Men's golf clinches Intercollegiate title
Volleyball team splits weekend series
Auburn soccer kicks LSU back to the Bayou, falls short at Arkansas
| ANDREA EDWARDS Staff Writer The Auburn men's golf team defeated the defending SEC Champion Mississippi State University to place first in the Memphis Intercollegiate Golf Tournament. Eighteen teams participated in the two-day tournament Oct. 14-15. This was the Tigers' second tournament this season, and their first win since the 1996 Billy Hitchcock Intercollegiate Tournament. The Tigers finished with a two-day total of 870. Mississippi State placed second with a total of 874, four strokes behind Auburn. Georgia placed third with a total of 875. "The team played quite well," Head Coach Mike Griffin said. "State has a good team this year, and it is great that we beat them." Griffin said it is good to get the first win out of the way early in the season. "It takes the monkey off your back," he said. Junior Reid Edstrom, the Tigers' new addition, finished second with a score of 69-70-73Ñ212. Mississippi State's Chad Wellhausen won the individual championship with a 72-66-73Ñ211, beating Edstrom by a stroke. Edstrom transferred to Auburn from the University of Tulsa. "I feel that I played well. I am giving it my all to make first-team All American," Edstrom said. Edstrom said that this win gives the team confidence. "It is important early in the season to establish a win," he said. "We did a lot better than the previous week." Junior Bryant MacKellar finished tied for eighth with a 75-73-70Ñ218.
| MacKellar said the team expected to win and would have been disappointed if they won second. "This win gives us a little more confidence to go out and know that we can win," he said. "I had a good second and third round. It wasn't my best, but I was more happy that the team won. It was more fun," MacKellar said. Griffin said Edstrom and MacKellar have chances for postseason honors. Edstrom's stroke average is 70.50. MacKellar's stroke average is 71.17. "I am very pleased with the top two players. Both are very strong," he said. Last year, the team won two tournaments. "In golf, you are going to lose a great deal more than you are going to win," Griffin said. "Everybody can tee it up, but somebody has got to win." The 17th-ranked Auburn team will play in the Jerry Pate Intercollegiate Tournament at Birmingham's Shoal Creek Golf Club on Oct. 21-22. The Jerry Pate is a strong national field, Griffin said. "We have a good history in this tournament," he said. The team placed second in both 1993 and 1994. Last year the team placed seventh. "I hope we can do well this year," Griffin said. The Jerry Pate is a tournament for some of the top teams in the country. The University of Alabama is the host. "If we win, we may move all the way up to the top 10," Edstrom said. "As a team, we would love to win. We hope to finish in the top five," MacKellar said.
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Volleyball team splits weekend series
| TIM DEVINE Staff Writer The Auburn women's volleyball team claimed a victory in the "Pack the Act" promotion against Louisiana State University and suffered a tough loss to the University of Arkansas Lady Razorbacks last weekend. Auburn's fourth annual "Pack the Act" promotion brought a record attendance of 906 fans for the game. The promotion featured free T-shirts, Heilig-Meyers "Lap of Luxury" contest and prize-giveaways including a whitewater rafting trip. The crowd was screaming and stomping for the Lady Tigers, helping them win three straight games. "(The crowd) was wonderful, a great atmosphere," Head Coach Liz Bitzer said. "We haven't had that kind of play for a while." Auburn gained a significant lead of 11-1 in the first game and finished it off 15-8. The next two games brought more intense play for both sides. Auburn won the second game 15-13 and the third 16-14. LSU's strong defense kept the matches close, but Auburn's heavy blocking and returns at the net from players like junior outside hitter Krista Singleton and senior outsider hitter Allyson Beecroft, who scored a season high of 21 kills against LSU, won the game. "We had kind of a slow start, but by the third game we came alive," Beecroft said. "We knew LSU was big across the net," Bitzer said. "We needed to pass well." Auburn which has a 13-7 overall, 3-3 SEC record had stiff competition against Arkansas' Lady 'Backs with a 15-6 overall, 5-1 SEC record. The 'Backs were too tough, defeating Auburn 3-1. "Arkansas is a big rival," Singleton said. "They're a young team, but we still haven't beaten them yet." "We expected them to be a very physical team," Bitzer said. "The frustrations were in the errors, missing serves and a breakdown of passing at critical points." Auburn had a total of 12 serving errors against Arkansas. Arkansas took the first game easily 15-9, but Auburn came back strong in the second game with an early score of 13-4, finishing the game 15-9.
