UCLA Men Advance to Water Polo Final

UCLA is headed to its fifth consecutive NCAA men’s water polo title match after defeating Loyola Marymount, 7-5, Saturday afternoon in a semifinal match at Stanford.

The Bruins will play Stanford in today’s final. The Cardinal advanced with an 8-4 victory over Massachusetts.

Freshman Brett Ormsby scored three goals for UCLA and Jeff Pflueger had two. The Bruins led, 5-1, at halftime.

Freshman Stephen Lipinski and junior Kevin Witt each scored twice for Loyola Marymount.

Golf

Ernie Els shot his second consecutive six-under-par 66 and led Bernhard Langer by three strokes after the third round of the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City, South Africa.

Els birdied the fifth through 10th holes and was at 17-under 199 entering the last round of the $4.06-million tournament, which offers golf’s richest first prize, $2 million.

Langer shot a second consecutive 67 and was at 202. Canada’s Mike Weir (69) and England’s Lee Westwood (70) were at 204.

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Hale and Steve Irwin carded a 13-under 59 to take the lead after the first round of the Office Depot Father-Son Challenge at Paradise Island, Bahamas.

The Irwins, who played one stretch of 10 holes at 11 under in the scramble format, led Tom and Eric Weiskopf by two strokes.

Pat Perez took another step toward earning his PGA Tour card with a two-under 70 that kept him in the lead with two rounds to go in the qualifying tournament at West Palm Beach, Fla.

Perez was at 20-under 268 and led by one stroke over Shaun Micheel, who had a 67 at Bear Lakes Country Club.

Ty Tryon had a 68, his best round of the tournament. The 17-year-old moved into a tie for 42nd and was on the cusp of becoming the youngest player to earn his card.

Robert Gamez, who won twice in 1990 when he was the tour’s rookie of the year, was tied for fourth at 271, along with Tommy Armour III. Gary Nicklaus was at 273 and tied for 13th.

Miscellany

Olympic gold medalist Tom Malchow set a short-course meet record of 1 minute 53.48 seconds in the 200-meter butterfly in the U.S. Open swim championships at East Meadow, N.Y.

Todd Lodwick of the United States made two consistent ski jumps and took the lead in a World Cup Nordic combined meet at Lillehammer, Norway.

Lodwick jumped 80 and 83 meters for 195.5 points, finishing fifth after the first round.

He will have a 25-second advantage over Finland’s Jaakko Tallus in today’s 15-kilometer cross-country ski race at Beitostolen.

Jennifer Rodriguez of the United States won the women’s 1,000 meters in a personal best of 1:14.68 as World Cup speedskating opened the season at Kearns, Utah.

Canada’s Jeremy Wotherspoon won the men’s 500 and 1,000 meters, setting a world record in the longer even.

Wotherspoon held the 1,000 world record, but American Casey FitzRandolph broke it with a time of 1:08.06 with five heats to go Saturday. Wotherspoon then did FitzRandolph one better, finishing in 1:07.72.

Skiing with a black eye to remind her of an awful performance nine days ago, Caroline Lalive of the United States finished a surprising third at Lake Louise, Canada, in the first super-giant slalom race of the women’s World Cup season.

Petra Haltmayr of Germany earned her second World Cup victory and first in the super-G. Carole Montillet of France was second.

Uzbekistan’s Tatyana Malinina won the gold medal at the NHK Trophy after a stirring performance in the women’s free skating event at Kumamoto, Japan.

Malinina, in third place after Friday’s short program, fell on her first jump, a triple lutz. But she recovered and cleanly landed her remaining jumps to move into first place ahead of Japan’s Yoshie Onda.

Onda won the silver medal and Elena Liashenko of Ukraine took the bronze. Angela Nikodinov of the United States, the leader after the short program, dropped to fourth place.

Olympic favorite Christoph Langen of Germany overcame a soft track at Winterberg, Germany, to pilot his two-man bobsled to his first World Cup victory this season.

Todd Hays of the United States, winner of the first two World Cup events, finished sixth.

Hays leads the standings with 98 points. He is followed by the two pilots who shared fourth Saturday, Switzerland’s Martin Annen (94) and Canada’s Pierre Lueders (85).

Jameel McCline took another step into the heavyweight championship picture by scoring a 12-round unanimous decision over Lance Whitaker in New York.

In the 10th round, McCline hurt Whitaker with a right hand and then unleashed a barrage that had Whitaker stumbling.

On the same card, heavyweight David Izon lost to unbeaten Fres Oquendo.