Track Titles for UCLA Women, USC Men

A resilient UCLA women’s team clinched its 11th overall Pacific 10 title and the USC men won their second consecutive title in convincing fashion at the conference track and field championships Sunday at Eugene, Ore.

The Trojan men won with little drama, save for a brief charge by Stanford, as the Trojans totaled 154 points, 31.5 points better then the second-place Cardinal. Arizona State finished third with 101 points. It was USC’s third men’s championship in four years and 15th overall.

The Bruin women, on the other hand, staged a day-long battle with USC before rallying in the final two events of the day to win with 167.5 points. USC finished second with 161 points and Stanford was third with 114.

UCLA was down 151-135.5 with only the 1,600-meter relay and the pole vault remaining. But the Bruins landed the top three finishers in the pole vault to score 24 points while the Trojans didn’t have anyone entered in the event. Erica Hoering and Tracy O’Hara set a new meet record for UCLA with heights of 13 feet 7 inches.

The Trojan women won the 1,600-meter relay to score 10 points but the Bruins finished second in the event to score eight and secure the championship.

In the men’s competition, Stanford briefly took the lead following the 1,500 when the top three finishers were all Cardinal runners. The 24 points garnered by Stanford gave it a brief 76-69 lead over the Trojans. But USC came right back, as Ryan Wilson won the next event, the 110 high hurdles, and teammate Marcell Allmond came in second as the Trojans went back up, 91-81. USC led the rest of the way.

Tennis

A decade after winning the Italian Open as an up-and-coming 16-year-old, Monica Seles won it for a second time on the clay courts of the Foro Italico in Rome. In a solid tune-up for next week’s French Open, Seles beat Amelie Mauresmo, 6-2, 7-6 (4), for the title.

Ten years ago, she beat Martina Navratilova in Rome and went on to her first Grand Slam title at the French Open in Paris.

Seles won seven more Grand Slam tournaments in 30 months after her initial French Open win, before a knife attack by a deranged fan in Hamburg, Germany, sent her to the sidelines for two years.

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Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil defeated Russia’s Marat Safin, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 5-7, to win the German Open at Hamburg, a $2.95-million Masters Series. Kuerten had lost his two previous Masters Series finals this year, in Miami and Rome last week.

With the German Open title, Kuerten now has won all major clay-court titles--the French Open, Monte Carlo and Rome--in the last three years.

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Pete Sampras had another setback in his tune-up for the French Open when he lost to Slovakia’s Dominik Hrbaty, 0-6, 6-4, 6-4, at the World Team Cup in Duesseldorf, Germany. Sampras’ loss gave the Slovaks an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the $1.9-million team competition. . . . A back injury will keep Lindsay Davenport from defending her title in this week’s Villa de Madrid WTA Open. It is unknown if Davenport will be able to compete in the French Open. The Villa de Madrid marks the return of Navratilova to competitive tennis. She will play doubles with South Africa’s Mariaan de Swardt. . . . American Jeff Tarango, overcoming a fit of temper, ousted second-seeded Mark Philippoussis of Australia, 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, in the first round of the $400,000 Raiffeisen Grand Prix at St. Peolten, Austria.

Miscellany

Bob Knight probably would have been fired had he not convinced Indiana officials that he really wanted to learn to control his temper. “He was real close to not being there,” trustee Ray Richard said on CNN/SI’s “Page One” over the weekend. “When I went into the final meeting at which we were going to make a decision, I was going to vote to fire him, and I think the majority of the trustees agreed with me.”

Guenter Erbach, former East German sports minister, and Rudolf Hellmann, the Communist party’s top sports official, who were both convicted several months ago by a Berlin court for their involvement in the doping of athletes, were given suspended 10-month jail sentences.

Jen Adams scored 10 second-half points as Maryland beat Princeton, 16-8, at Ewing, N.J., to win its sixth consecutive NCAA women’s lacrosse championship. Maryland (21-1) trailed Princeton (15-4) at halftime, 4-3. Adams went without a shot in the first half, but had five goals and five assists in the second.

Reuben Cheruiyot of Kenya finished well ahead of the other elite runners in the Bay to Breakers 12K, the annual San Francisco road race that attracts 75,000 runners. On an unusually warm, fog-free morning, Cheruiyot completed the 7.46-mile course in 34:54--far in front of an army of runners.

Willy Cheruiyot of Kenya won the Vienna City Marathon in the record time of 2:08:48, 33 seconds better than the old mark. . . . Simon Chemoiywo of Kenya beat compatriot Josphat Kiprono in a dramatic head-to-head finish in the Prague International Marathon. Chemoiywo, timed in 2:10:35, beat Kiprono by three seconds.