Northside's plan had been in effect last fall, District 14AAAAA champion LBJ and third-place Johnston would have gone into the small school bracket and runner-up Bowie would have been the Division I entry. In 13AAAAA, champion Waco and runner-up Killeen Ellison would have been the small schools with third-place Round Rock in Division I. The Round Rock-Bowie game would have been played in the first round, but LBJ-Waco and Johnston-Ellison pairings would have been reversed.

Although one council member, Bill Graves of San Angelo, favored one 5A state winner in all sports, logistics figured in the proposal for two football titlists. Marshall said determination of one football winner from a 96-team field would necessitate seven weeks of play and "that means the championship game would have to be played after Christmas, the regular season schedule cut to nine games or the season would start a week earlier, in August. There doesn't seem to be strong support for any of those proposals." Wayne Schaper, an administrator from Houston Spring Branch, failed to gain approval of a plan to send four teams from each 5A district into the playoffs for each sport. Schaper earlier devised a four-team, two-division playoff plan for all classes, which if adopted could have produced 10 state football winners and 40 other team champions each school year. "The whole idea was to get people thinking about the equity problem.

And we succeeded in doing that," Schaper said. "Eventually, if the 5A system (of playoff expansion) is successful, you'll probably see other conferences make a push for it," Marshall said. UIL officials had said quick action on changes affecting realignment for the 1992-93 and 1993-94 school year was necessary to provide time for approval by the state board of education. However, Marshall said Sunday that the referendum ballot items and the 5A football playoff change will not affect UIL realignment procedures. School classifications and district assignments for the 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years will be announced next February.

By George Breazeale American-Statesman Staff Texas' 250 Class 5A high schools will vote later this month on a proposal to expand state playoffs to include three teams from each district in five different sports. The sports affected would be football, boys and girls basketball, girls volleyball, boys and girls soccer, and baseball. Under the expansion plan, which would go into effect in the fall of 1992, Class 5A would determine Division I and Division II state football champions with one winner decided in the other team sports each school year. The University Interscholastic League's 24-member legislative council, meeting Sunday, also voted 18-1 to reverse brackets for the final year of the 5A experimental football playoffs. Last fall, the two high enrollment schools among the three top finishers in each of the 32 districts went into a 64-team large school bracket and the 32 smaller schools went into a separate playoff.

Although the experiment stirred some controversy last fall because Marshall, with 1,900 enrollment, won the large school championship and Houston Aldine, with 2,600, was the regular bracket winner, it seemingly was the catalyst for extension of the three-team playoff concept to other 5 A sports. Bailey Marshall, UIL director general, said referendum ballots will be mailed to 5A schools within the next few days and a vote count should be available by early April. In predicting approval of the playoff expansion, Marshall added that "5A schools generally liked the three-team football playoffs because it kept more teams involved. I don't hear that it solved the enrollment equity problem." "We went to the 64-team large school bracket in the first year of the 5A football playoff experiment to separate those giant schools away from the smaller ones," Marshall added. "Some people thought it was necessary to see what might happen if the bracket were reversed.

But, with some districts containing large enrollment schools like Piano and Piano East and some others, in Fort Worth and Houston, composed mainly of smaller schools, a repetition of Marshall (large school champion) and Aldine (small school winner) will always be possible." "The 32 up and 64 down should make things more equitable," said Dub Farris, athletic director of the San Antonio Northside Indepen Sockadillos bow to Comets in playoffs said Simoes, who coached his last game for Austin. "They (Austin) showed some character. It was a good season for the Sockadillos," Simoes said. Austin began the game flat despite knowing it had to win to stay alive in the Sunbelt Independent Soccer League playoffs. Colorado scored first when the lightning-quick Andy Crawford fed Rob Zimmerman on a breakaway.

Austin answered when Steve Bailey hummed a 30-foot shot past Greg Lammerling, the league's leading goalkeeper. But Colorado quickly scored two goals to increase its lead to 3-1 and Austin seemed lackadaisical and on its way to a quick exit. Wallis Goodman and Jesus Guerra of the Sockadillos' second line came through with two goals from behind the red line to tie the game, and Marcelo Draguicevich put them ahead to stay with a left-foot scorcher with just under two minutes to play in the first period. Austin then took advantage of a four-minute stay in the penalty box by Crawford to score two more goals, one by Miguel Aranda and another by Bailey to build a 5-3 lead. Colorado answered with a goal, but Austin led 8-4 at the half.

The second half belonged to Chino Melendez, Colorado's superb forward. Melendez scored four goals as the Comets mounted a furious rally that fell just short, sending the two teams into a mini-game of two 15-minute periods to determine who would face Tucson in the Southwest Conference finals. The answer was the Comets, and their strength and experience. showed as they racked up five goals in the first half of the minigame before Aranda could put Austin on the board. By Jorge Renaud American-Statesman Correspondent The Austin Sockadillos bruised, bloody and exhausted finally bowed to the Colorado Comets Sunday.

