Press of Atlantic City from Atlantic City, New Jersey • 31

D4 The Press, Atlantic City, N.J.-Sunday, August 16, 1998 www.pressplus.com FROM PAGE D1 Staff photo by Ben Fogletto Newark catcher Dan Fagley tags out Atlantic City's Cesar Morillo in O'Malley being ejected from the game. One inning later, Angel Espada gave himself a birthday present a two-run home run off reliever Paul Romanoli to cut Atlantic City's lead to 3-2. Monell gave the Surf a 4-2 lead in the eighth when he tripled and scored on Rodriguez's second sacrifice fly. Atlantic City closer Chris Eddy earned his 19th save by striking out two in the bottom of the ninth. Newark's Mike Zimmerman (3- 6) took the loss, striking out seven and walking four in six innings.

NOTE: John Hope (6-6, 4.20 ERA) starts today's 6:05 p.m. series finale for Atlantic City. Atlantic City, Newark. Atlantic City AB Avila ct. 2 Morillo ss.

0 Pell 2b. 0 Giles Thomas 0 Monell dh. 0 Rocha M. 1 Quinones 3b ....2 0 Rdriquez J. 0 Ware p.

.0 Romanoli Thmpson p. p. .0 0000. Eddy Totals 30 5 Mamula (Continued from Page D1) putting some pressure on Rhodes said. The Eagles registered 43 sacks last season but only 28 came from the defensive line.

Mamula was also playing for a new contract. This season represents the final segment of the four-year, $6 million deal he signed in 1995 after the Eagles traded up to take him with the seventh overall pick. Mamula, who will be an unrestricted free agent after this year, was hoping to raise his value around the league with a strong performance. "Mike knows this is a big, breakthrough year for Rhodes said earlier in training camp. "He needs to come up with a more productive year.

"He's been playing hard, but now it's time to start closing the deal with some sacks and things of that nature." Mamula had shown flashes of improvement during training camp. Offseason strength training had added about 10 pounds to his 6-foot-4, 252-pound frame and workouts with martial-arts consultant Hank Winchester had expanded his pass-rushing repertoire beyond his patented outside speed moves. He came up with a big play against the Steelers, jarring the ball loose from quarterback Kordell Stewart on Pittsburgh's PGA (Continued from Page D1) "That may have been the best shot I hit all day," Stricker said. "That put the finishing touches on a good round for me. This is one of my best rounds ever under the circumstances and under the pressure." Singh also was up to task, making par with a putt that ran through 10 feet of fringe and over a ridge on the 18th before sliding by the hole.

He shot 67 to join Stricker at 7-under 203. "It was a hell of a putt," Singh said. "I was just trying to get close, and it almost went in." The shootout at Sahalee, which began with 13 players within three strokes of the lead, turned into a duel between Stricker and Singh that culminated with great shotmaking on the treacherous back nine. For two players trying to win their first major, they could have their hands full today. Four strokes back are defending champion Davis Love III, 1995 PGA champion Steve Elkington and Billy Mayfair.

Lurking another stroke back at 208 are Mark O'Meara, trying to join Ben Hogan as the only player to win three majors in a year, and Tiger Woods. "If I get out there and play the way I did today only make the putts I've got a reasonable shot," said O'Meara, who made only two birdies in his round of 69. "I'll probably be three or four shots back, and that's never that bad." O'Meara was two strokes back after three rounds when he won both the Masters and the British Open. A victory Sunday at Sahalee Country Club is it really possible? would match Hogan's 1953 trifecta of the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open.

Stricker hopes to draw from the experience of the one major O'Meara didn't win this year. He was paired with U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen in the final round at The Olympic Club. "I was able to watch what he did, and see how he handled himself," Stricker said. "He played solidly." That's what it will take from Stricker and Singh.

"I'm thinking about winning the golf tournament," Singh said. "I can't be too confident. It's really up to me if I go out and win it or not." Singh had a close call in the PGA Championship five years ago, when he tied the record for lowest score in a major with a 63 in the second round, but stumbled on the weekend with 73-70 and finished two strokes out of a playoff. "I've just got to be thinking about what I'm supposed to do out there, not what I'm Singh said. Stricker was in control from the start, swinging purely, quickly picking up his tee as his drives split through the corridor of trees and onto the fairway.

When he holed an 18-foot putt for birdie on the 444-yard eighth hole, he became the first player all week to get to 6-under. But Singh didn't back off, not after two bogeys on the back nine stopped his momentum and not when his approach was swatted down by a Douglas fir on the par5 11th. He chipped up to three feet for first possession. He was injured on the next series, limping off the field after Stewart had connected with wide receiver Will Blackwell for a 19- yard gain. With Mamula out of action, Greg Jefferson is expected to move into the starting lineup.