|  Piper Craig (4) sets the ball for Heather Franey (17) during the Tigers' 3-1 loss to the University of Arkansas Sunday. "In the first game we didn't pick up on them as well or pass as well," Singleton said. "What we needed was more consistent play out of everybody." The following matches got the crowds going with long rallies and several side-outs in a row. In the third game the points were close with more blocks at the net and better recoveries. The third game ended with a 17-15 Arkansas victory, and their momentum carried through to the fourth game, helping them win 10-15. "We should have won," senior middle blocker Rani Whitson, said. "We know we can do it . We still have fight in us. It's not over till the 15th point." Whitson also scored a season high of 21 kills against Arkansas. Auburn's next matches will be away, against the University of Tennessee on Oct. 25 and against the University of Kentucky on Oct. 27. "Those are going to be tough matches," Bitzer said. "Kentucky beat Arkansas. We're going to have to play ball next weekend if we want to come up with a win." Auburn's next home games will be against Ole Miss on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. and against Mississippi State on Nov. 10 at 2 p.m.
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Auburn soccer kicks LSU back to the Bayou, falls short at Arkansas
| MATT ROMANO Assistant Sports Editor The Auburn soccer team had an up and down trip this past weekend, winning 5-2 over Louisiana State University at home Friday and losing 4-1 to the University of Arkansas on the road Sunday. The Tigers came out of the weekend with a 6-7-2 record overall and a 3-2-1 record in conference play, good enough for a tie with Arkansas. The weekend started off with a bang Friday as the Tigers ended a nine-game winning streak of the Bayou Bengals of LSU. "We had complete effort for the entire game," Head Coach Bill Wilkins said. "This was a nice win for our team." The game started with some quick threats by LSU, but strong defense by sophomore Jill Palmer and freshman Jill Sale along with an excellent save by junior goalkeeper Meredith McPherson kept the Bengals in check. After about 10 minutes of back and forth play, the Tigers responded to the LSU threat with a penalty kick goal by Junior Maggie Cauley to put Auburn in the lead 1-0. The Tigers worked quickly from there, scoring less than a minute later on a rebound shot by Palmer. The Tigers' "balanced scoring attack," as described by Wilkins, continued eight minutes later when sophomore Loren Boak scored the third Auburn goal of the day. The LSU team responded to the 3-0 Auburn lead with just over eight minutes to go in the first half. A goal by Michelle McKinney brought LSU within two goals and the score remained 3-1 through the half. | Auburn came out on the attack in the second half. After less than seven minutes, Cauley scored her second goal of the day to make the score 4-1. A few more saves by McPherson kept that score for 10 more minutes until SEC scoring leader Jackie Cooper broke the Auburn defense for her only goal of the day, making it a three-goal game again. Eight minutes later with reserves in the game, Auburn's second leading scorer, junior Trudi James, scored her fourth goal of the season to put the contest out of reach for the visiting Tigers. "This win was big because it put us over .500 again," coach Bill Wilkins said. "It was a revenge game for us as they beat us last year 2-1." The Tigers took 17 shots against LSU and set a new record for goals against a division I-A team. However, Sunday's contest didn't turn out as well for Auburn as Friday's. Facing Arkansas with first place in the SEC West up for grabs, the Tigers and Razorbacks both needed a win. Arkansas' Keri Williams opened the scoring early with a header and made an assist to Lindsay Waxler just two minutes later to go up on the Tigers 2-0. The scored remained the same until after the half when Auburn's Palmer scored her fourth goal in the last three games to cut the Razorback's lead in half. Arkansas answered quickly, though, scoring just two minutes later on a free kick by Britanny Burns. The final goal came seventeen minutes later off a Heather Cato steal, sealing the Razorback victory at 4-1. Arkansas is now 9-5-1 and 3-2-1 in the SEC. Auburn's next game is this Friday in Tuscaloosa against the University of Alabama. Kickoff is set for 3 p.m. |
