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The Prince George Citizen — Monday, September 26,1988 —13
 MARK ALLAN Sports editor
CANADIAN TOTAL INCREASING SLOWLY
Soviets running away with medals
  CSL FINAL
VANCOUVER
*
  II!
   BURNABY, B.C. (CP) - Bobby Lenarduzzi wrote the basic script for his final game as a professional in advance, then let his Vancouver 86er teammates fill in the blanks on Sunday.
    Lenarduzzi, in a rare prediction, told reporters Friday that his club would beat the Hamilton Steelers in the Canadian Soccer League’s title game. And why not? The 86ers had been unbeaten in their last 27 outings.
    They left little doubt about the 4-1 outcome before 6,443 fans by taking a 3-0 lead after 21 minutes while the Hamilton attack sputtered inside the Vancouver penalty area.
   “Why at this stage should we start thinking about losing again?” the Vancouver-born Lenarduzzi, 33, said in defending his prediction of a victory that wrote a storybook finish to a career that began as a teenager in 1972 with Fourth Division Reading of the English League.
    “I have no disrespect for Hamilton but it was there for us to win,” said the playing-coach who has anchored the back line on Vancouver teams since 1974.
    “I was so happy that we scored those three goals. I knew at that stage we were goint to win the game. I was jumping all over the place. It’s fortunate for the last time that I was able to celebrate as much as I did.”
    Vancouver fashioned its three-goal lead in a 12-minute span as Carl Valentine, Greg Ion and John Catliff beat Hamilton goalkeeper Paul Dolan, who was loaned to the Steelers by the 86ers in July.
    Valentine scored after a brilliant run through a disorganized defence from 35 yards out. Ion’s cross from a bad angle near the touchline went in off the far post and Catliff counted off a free kick.
   Dale Mitchell and Domenic Mo-bilio were the architects of the third goal when Mitchell chipped the free kick over the Hamilton wall to Mobilio who left Catliff, the league’s leading scorer with 22 goals, a tap-in at the far post.
   Amadeo Gaspirini, who was ejected in the final minute for a foul on Ion, brought Hamilton to 3-1 at 52 minutes after he redirected a long ball from the unmarked Jerry Adzic.
    Mitchell restored the three-goal lead 14 minutes from full time when he again combined with Mobilio.
    The victory was also memorable for Vancouver keeper Sven Haber-mann, who saw Dolan selected to the national team and the CSL all-star team while he was left off both squads.
   The Steelers entered the game with 19 wins in their last 20 outings.
 Victoria
 franchise
admitted
   VANCOUVER (CP) - The Victoria Vistas have been given conditional approval to join the Canadian Soccer League for the 1989 season, league commissioner Dale Barnes said Sunday.
    But there will have to be some improvements to Royal Athletic Park, which has been used for World Cup qualifying matches, Barnes said in an ihterview.
   “The field needs to be moved around a little bit and it will need stands on the other side, cable and power for television and it will need lighting improvements.”
   The Victoria franchise, which will cost the non-profit society $35,000, is the second expansion in the CSL’s two-year history. Montreal Supra joined this season.
    The Victoria entry will have until Dec. 31 to meet the criteria but Barnes said its provisional financial proposal is “in good order.”
    The Vistas will be stocked in an expansion draft that will enable each of the other nine clubs to protect 13 players. The new club will be permitted to claim one player from the roster of each club.
    The Vistas will also draft first in each of the first four rounds of the junior draft in February plus an additional three draft choices to bring them to the minimum of 16.
    Barnes said the Victoria entry will likely reduce the number of league games played by each team to 26 from 28. Teams would play clubs in their own division four times and outside their division twice.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Pino Sposato (left) of Fred Walls-Croatia and Andy Urquhart of Labatt’s go after a loose ball.
Croatia serves notice to soccer champions
       by PAUL SMITH Sports Reporter
   Labatt’s Pastry Chef continued its reign Sunday as North Cariboo Senior Soccer League playoff champions, but Fred Walls and Son-Prince George Croatia served notice it might be the team of the future.
   Labatt’s won its third straight post-season title and 12th in the past 16 years by edging Croatia 3-2 on penalty kicks at Rotary Stadium.
   “I have to give all the credit to Fred Walls-Croatia for the good game they gave us,” said Labatt’s coach Gaetano Mauro, who had some anxious moments on the sidelines while his team was dodging a number of bullets. “They’re the team of the future — they’ve got everything going for them and they have a very young team.”
  The game was a close, well-played affair which could have gone either way. Croatia, in fact, had the title within its grasp leading 2-1 with less than five minutes to play, but an own goal gave Labatt’s a tie to force the contest into overtime.
  Neither team could score through two 10-minute halves. In the ensuing shootout, Labatt’s scored on all five of its penalty shots while Croatia could manage just four. Perhaps fittingly, goal-tender John Cote, later named the league’s most valuable player, scored Labatt’s last shootout goal to ensure the victory.
