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Product: ENQUIRER PubDate: 10-11-2004 Zone: Late Edition: 1 Page Name: C1.0
Time: 10-10-2004 22:40 User: bburns
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Nelson wins Champions Tour playoff. C5

SPORTS

COMING TUESDAY: High school football

area coaches polls.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2004

Editor: Michael Perry, mperry@enquirer.com, (513) 768-8381

Top
of the First

No pressure, no fears, no problem

Non-title contender Nemechek holds off Rudd for victory in Banquet 400
By Mike Harris

The Associated Press

COLLEGE
FOOTBALL

UCs loss to Army

a problem for all

Mark Dantonios seen a lot

in 25 years as a football
coach. But that doesnt
mean he can just shrug off
Saturdays loss to Army
without another thought.
The first-year Bearcats
coach (above) expects
each person in the program to examine his role
in the humiliating defeat.
STORY, C8

KANSAS CITY, Kan.

The biggest gripe about
NASCARs new 10-man Chase
for the Nextel Cup championship was that drivers not in
the title battle would be
ignored.
Nobody could ignore Joe
Nemechek Sunday after he
held off Ricky Rudd to win the
Banquet 400 and finish a
weekend sweep at Kansas
Speedway.
The guys in the championship chase have more to lose
than we do, Nemechek said.
Were on the offense, not on

Inside
m Michael Schumacher wins
again; it was a big weekend for
Army and its athletic affiliations,
Autos notebook, C3
Nextel Cup standings, C2
defense.
This one was almost as
close as his half car-length victory over Greg Biffle in the
Busch Series event Saturday,
with Nemechek and Rudd
racing side-by-side and bumping once with a lap to go before Nemechek took control
again and beat Rudd to the finish by about 114 car-lengths.

Nemechek, who did a

backward victory lap on the
112-mile oval to honor the
memory of his brother, John,
killed in a truck race in Homestead, Fla., in 1997, was relieved to win after nearly getting too conservative at the
end.
There at the end I was trying to save gas and here come
Ricky Rudd out of nowhere,
Nemechek said. I was like,
Holy Moley. I had to get back
on it. He got beside me one
time, but I wasnt going to let it
happen.
The end off the race was
pretty neat, said Rudd, who
drove onto the apron and

nearly spun out on the late restart before breaking out of

the pack to chase down Nemechek.
I got hung up in traffic and
Joe had a half-a-straightaway
lead on us, Rudd added. I
caught him somehow and I
got to his door, but my car was
slipping and I had to ease off
so I didnt take us both out.
Joe and I, neither one, needed
that type of ending.
Rudd raced to his second
top-10 finish of the year, both
coming since reuniting with
crew chief Michael Fatback
McSwain in August.
See NASCAR, Page C3

Chase for the Cup (after 4 of 10 races)

1. Kurt Busch
5,685 points

3. Jeff Gordon

5,606 points (-79)

Baseball playoffs Braves force Game 5 with Astros

Losing not an option

Oklahoma closing
in on Southern Cal
The gap between No. 1
USC and No. 2 Oklahoma
is smaller than its been all
season. And after two
straight losses, Ohio State
has dropped to No. 25.
The Sooners 12-0 shutout
of Texas and Southern Californias close call against
California persuaded some
voters in The Associated
Press Top 25 released
Sunday to change their
first-place vote. USC received 41 first-place votes,
a season low. Oklahoma
got a season-high 23 firstplace votes, and the school
is separated from USC by
just 19 points overall. Georgia had been No. 3, but a
19-14 loss at home to Tennessee on Saturday
dropped the Bulldogs to
No. 12. Idle Miami moved
up one spot to No. 3. No. 4
Auburn received the remaining first-place vote
and Purdue moved up four
spots to No. 5. LSU, which
had dropped to No. 24,
moved up to No. 20 after a
comeback victory over
Florida in Gainesville.
POLLS, C2

COLLEGE
BASKETBALL

Midnight Madness
draws ever closer
Local teams will kick off
their seasons soon. Cincinnati and Kentucky will
each have programs Friday night. The Bearcats
will start at 10 p.m. at Fifth
Third Arena. UKs Big
Blue Madness begins at
10:30 p.m. at Memorial
Coliseum in Lexington.
Xavier will host Musketeer
Madness at 6 p.m. Oct. 23
at Cintas Center.
m The Enquirer will begin
a series of previews Tuesday about local schools
seasons. The series will
begin with UC, followed
by Xavier on Wednesday,
Miami on Thursday and
UK on Friday.

PRO FOOTBALL

Elways dog
enjoys traveling

John Elways Alaskan malamute, Kimo, has gotten

his owner in trouble again.
While Elway was being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August, Kimo was exploring
the streets. Elway has
been cited at least six
times for the family dogs
escapades. Elway was
fined $200.

An edition of
The Cincinnati Enquirer

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

5,656 points (-29)

4. Elliott Sadler

5,542 (-143)

Big Ben
star of
big day
in NFL

Steelers 4-1 record

leads AFC North
Enquirer news services

The Associated Press/DAVID J. PHILLIP

The normally reserved John Smoltz (left) lets loose after securing a win and another game for the Braves Sunday.

