THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503220567
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
The Clemson Tigers didn't become the second-ranked team in the nation without overcoming a little adversity.
Weathering a hot start by Old Dominion University freshman pitcher Ron Walker and the ejection of leading hitter Shane Monahan, the Tigers rallied for a 9-7 victory over 24th-ranked ODU Tuesday night in front of 1,031 at Bud Metheny baseball complex.
Walker struck out Clemson's first five hitters and retired the first 13.
But Clemson (21-1) solved Walker in the fifth, knocked him around in the sixth and chased him in the seventh.
The two-game series concludes tonight at 7 p.m.
``He had good control of all his pitches tonight and had us off balance for quite a while,'' said Clemson's Will Duffie. ``We were just hoping to get something to fall in and get it started.''
That happened in the fifth when Matt LeCroy doubled off the leftfield wall and Duffie homered, creating a 2-2 tie.
``Ronnie's got a perfect game going into the fifth and with two swings of the bat they scored two runs,'' said ODU coach Tony Guzzo. ``They're just so powerful.''
The Tigers got four more in the sixth, which began unspectacularly for ODU (16-7) when second baseman Tommy Staples and rightfielder Maika Symmonds let Jerome Robinson's popup to shallow right fall for a double. Symmonds then misplayed a sinking liner by Monahan.
``We talked before the game about not giving them any four- or five-out innings and that's what happened,'' Guzzo said.
Clemson parlayed the miscues into four sixth-inning runs as tensions boiled over on both sides.
Monahan scored on a bang-bang play at the plate on a David Miller single to right, then exchanged words with catcher Matt Quatraro and shoved him to the ground, earning an ejection.
``He bumped me with his mask,'' said Monahan, whose 23-game hitting streak ended on an 0-for-3 performance. ``It's no big deal. There are no hard feelings.''
``He thought I was on top of him too long and voiced his opinion,'' Quatraro said. ``I wasn't planning to start anything. But I wasn't going to back down either.''
Guzzo was tossed three batters later arguing Duffie's run-scoring double down the rightfield line, which took an outrageous bounce off the fence.
``There's no way it could have ricocheted that far off the foul pole,'' Guzzo said. ``My contention was it hit the bullpen fence. He (first base umpire Jim Stuck) obviously disagreed.''
ODU answered with four runs in its half of the sixth, the big blow a two-run double to deep left by Jason Riley.
But Clemson struck again in the seventh when Jason Dawsey and Doug Livingston reached on errors and Miller delivered a three-run home run.
``That was the toughest game we've had this season in every aspect,'' said Clemson coach Jack Leggett. ``But we kept battling.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Old Dominion coach Tony Guzzo, left, offers his opinion after being
ejected by umpire Jim Stuck.
by CNB