   Croatia had several chances to change the outcome of the game. Rod Auld banged a penalty shot off the goalpost early in the first half whicn would have put Fred Walls
 ahead 1-0, and Eddie Miller had his shot toward an open net in overtime blocked by defender Rob Mc-Crory.
   Labatt’s also had its share of misfortune, hitting the crossbar once and knocking a couple of shots just over the net. But Pastry Chef was the first to capitalize, taking a 1-0 lead on a goal by Sonny Powar late in the first half.
   Powar raced through the middle and headed a cross from Ed Basso past Croatia goaltender Ian Buchanan.
   Fred Walls tied the game in the second half on a great shot from Sam Tojaga, who drilled a bullet from 25 yards out into the top right hand corner of the net. Eddie Miller then gave Croatia the lead when he headed the ball into the net off a nice chip from Auld.
   Croatia’s celebration was shortlived, however. Labatt’s tied the game with just minutes to play when a Croatia defender accidently headed the ball into his own net.
   Both teams had chances to score in overtime. Miller’s blocked shot was Croatia’s best attempt, while Labatt’s was stymied by Buchanan when he dove to his left to smother a low drive by Ian Patton.
   In the shootout, both teams scored on their first two attempts but Croatia missed on its third. Labatt’s scored on its next two tries to earn the victory.
   “I think if we had scored that first goal (the missed penalty shot) it might have made a difference,” said Fred Walls coach Nick Ruka-vina. “But on the other hand, they hit the crossbar.
   “It was a very close game. It could have gone either way.
   “If you play 110 minutes and it’s still tied, that means you can’t ask more from the guys.”
   Labatt’s, which won the regular-season title, was without leading scorer Graham West, who had to miss the game due to a an accumulation of cards in the previous semi-final.
   West was later honored with the league’s top forward trophy and he was also the league’s top scorer with 19. He also scored 19 goals last year.
  Ron Strobl of the Barnes Chev Olds Kickers was named the top defender, while Dennis Rukavina of Croatia was selected most sportsmanlike player.
   In addition, the league handed out two awards of merit to long-serving volunteers.
   Brenda Auld, wife of the late A1 Auld, received an award honoring the couple’s contributions to the game.
   A1 Auld, a native of Wales, was involved with the Prince George Youth Soccer Association for nine years and served as NCSSL’s president for five. Brenda served as the league’s secretary for many years.
   Longtime referee and player Jim Briggs received the other award. Briggs, a native of England, moved to Prince George in 1965. He played third division soccer in England, competed with the Oakland Clippers of the North American Soccer League and is a former most valuable player in the Pacific Coast Soccer League.
  Briggs served as president of NCSSL and is currently president of the Prince George Referees Association.
Second-half surge helps
   Somewhere between the first and second half of Sunday’s Prince George Senior Soccer League playoff final, First Choice Deli found the key to success against GGST-Sikh Temple.
   GGST had beaten First Choice 3-0 earlier in the season to win the league’s annual tournament, and First Choice still hadn’t managed a goal through the first 45 minutes of Sunday’s game.
   But First Choice came out strong in the second half, scoring once in the first minute before going on to a 3-0 victory.
   The playoff title was the second straight for First Choice, and the team has won all four regular-sea-son championships since the league was formed.
   “In the first half we were letting their midfield carry the ball a little
 bit more and not challengine them,” said First Choice defender Luigi Basso. “We were letting them come to us.
   “But in the second half, we just said we had to put pressure on the ball carrier right away. We took the play to them in the second half, and their midfield wasn’t able to turn with the ball because of the pressure we were putting on them.”
   GGST had a slight territorial edge in the first half, but First Choice started to get its share of chances in the second and managed to capitalize on them.
   Allen Dias scored his first of two goals when got the ball in front and beat goaltender Gaetano Mauro. Sergio DeBianchi made it 2-0 when he slipped the ball into the bottom left hand comer after tak-
 ing a through ball from Mario Mastrioianni.
   Dias put the game out of reach when he came through the middle, cut to his right and chipped the ball over Mauro’s head into the top left corner.
  George Prince got the shutout for First Choice.
Canadians all over are waiting for the gift of a life-saving transplant.
The Kidney Foundation of Canada urges you to sign an organ donor card.
   SEOUL (CP) — The Soviet Union continues to top the medal standings while Canada increased its modest total to four, and Americans Carl Lewis and Roger Kingdom achieved rare repeat victories as the Summer Olympics headed into their second and final week.
   Olga Bryzgina won the 400-metre run in an Olympic-record 48.65 seconds and Sergei Litvinov led a sweep of the hammer throw as Soviet athletes swelled their country’s medal count to 75, including 33 gold, after 131 events.