That leaves a group of young, untested defensive ends Uhuru Hamiter, Jon Harris, Ndukwe Kalu and Al Wallace to vie for spots in the rotation. Harris, last season's firstround pick, got off to a slow start in training camp, but boosted his stock with a solid effort against the Steelers. Hamiter, a rookie free agent out of Delaware State, has played consistently well. Mamula is the third Eagle to suffer a serious injury in the last month. Center Steve Everitt has been sidelined since the start of training camp with a fractured bone in his right foot and is expected to be out another two-to-four weeks.

Tight end Jason Dunn will miss 5-7 weeks after suffering a partial tear in his posterior cruciate ligament and a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee in last week's preseason game against the New York Jets. The list could get even longer today. Matt Stevens, the Eagles' best special teams player and possible starting strong safety, hurt his right knee against the Steelers and is undergoing further tests to determine the extent of the damage. birdie, knocked in a 10-footer for birdie on the par-3 13th and then really found his groove, belting a drive 333 yards on No. 15 and punching a wedge into six feet for another birdie to take the lead at 7-under.

Then came Stricker, hitting a 7-iron from the bunker at No. 16 to 10 feet for birdie. Maybe the roar of the crowd that rose up through the trees woke up everybody else. Just when it like the PGA would come down to a duel between two players looking for their first major, Elkington, O'Meara, Love and even Woods gave a tantalizing peak at Sunday. Love, trying to become the first repeat champion since the PGA went to stroke play in 1958 and the first since Denny Shute in 1937 bogeyed three of the first six holes before turning it around with back-to-back birdies.

His chance for a rare birdie on No. 18 lipped the cup, but he finished at 69 and was just four strokes off the lead. "I only had one guy to beat last year at Winged Foot," said Love, who dusted off Justin Leonard for a five-stroke victory. "This time, I have to have some help and play a great round. It's a much tougher situation.

But I feel I have at least a chance, because I've done it before." Woods shot 70, a score that easily could have been much worse. Despite a 15-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the first hole, Woods struggled with accuracy from the tee and even the fairways but managed to stay in the hunt for his first major since the 1997 Masters with a gutsy short game. I RESULTS Vijay Singh. Steve Stricker 203 Billy Mayfair Steve Elkington Davis Love -207 Mark -2 Skip Tiger Woods -2 Frank Lickliter Robert Allenby. 209 John Cook 209 Greg Kraft John Huston.

209 Scott Gump Andrew Magee Russ Scott Paul Azinger 211 Nick Price 211 Steve Flesch Bill 211 Kenny Perry. Lee Rinker Brad Faxon 212 Hal Fred Funk Paul Tom Lehman 212 Bob Ian Woosnam Fred Billy Andrade 213 Bob Estes 213 Scott Verplank Colin Stephen Leaney Dudley Jeff Sluman Duffy Waldorf. 214 Per-Ulrik Johansson. 69-74-71-214 Mark Craig Stadler. P.H.

Horgan Ill Carlos Franco. 214 Glen Day 68-71-75 214 David Frost 215 Ernie Olin Browne Jay Don Blake. Jim Carter Nick Faldo Kevin Sutherland David Brian Watts Steve Lowery. Mark Brooks Jeff 217 Loren Roberts. 217 Joe Durant.

217 Tom Byrum. Joey Sindelar Jay Haas. 218 Shigeki Brad Fabel Phil Mickelson 70-70-78 -218 Craig Parry. Trevor Dodds. Chris Perry.

73-71-75 219 Joe Ozaki. 73-71-75 Robert Karlsson. Ted Tryba 220 Andrew Coltart. David Sutherland. Brent Geiberger.

-222 Tim -222 Rutgers (Continued from Page D1). A 2 South Jersey's Rob MiMeo (18) Barons (Continued from Page D1) but referee Matt Lawlor ruled that the Barons' Matt Miles stopped the ball from going in with his hand, knocking it off the cross bar. Lawlor said the ball also hit Miles' hand after it hit the bar. Because in Lawlor's view Miles deliberately stopped the ball from going in with his hand, Miles received a red-card ejection to go with a penalty kick for Central Jersey. Miles admitted touching the ball with his hand, but only after it hit the cross bar and said it was unintentional.