Once upon a time, Braves starters ruled

the world; now, the bullpens in charge
By Jack Wilkinson

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

HOUSTON A day after his

starting pitcher lasted four
pitches, Braves manager Bobby Cox got three whole innings
out of Sunday starter Russ Ortiz. Not to worry. Not with Coxs
bullpen. Although, as the Cox
allowed, Its a little overused
right this moment.
Overused? Try invaluable.
With four relievers including
Mike Hampton making his first
relief appearance in a decade
pitching six scoreless innings,
the Braves rallied to break
Houstons civic heart and win
6-5 in Game 4 of the NL Division
Series. That sent the series
back to Atlanta, once home to

baseballs best starting pitching

and lately Octobers most resourceful bullpen.
This ranks as big a win as
weve had the last five years,
said closer John Smoltz, who
escaped an eighth-inning jam
with a fine fielding play, roared
after a game-ending double
play and became baseballs winningest postseason pitcher with
his 14th career victory.
We said when the playoffs
started, The rules are out,
Smoltz said. Throw them out
the window and be able to do
whatever from the eighth inning on (today).
That would be in Game 5 at
Turner Field. Yet for Smoltz,
and all the relievers even
some starters, as Paul Byrd dis-

covered Saturday and Hampton

Sunday the bullpens become
a critical component. In the
NLDS, Atlanta has received 14
innings from its starting pitchers, 24 from the bullpen.
One day after injured John
Thomson lasted 13 of an inning,
forcing Cox to use six relievers,
an ineffective Ortiz gave way to
four more arms out of the bullpen. Two of them Kevin Gryboski and Antonio Alfonseca
have pitched in every game of
the NLDS. This time, Gryboski
worked two scoreless innings
and Alfonseca the Game 2
winner in relief one, the sixth.
m In Sundays other NL division series Game 4, St. Louis
led Los Angeles 5-2 through six
innings.

Braves 6, Astros 5
Today: Game 5, 4:19 p.m. at
Turner Field, Atlanta
Pitchers: Houston RH Roy Oswalt
vs. Atlanta RH Jaret Wright
TV: FOX
Inside: Sundays game story, C4

Cards vs. Dodgers

Game 4: St. Louis at Los Angeles,
late Sunday. Call 381-2800,
code 7337 or log on to Cincinnati.Com for result.

18,806 watch U.S. women blank

New Zealand in soccer at PBS
By Dustin Dow

Enquirer staff writer

There were undoubtedly

more meaningful sporting
events going on Sunday than
the womens soccer exhibition match between the United States and New Zealand at
Paul Brown Stadium.
After all, it was an NFL Sunday in the middle of the Major
League Baseball playoffs.
But in terms of sporting
icons, few events could measure up to the U.S. Womens

National Soccer Team farewell tour.

The Olympic gold-medal
team isnt going away, but the
players who made it what it is
today are retiring after this 10city jaunt, which stopped in
Cincinnati on Sunday and produced a 6-0 win for legions of
adoring fans, many of them
girls 8 to 18.
The team played its fourth
match of the tour in front of
18,806 fans Sunday, the teams
largest crowd of 2004 (including the Olympics), which

could bode well for Cincinnati

should womens professional
soccer make a comeback.
It says a lot about Cincinnati being a hotbed for soccer, said U.S. defender
Heather Mitts, a St. Ursula
Academy graduate. I think if
we do get a WUSA team back
here, that this is a good place
to have it. Hopefully, if we
dont have a WUSA team, the
national team will come here
to play again.
Mia Hamm, the most celebrated womens soccer play-

Ben Roethlisberger is starting to make

this look easy. In only his third NFL start,
the former Miami University quarterback
led the Pittsburgh Steelers
to a convincing 34-23 win
over the Cleveland Browns
on Sunday.
The rookie threw for 231
yards and a touchdown
and ran for a score as the
Steelers (4-1) beat the
Browns (2-3) for the 13th
Roethlisberger time in their last 16 games.
Roethlisberger is only
the sixth rookie quarterback to win his
first three starts since the NFL merger in
1970. Every week is getting better,
Roethlisberger said. Its all just starting to
come together.
The Steelers (4-1) kept their grip on first
place in the AFC North while the Browns
(2-3) slipped closer to the bottom, where
the Bengals (1-3), who had a bye Sunday,
stand. The Browns host the Bengals next
Sunday at 1 p.m.
Duce Staley ran for 117 yards and a
score to pace the Steelers ground attack.
m Tom Brady threw two touchdown
passes to help the New England Patriots
beat the Miami Dolphins 24-10 for their
19th consecutive victory, an NFL record.
The Patriots broke the record that was
shared by five teams, most recently by
Denver in 1997-98.
m The Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks fell from the ranks of the unbeatens
with home losses. The Falcons lost to the
Detroit Lions 17-10, and the St. Louis
Rams Marc Bulger threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to Shaun McDonald in overtime to beat the Seahawks 33-27.
m In another stunner, the New York Giants beat their former coach Bill Parcells
and the Dallas Cowboys 26-10.
m Chad Pennington was 31-of-42 passing for 304 yards and a touchdown in the
undefeated New York Jets 16-14 victory
over the winless Buffalo Bills.

Up next
Bengals (1-3) at Browns
(2-3), 1 p.m. Sunday at Cleveland Browns Stadium
Inside: Coverage of Week 5
in the NFL, C6-7

er, is calling it quits at age 32

after this series, dubbed the
Fan Appreciation Tour.
Team captain Julie Foudy
and Joy Fawcett are joining
her in retirement after winning two World Cups and two
Olympic gold medals.
Its a way to say Thank
you, Hamm said. Were
competitive, but its a little
less stressful of an environThe Enquirer/STEVEN M. HERPPICH
ment than the Olympics to reU.S. soccer players Abby Wambach (16), Kristine Lilly (13)
ally enjoy ourselves.
and Mia Hamm (9) embrace after Lilly scored against
New Zealand on Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium.
See SOCCER, Page C5