U.S. Olympic Festival Roundup : Top U.S. Hockey Player Hurt but Will Try Out for Olympics

The U.S. Olympic Festival hockey tournament, which is being used to select the core of the 1988 Olympic team, got off to a bad start Tuesday as America’s premier amateur player was injured.

Brian Leetch, a 19-year-old All-American defenseman from Boston College, was tripped by East forward Tom Fitzgerald only 40 seconds into the game. Leetch suffered sprained ligaments in the left knee and is expected to be sidelined for four weeks. He will, however, be invited to next month’s Olympic team training camp at Lake Placid, N.Y.

“He was coming right at me and his knee hit mine,” Leetch said. “It could be a lot worse. I’m happy that it isn’t. I’ll be back on the ice in three or four weeks. Hopefully, I will get my chance to play on this team and go to the Rangers after the Olympics.”

Leetch was the first-round draft pick of the National Hockey League’s Rangers in 1986.

Leetch’s North team beat the East, 4-2. Defenseman Jerry Pawloski of Harvard and right wing Kevin Miller of Michigan State scored 18 seconds apart late in the third period to win it.

In the second hockey game, the South shut out the West, 3-0, as John Blue of Minnesota made 32 saves for only the second shutout in Festival history. Scott Fusco, a 1984 Olympian, scored two goals and set up another.

“There are some good goalies here, and two games isn’t much of an opportunity to show what you can do,” said Blue, who nevertheless got off to a terrific start.

Kevin Stevens, a forward for the East and Leetch’s teammate at Boston College, was sent home with a stomach virus.

Also sent home were four volleyball players from California who were suspended from the Festival for dormitory infractions. They were Hugh Foster of Newport Beach, Samantha Shaver of Mount View, Cheri Boyer of Poway and Carl Henkel of Redondo Beach, the U.S. Volleyball Assn. said.

Jay Barrs of Mesa, Ariz., scored one of the biggest upsets of the Festival, winning the men’s archery competition over two-time Olympic gold medalist Darrell Pace.

Barrs, who lost to Pace in the preliminaries by one point, scored 83 out of a possible 90 points from 90 meters on the final round. That gave him 332 points, 12 more than Ed Eliason of Stansbury Park, Utah, and 13 more than Pace, who won the 1976 and ’84 Olympics and is a three-time Festival champion.

Trena King of Kentwood, Mich., won the women’s title.

Jimmy Moore of Medford, Ore., pitched the second softball no-hitter of the Festival, striking out 10 and walking one as the North beat the South, 4-0. It was Moore’s 16th Festival victory in 18 decisions.

“I’m not usually a no-hit pitcher,” the right-hander said. “I had a killer headache that kept getting worse and worse.”

In women’s softball, Michele Granger, a 17-year-old left-hander from Placentia, Calif., allowed only one hit Tuesday. But that hit was a home run by JoAnn Ferrieri of Orange, N.J., and the North beat the West, 1-0.

Granger, who pitched the United States to the world junior title last week, struck out 11. North pitcher Connie Clark of Phoenix allowed only two hits--singles to Kandi Burke of Covina, Calif., and Julie Smith of Glendora, Calif.

In tennis, both top-seeded players won in singles. Pete Sampras of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., won the men’s title by beating Chris Entzel of Las Vegas, 6-2, 6-1. Sampras did not lose a set in the tournament.

Neither did Debbie Graham of Fountain Valley, Calif., who was a 6-1, 6-1 winner over Stacey Martin of Largo, Md., for the women’s crown.

The top-seeded men’s tennis team of David DiLucia of Norristown, Pa., and Geoff Grant of Sudbury, Mass., playing in near-100-degree temperatures, overpowered Mitch Michulka of Dallas and Hector Nevares of Puerto Rico, 6-4, 6-3.

Martin and Debbie Moringiello of North Brunswick, N.J., saved four match points and won the women’s doubles title. The second-seeded team outlasted Dawn Martin of St. Clair Shores, Mich., and Merideth Geiger of Edmond, Okla., 6-2, 4-6, 7-6.