After a stirring comeback to win the second game of their best-of-three playoff series, the Sockadillos lost the mini-game 6-1 and the series to end their season at Tatu's Indoor Soccer Place. Austin overcame a 3-1 deficit in the first game, built its lead to 10-6 and held on to win 10-9. But after playing a full game plus two sudden-death periods in Saturday's 7-6 loss to Colorado, the toll demanded on Sunday was too much for Tony Simoes' squad. 1 "We were just physically and mentally exhausted. We didn't have the conditioning to play (what amounted to) a three-hour game," So they say Limited selection The Chicago Sun-Times recently ran this advertisement: "Have Dinner With Your Favorite Chicago Bull at the 1991 Chicago Sun-Times Sports Dinners." Your choice of "favorite" was either B.J.

Armstrong or Cliff Levingston. y- mox" I 1 -4, 'I I All-state basketball tournament teams The cost of inflation Rollie Fingers, on the evolution of the relief pitcher's role: "In 1971, 1 had 17 saves and got a raise. In 1985, 1 had 17 saves and got released." B.J. Armstrong Cliff Levingston Another world When was the last time a World Series game drew a six-figure crowd? The Australian Cricket Board recently announced that the World Cup final would be at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1992. ACB Chair man Col Egar said: "Melbourne has the capacity to guarantee a crowd of at least 85,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 If (defending world champion) Australia reaches the final." From wire reports Vergil Richardson, Clarksville 6-2 Sr.

Joel Nolte, H-Jefferson 5-10 Jeff Burke, H-Jefferson 6-4 Gene Isabell, H-Jefferson 6-7 So CLASS 2A Justin Prather, Abernathy 6-0 Sr" Richard Hastings, Liberty Hill 6-6 Sr Greg Austin, Troup 6-5 Fr Rob Peterson, Krum 6-6 Cody Forbes, Abernathy 6-0 Jr Larry Norris, Abernathy 6-0 Jr." CLASS A Patrick Henke, Moulton 6-3 Jr. Bobby Fishbeck, Moulton 6-2 Sr." Marshall Holcomb, Paducah 6-1 Sr. Justin Phillips, Bronte 6-2 Sr. Bill Windham, Bronte 6-0 Sean Conway, Bronte 6-1 Sr. Stacy Thompson, Tenaha 5-9 All-tournament selections for the 71st annual University Interscholastic League state boys basketball tournament: CLASS 5A Player, School Ht.

Class Marvin Bell, Duncanville 6-3 Sr. Greg Ostertag, Duncanville 7-1 Sr. Ken Kerley, SA Jay 6-4 Sr. Frederick Coleman, SA Jay 6-2 Sr. Dayo Holloway, FW Dunbar 6-3 Jr.

CLASS 4A Kelvin McKyer, PA Lincoln 6-5 Sr. Ben Hart, Alamo Heights 6-6 Jr. Crain Canavan, Alamo Heights 6-7 Sr. Jeff Young, Pampa 6-2 Jr. Xavier Henson, PA Lincoln 6-6 Sr.

CLASS 3A Chris Cornelison, Bowie 6-5 Sr. Shannon Holmes, H-Jefferson 6-7 Sr. LeMond gets a slow start in slippery cycling race Associated Press FONTENAY-SOUS-BOIS, France Two-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond finished 25th in Sunday's first stage of the Paris-Nice cycling race, 27 seconds behind leaders Tony Ro-minger of Switzerland and Thierry Marie of France. Rominger and Marie turned in times of 8 minutes, 29 seconds in the 6.5-kilometer prologue. Both will wear leaders' white jerseys in today's stage.

Christian Chaubet of France trailed by four seconds to come in third, just edging ahead of countryman Pascal Lance. LeMond was philosophical about the poor start in rainy weather in the Paris suburbs. "It was very slippery but I ran a good race," LeMond said. "I didn't want to fall off or take any risk. But don't worry, I haven't any problems." Frankie Andreu was the top-finishing American, coming in fifth at seven seconds behind the leaders.

LeMond and Fignon both dropped out of the Sicilian Tour last week. The 29-mile stage today will be run by more than 100 competitors. The race ends March 17 on the French Riviera in Nice with a total distance of 595 miles. On the air TALK SHOWS 620 p.m. (KLBJ-AM 1200) Sports Talk with Bill Schoening Mind-bendor Which two players were members of the team with the best single-season record in National Basketball tion history, as wefl as the team with the worst? Answer on Scoreboard, D6 Calendar COLLEGE BASEBALL Ujr JAlJ 7.30 I COLLEGE SOFTBALL 11 p.m.

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