   East Germany was next with 67, including 27 gold, followed by the United States with 44, including 14 gold. Romania has 21 medals, Bulgaria and China 20 each and West Germany 18.
   Since Ben Johnson’s 100-metre gold in a world-record 9.79 seconds on Saturday, Canada has added silver and bronze in swimming relays and bronze by Gina Smith of Saskatoon, Cindy Ishoy of Hamilton,
 Eva-Marie Pracht of Cedar Valley,
 Ont., and Ashley Nicholl of Toronto in team dressage.
   Further equestrian medals appear imminent.
   Ian Millar of Perth, Ont., and Lisa Carlsen of Schomberg, Ont., are among the leaders after the first round of equestrian show jumping, and the riders who won team dressage bronze now show their wares in individul competition.
   Genevieve Brunet of Pierrefonds,
 Que., barely missed a cycling medal, finishing fourth in the women’s 82-kilometre race won by Monique Knol of the Netherlands.
   Ray Downey of Halifax, Lennox Lewis of Kitchener, Ont., Scott Olson of Edmonton and Edgerton Marcus of Toronto remain in contention in boxing.
   Howard Grant of Montreal,
 Brent Kosolofski of Calgary and Tom Glesby of Welland, Ont., are the latest to be eliminated.
   Carolyn Waldo of Calgary was second to American arch-rival Trade Ruiz-Conforto by two-tenths of one point in the preliminary round of the women’s synchronized swimming. Points in the preliminary round don’t count towards the final score.
   Denis Garon of Montreal set Canadian records in the 100-kilogram heavyweight weightlifting division?
 Garon’s and both
 Kouznetsov won the gold with a total of 425 kilograms.
   The Canadian men’s basketball team was eliminated from medal contention after a 95-73 quarter-finals loss to Yugoslavia, which joins the United States, Soviet Union and surprising Australia in the semifinals.
   In track and field, Lewis, the runnerup to Johnson in the 100 metres, regained a portion of his lost glory by becoming the first man ever to twice win a gold medal in the long jump. He leapt 8.73 metres. Mike Powell won silver and Larry Myricks bronze for the first U.S. sweep of the event since 1904.
   Kingdom set an Olympic record of 12.99 seconds and is the first man to repeat as 110-metre hurdles champion since Lee Calhoun of the United States did it in 1956 and 1960. Mark McKoy of Toronto was seventh.
   The upset of the weekend in track and field was the victory by unheralded Paul Ereng, a Kenyan who attends the University of Virginia. He won the men’s 800 to spoil Said Aouita’s bid for a distance triple.
   Ibrahim Boutaidd of Morocco won the gold medal in the men’s 10,000 metres in an Olympic-record 27:21.46; Sigrun Wodars of East Germany won the women’s 800 in 1:56.10; and Petra Felke of East Germany won the women’s javelin with an Olympic-record toss of 74.68 metres.
   Sisters-in-law Jackie Joyner-Ker-see and Florence Griffith Joyner
 also won gold for the U.S. team during the weekend. Joyner-Kersee broke her own world record in the heptathlon, seven events spread over two days, with 7,291 points. Griffith Joyner needed only 10.54 seconds to win the women’s 100-metre dash.
  American veteran Edwin Moses failed in his bid to become the first person in history to win three gold Olympic medals in one running event when he ran third in the 400 hurdles behind teammate and winner Andre Phillips. It was only Moses’s third loss in 147 hurdles races during the last 11 years.
   Italy’s Pietro Mennea made history by becoming the first runner to compete in five Olympics.
           Swim team ends cffg&t
 >n’s total of 382.5 kilogrgjnp ^
               -wittf meek
     SEOUL (CP) — ThfbjOlympic Games had a happy ending for Canada’s swimming team after all.
      Victor Davis, whose fourth-place finish in the 100-metre breaststroke on the first night of finals demoralized the team, led them to a silver medal Sunday with a brilliant swim in the 4xl00-metre medley relay, the closing swimming event of the Games.
     “To the best of my knowledge, that’s the fastest split ever in the history of the breaststroke in the relay,” said Davis, 24, of his one-minute, 0.90-second performance to lead the squad to a second-place finish behind the Americans.
      Weak performances in individual events had the team in danger of being the first Canadian squad to go without a swimming medal at an Olympics since 1964 in Tokyo.
      The entire team felt better after a bronze medal Saturday by the women’s 4xl00-metre medley relay team and the men’s dramatic silver medal.
     East Germany won 27 medals, including six gold by Kristin Otto, the most ever by a woman swimmer, and the Americans grabbed 17, including three golds by Janet Evans and five gold, a silver and a bronze by sprinting giant Matt Biondi.
      Despite early disappointments, the Canadian team performed well overall during the Games. The team set three Commonwealth records and two Canadian marks and six swimmers posted their best times ever.
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