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North, South vie in soccer By RANDY HAMMERICKSEN It's cross-town rivalry time. Bodies and soccer balls will be flying with fury at two venues today when the North Medford and South Medford boys and girls squads collide for city bragging rights. Southern Oregon Conference championship hopes will ride on the outcome of both games. In the girls match at noon at District Field at North, both teams bring in 5-0 SOC records. They are tied for first place, two games in front of third-place Roseburg (3-2). "We know it's for the championship; we want it badly," says South midfielder Cassie Keesee. "It will be an emotional game." In the boys North-South collision at 2:30 p.m. at Fichtner-Mainwaring Park, the Panthers and Black Tornado each put 4-1 records on the line. Grants Pass and Ashland are both one-half game up on the Medford teams at 5-1, but either North or South can clinch at least a tie for the title by winning its final two games. "We need to win our last two games," says North coach Rich Garcia. "We struggled a little early in the season, but we're playing well now. "You never know what's going to happen in a game like this. A lot of it depends on how we react to a big game and dealing with the pressure of playing your rival. I'm excited about it, but I don't want the kids to get too excited." South has had North's number in recent years. "It's been four years since we beat them," says Garcia. "Everybody knows that. We try not to talk about it, but it's there. It's our turn." First-year South girls coach Les-lie Lang says she's also concerned that the Panthers might be too emotional for the rivalry. "I don't have to talk to them much about what this game means since we are playing North," says Lang, who replaced Dave Potter as the South girls coach,after Potter became the South boys coach. "I like seeing the girls get excited, but we need to go and play our game when it starts. We can't let emotion affect how we play." Lang says she's tried to generate more offense into the Panthers' game by stressing an attacking mode. She hopes it pays off today. "We're scoring more and attacking more to try to score more goals," says Lang. "I've tried to keep the pressure off them and get them to think about attacking all the time on offense. We've done a good job of doing that." The Panthers are led by forwards Tiffany Mason and Iris Noack, and midfielders Darcy Maukonen and Keesee. South is expected to try to closely mark high-scoring North forwards Tennille Bennett and Lu Crenshaw, who have combined to score 27 goals. Crenshaw has 16 and Bennett 11. Noack is South's leading scorer. "It should be a real physical game, and the teams are evenly matched," says Maukonen. "How physical it gets will depend on the referees. "I like to play a physical game, but we'll have to wait and see how the referees are going to let us play. The emotion will be there to play hard. "It's our senior year, and we want this win." Keesee says the Panthers can't merely focus on stopping Crenshaw and Bennett. "Crenshaw is good, but we've played other players like her," says Keesee. "We won't just try to mark her. We'll play our normal defense and see where she goes and react. They have a lot of good players. We can't concentrate on one or two. We don't play defense that way." Today's Sports Index Mail Tribune Copyright� interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford,