Love Is Among Four Tied for Lead in Memorial Golf

PGA Championship winner Davis Love III was tied for the lead with Steve Pate, Trevor Dodds and Joey Sindelar after shooting a six-under-par 66 Thursday in the opening round of the Memorial tournament at Dublin, Ohio.

Two-time U.S. Open winner Ernie Els was among seven players at 67. Steve Jones, Tom Lehman and Mark Brooks, who won the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA, respectively, in 1996, were two strokes back at 68.

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Joan Pitcock opened with a five-under 67 to tie Moira Dunn for the lead of the LPGA Rochester International at Rochester, N.Y.

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Bill Lunde shot a seven-under 65 and Charley Hoffman a 67 as Nevada Las Vegas took the lead after two rounds of the NCAA men’s championship at Albuquerque.

Texas Christian’s J.J. Henry shot his second 67 for the individual lead.

College Sports

The proposed defection of eight schools from the Western Athletic Conference could cause a battle over lucrative NCAA men’s basketball tournament revenues. Under NCAA rules, the amount of revenue is based on the success league schools had in the previous six tournaments.

New Mexico, Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada Las Vegas, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming announced plans Tuesday to leave the WAC after the 1998-99 academic year.

The breakaway teams and their as-yet-unnamed new conference would not get financial credit for past NCAA tournament victories by the Lobos and the Utes, according to WAC and NCAA officials.

Tennis

UCLA’s Vincent Allegre upset eighth-seeded Mike Bryan of Stanford, 6-4, 6-2, in the second round of the NCAA men’s individual championship at Athens, Ga. Other local players to advance were USC’s George Bastl and the Bruins’ Jean-Noel Grinda and Matt Breen.

Duke’s Vanessa Webb will face Stanford’s Ania Bleszynski in the NCAA women’s singles championship today after both players had straight-set semifinal victories at South Bend, Ind. Webb defeated Stanford’s Julie Scott, 6-3, 6-2, and Bleszynski beat San Diego’s Zuzana Lesenarova, 6-3, 6-0.

Tickets will go on sale June 8 for the Acura Classic women’s tournament to be held Aug. 10-16 at Manhattan Country Club. Tables for the second annual Andrea Jaeger Classic Kids Stuff Benefit, which will be held Aug. 12, will also be available. Details: (310) 939-1333.

Jurisprudence

Former Angel pitcher John D’Acquisto, sentenced to prison in 1996 for trying to pass off a forged certificate of deposit, has been indicted on charges of defrauding investors of about $7 million. A federal grand jury in San Diego returned a 39-count indictment charging D’Acquisto, 46, with wire fraud and money laundering.

Antoine Walker and Ron Mercer of the Boston Celtics, Chauncey Billups of the Toronto Raptors and a fourth man, Michael Ervin, who is not in the NBA, have been named in a civil rights suit filed by a plaintiff listed as Jane Doe in a Boston federal court. No details were released.

Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian premier who owns the AC Milan soccer club, was indicted on charges that he falsified books registering the 1992 transfer of standout Gianluigi Lentini.

Miscellany

UCLA junior outfielder Eric Valant was a first-team All-America selection by Baseball America after hitting .336 with 30 home runs this season.

Natalie Williams scored 19 points and had 16 rebounds, leading the United States to a 77-48 victory over Senegal in the Women’s World Basketball Championships at Karlsruhe, Germany.

Hall of Fame basketball player Calvin Murphy has lost his job as Houston’s youth athletic director after he was accused of filing time sheets that claimed he was working for the city--including overtime--on days he was out of town for his job as a commentator on broadcasts of the Houston Rockets.

A German women’s volleyball club was stripped of its national title because its American player, Wendy Stammer, tested positive for Ephedrine, a banned substance.

Jorgen Pettersson scored two goals and set up another as Sweden beat World Cup-bound Denmark, 3-0, in a soccer match at Malmo, Sweden.

Adrian Paz had a goal and an assist as the Colorado Rapids ended a five-game Major League Soccer losing streak with a 3-0 victory over the Miami Fusion before 6,954 at Denver.