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The Scouting Report From Guatemala

Two Cents Wurf

The best information that UCLA men's soccer Coach Sigi Schmid has about the Harvard men's soccer team comes from Guatemala.

Since the Pac-10 and the Ivy League have never had much of an athletic relationship, and since the schools are three thousands miles apart, both squads are relying on hearsay, rather than detailed scouting reports, to prepare for their NCAA quarterfinal showdown Sunday.

But Schmid's star center midfielder and leading scorer, Dale Ervine has been able to give his coach an excellent report on Harvard's Lane Kenworthy.

And the reason has a lot do with Guatemala--which is of course--where Ervine and Kenworthy got acquainted.

What, you might well ask, were Ervine and Kenworthy--who figure to be the two central figures in the 1 p.m. showdown in Southern California--doing in Central America?

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The two were selected to the U.S. Junior National team and ventured to Guatemala in the summer of 1982 to compete in a regional qualifying tournament for the Youth World Cup.

Now, Ervine's feeding his coach the word on Kenworthy.

"Pretty much, the only one we know about is Lane," Scmid says. "And that's because a few of our guys played with him in Guatemala."

The road to Central America and the NCAA quarterfinals began for Kenworthy when he picked up the game of soccer as a seven-year-old in Atlanta.

"I was pretty good at it, because I was a lot bigger," says the soft-spoken Southerner.

Kenworthy, now a junior and captain of the Harvard men's soccer team, is still pretty good and still a lot bigger.

The 6-ft., 3-in. center forward has scored 24 points so far this season and led his teammates to the New England Championship last weekend.

His first year in Cambridge, Kenworthy played out of position as a wing. When Harvard Coach Jape Shattuck moved him to center forward the following year, the sparks began to fly.

"He's come on in leaps and bounds," Shattuck says. "He's one of the quickest center forwards we've had."

With Kenworthy and 6-ft., 3-in. John Catliff towering over an opposition goal, the Crimson has been able to use its lethal attack of long crosses to great advantage.

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