Still, in a case such as that, virtually all officials will rule for a penalty kick if they believe a player touched the ball with his hand that close to the cross bar. The Riptide's Gerson Echeverry buried the penalty kick to tie the game at 2-2 with no time left on the game clock at the far end of the field. With the Barons playing down a man due to Miles' ejection, Nansha Kalonji headed in a cross from Chris Brauchle 2 minutes, 20 seconds into suddendeath overtime and the Riptide had the victory and the Barons had the loss. The Carey Stadium announced crowd of 1,168 sat in the stands in stunned silence as the Riptide players huddled together and jumped up and down in jubila- Surf (Continued from Page D1) nings without giving up any runs or maybe just one or two, usually by the third I can find my groove." Atlantic City's entire lineup contributed on offense. "This was a very satisfying win because it was a team win," Surf manager Doc Edwards said.

"We got a little pitching. We got a lot of hitting from everybody. We got good defensive plays. We got bunting and hitting and stealing bases. "A team win is always the one that leaves a good taste in your mouth." Rolo Avila started the Surf off in the top of the first with a single.

After a passed ball, he scored on Juan Thomas' single. Atlantic City made it 2-0 in the third when Brian Giles singled and scored on Johnny Monell's double. Monell finished with a single, a double, a triple, an RBI and a run scored. Avila had two doubles, a single, a stolen base and a run scored. Juan Rocha scored on Joe Rodriguez's sacrifice fly to make it 3-0 in the fourth.

Rocha was hit by a pitch, stole second and reached third on a wild pitch. "Early in the count I just tried to keep in down, get some ground balls and let the defense play behind me," Ware said. Things really started to heat up in the sixth inning, when Newark's Keith Thomas' apparent home run was ruled foul. The ball went foul at the leftfield foul pole. An argument between the Bears and the umpires as to whether it was foul or fair resulted Newark's manager Tom Surf report Who: Newark Bears.

When: 6:05 p.m. today. Where: The Sandcastle. Radio: WFPG 1450-AM. tion.

Central Jersey coach Ferdi DeMatthaeis stood off to the side with the expression of a man who had just received a death-row pardon from the governor. South Jersey coach Matt Driver was at the other end of the field, looking like someone who had just lost a close relative until he started discussing the game. And that's when the rage flowed for Driver, who said he was going to protest the game with the USISL. "That was a joke," said Driver, whose team finished its second season with a 12-7 record. "We asked (the league) not to send that referee (Lawlor) and they sent him again.

And you see what he did. He took the game away from us today. I'm totally disgusted. Every time we had that guy, we've had complaints about him. "I'm protesting, and it's nothing against Central Jersey.

Ferdi is a class act. The owners of the team are class acts. Their team did well. It's officials like that who ruined the game for us. I'm upset.

We didn't lose that game. It was taken away from The Barons, in first place in the Mid-Atlantic Division of the D-3 Pro League, played well in the first 50 minutes of the game against the 12-7 Riptide, who finished in fourth place. Michael Payne, assisted by Miles, put South Jersey in front 1-0 in the second minute with a shot that hooked inside the far post. The Barons had several more chances after Payne's first 12 .101 100 011-5 9 ..000 000 200-2 3 0 Bi Newark. BI 3 0 Espada if 1 0 Waggner 2b 0 0 0 Bergman 0 0 Taylor M.ss.

Alvarez 1b 0 Griffith ph 0 Thurman of. Thomas dh Wrthingtn 3b 01 -00000000 -0000 002 Estrada ph. 00 000 Fagley 0 0 0. 0 0000 0 Maskivich p. 000 Richards ...0 9 5 Totals 31 2 3 goal to increase their lead but could not convert.

Payne scored again in the 50th minute five minutes into the second half on a direct kick from outside the box, and the Barons had a 2-0 lead and the momentum. But Central Jersey, which added dangerous players in Echeverry and Kalonji in just the past few weeks, began to generate an attack shortly after Payne's second goal. Echeverry, who briefly played last season for the MetroStars of Major League Soccer, scored on a hard shot in the 55th minute to make it 2-1 after teammate David Siljanovski missed a penalty kick only a minute before. That set the stage for the incredible ending. "Four minutes ago, I thought it was the end of the season for us," said DeMatthaeis, whose team plays the winner of today's Reading Rage-New Jersey Stallions game in the next round of the playoffs.

"Then four minutes later, we win the game. It came down to big plays, and in the end we got them. "I feel good for us, but right now, I also feel bad for the Barons. Like I said before the game, it was going to be an injustice the team that got knocked out. I think we are two of the top teams in the USISL." Central Jersey -3 South Jersey.

Goals Echeverry (2), Kalonji CJ; Payne (2) SJ. Goalies Idzahl CJ; Royal SJ. Records Central Jersey 12-7; South Jersey 12-7. Staff photo by Ben Fogletto -Morillo, Ware. DP Newark 4.

