The NCAA News - News & Features

AN UNLIKELY HERO

Despite earlier injuries, Warren Morris belts a two-out homer -- his first of the year, no less -- and carries LSU to the College World Series title

The Tigers were trailing the University of Miami (Florida) by one run and had only one out left. But Morris was undaunted even though he had endured a season interrupted by injury.

LSU needed Morris to get a hit and he did -- a two-run homer, his first home run of the year but the only one that mattered.

LSU won the Division I Baseball Championship, 9-8, and Morris was the unlikely hero. He had missed most of the season with a broken wrist, playing in only 28 games. It was LSU's third baseball title.

Other highlights of 1995-96 men's championships:

* Fort Hays State University won its first NCAA title and set a record for the most wins in a perfect season with 34 when it won the Division II Men's Basketball Championship. Fort Hays State is only the third undefeated team in the championship's 40-year history.

* The Division I outdoor track and field championships celebrated its 75th anniversary in Eugene, Oregon, where the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, claimed its fifth straight team championship behind the efforts of Godfrey Siamusiye, Jason Bunston and Robert Howard. The three competitors combined to earn 47 points for the Razorbacks, more than the total scoring for any other team. Attendance at the four-day event was 29,141, including 10,268 for the Saturday events.

* Siamusiye also was a major contributor to Arkansas' Division I men's cross country title. He took home the individual championship and helped Arkansas to its fifth team title in six years and eighth in 12 years.

* Stanford University's Tiger Woods' course record of 67 in one round of the Division I Men's Golf Championships was only a small indication of the way Woods took the tournament by storm. By the final day, Woods had a nine-stroke lead, and despite shooting an 80 in the final round, he took a four-stroke victory in the individual competition. Arizona State University garnered the team title, its second in six years.

* In Divisions II and III men's golf, the 1995 team winners kept their challengers at bay to repeat as champions. Methodist College withstood strong

challenges from Skidmore College and the University of California, San Diego, to surge to a final-round triumph behind the efforts of individual champion Mike Adamson. It was Methodist's third straight team championship and the sixth in seven years. In Division II, Florida Southern College took an early lead and never looked back to win its second consecutive golf title and eighth overall. Dax Johnston of the University of Central Oklahoma won the individual title.

* Superior depth proved the advantage for the University of Texas at Austin in the Division I Men's Swimming and Diving Championships as Texas won its first championship in five years. Tom Dolan helped keep the University of Michigan's hopes alive with three wins, but it wasn't enough. Dolan and Southern Methodist University's Ryan Berube each won three events apiece -- Dolan for the second straight year. Winning the 500- and 1,650-yard freestyles and the 400-yard individual medley, Dolan became the first swimmer to repeat in three events since California's Matt Biondi in 1986 and 1987.

* After finishing third twice in the last three years, Rowan College of New Jersey fulfilled preseason expectations and won its first Division III Men's Basketball Championship by defeating Hope College, 100-93.