LOB Atlantic City 8, Newark 6. 2B- Avila 2 (10), Monell (8). 3B Monell (4). HR Espada (1). SH Morillo.

SF Rodriguez, 2. SB Avila, Rocha. VISITOR IP ER BB SO Ware 2-2 0 0 Romanoli 2 2 2 Thompson 0 0 0 Eddy 19. 0 0 0 0 HOME IP ER BB SO Zimmerman 6 3 2 3 2 2 0 0 0 WP Zimmerman. HBP by Zimmerman (Rocha), by Maskivich (Pennyfeather).

PB Fagley 2. Umpires Home: McClain, First: Yonesy, Third: Gladstone. A 3,014. Atlantic City Surf statistics Hitter 64 Giles .228 54 Monell .172 26 Aude. 80 19 13 Rocha.

51 Medina ...48 5 55 Thomas 48 Young .399 59 Quinones. 26 130 9 De 15 Pitcher IP Eddy 5-0 29.2 Rosario 2-1 23.2 Thompson, 36.1 6-6 100.2 Ojeda 5-2 70 Rodriguez. 2-0 33.1 4-4 72.2 Miranda. 6-4 82 Medero, 59.1 Ware 1-2 19.2 32 Totals include another team be," sophomore safety Dante Siciliano said. "If we can come out at home and put them away convincingly, that will raise our confidence and motivation.

I won't put a figure on how many games we'll win, but I think we can surprise some teams." "If we went 12-0, that would be a good season," laughed senior receiver Bill Powell. "But you really have to look at our performance to judge i if it is a successful season. You can't look at the number of wins." Asked to justify talk of bowls, Brady said, "I just think we'll be a lot better. We have a new scheme and some new players that will help us." Shea, who talked about gaining bowl berths his first two seasons but went 2-20 in that time, has toned down his expectations. "We have no business setting huge goals," Shea said.

"The goals we have to encounter are the ones that will allow us to take the field and be Rutgers must build from the ashes of a nightmare 1997 season, in which the defense allowed the most points and most yards in school history. That resulted in Dennis Creehan replacing Rod Sharpless at defensive coordinator, and Sharpless being re-assigned as an associate head coachlinebackers coach. Creehan has employed a more conservative approach, stressing secondary coverage more than overly aggressive play up front. "Big plays killed us last year, and this defense won't give up the big plays," Siciliano said. "We have a ton of different looks and it will be about five or six games before people figure out what the hell we're running." The defense is one of the major things to watch during training camp, as is the play of sophomore quarterback Mike McMahon.

After being named starter for last season's final five games, McMahon completed 104-of-212 passes for 1,259 yards and six touchdowns with 12 interceptions. He mixed flashes of brilliance with freshman mistakes, but has returned to camp bigger and faster. "Any time you go 0-11 you're down," McMahon said. "I was always on winning teams, and you feel like you're embarrassing out there sometimes, but that makes us work that much harder this year to show people we really do have a good program." McMahon and Siciliano are part of a sophomore group that has Shea encouraged. The coach is also helped by the fact that his quarterback spot is settled for the first time since he has been at Rutgers.

Several players, including defensive lineman Jack Bloom and Ocean City running back Kevin Sinclair, bear watching after sitting out for academic reasons as freshmen. While a bowl game is too optimistic, this is still a key season for Shea, who will be watched closely by new athletic director Bob Mulcahy. "I read that stuff, and I get a little discouraged by it "We talk among ourselves, and we definitely don't want him to go anywhere," Holland said. "If winning games is going to save his job, then I hope we do that." Brady scoffs at talk that Shea is on a hot seat. "I don't feel like I'm saving his job at all," Brady said.

"Everyone has their own ideas about that, but none of us is worried about coach Shea not being here next year." Shea says his only concern is trying to build upon a strong spring season and a productive summer. "I like the leadership of our seniors and I like our sophomore talent," Shea said. "We've concentrated on the skill development part of our team and I think we've done a good job of that the last six months." HR RBI 91 15 57 .311 67 2 32 30 .310 70 8 50 35 .307 27 15 .302 17 9 .300 14 8 .280 36 39 .280 9 10 .250 60 27 27 .253 75 6 81 87 .248 96 8 48 74 .241 49 32 32 .197 22 13 25 .169 2 02 .133 ON .067 BB HR ERA 23 6 32 9 20 10 24 2 3.04 35 20 34 4 3.96 105 36 59 14 4.20 74 15 7 4.24 36 17 29 3 4.59 90 32 11 5.08 93 51 68 11 5.16 20 8 5.16 14 3 7.32 19 19 3 8.72 We Have Local Sports Covered The Press of Atlantic City.