Alabama Is Top Seeded in Baseball

Alabama, the regular-season and tournament champion in the top-rated conference in the country, received the top seeding in this weekend’s College World Series at Omaha, Neb.

“This is probably one of the strongest fields the College World Series has ever had,” said Ron Maestri, chairman of the NCAA Baseball Committee.

Alabama (49-17) will represent the Southeastern Conference in its third CWS appearance and open Friday against eighth-seeded Oklahoma State (45-19). In Friday’s second game, No. 4 Clemson (49-15) will meet No. 5 Miami (47-13).

Saturday, No. 2 Florida (48-16) will play No. 7 Florida State (51-15), and No. 3 Wichita State (54-9) will meet No. 6 LSU (48-15).

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Rancho Santiago won its second consecutive state community college baseball title and the third in four years with a 16-10 victory over Cypress at Fresno. Rancho Santiago (39-12) got a key pinch-hit triple from Charlie Moreno in the six-run ninth inning.

Ryan Fullerton had four hits, including his eighth home run, Kevin Duck had two doubles and Tony Zuniga hit his 11th homer of the season for Rancho Santiago. Kenny Granger and Junior Rodriguez hit home runs for Cypress (41-14).

Golf

Costantino Rocca of Italy fought off Nick Faldo with a final round 69 and won the $1.5 million Volvo PGA by two strokes at Virginia Water, England.

Faldo, who caught Greg Norman on the final round at Augusta to sweep to his third Masters title, made up three strokes on Rocca by the 15th hole. But Faldo was unable to get birdies at 17 and 18, and Rocca birdied the 17th and the final hole.

Track and Field

For the first time in three years, Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie did not set a world record, but he still won the 3,000 meters at the Adriaan Paulen Memorial Invitational meet at Hengelo, Netherlands.

Gebrselassie, who set world marks at 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters at the Paulen meets in 1994 and 1995, finished in seven minutes, 34.66 seconds, off Noureddine Morceli’s world record of 7:21.11.

Soccer

In a pre-Olympics match, the U.S. under-23 team was tied by the A-League Atlanta Ruckus, 2-2, at Atlanta. Goalkeeper Kasey Keller, defender Alexi Lalas and midfielder Claudio Reyna are expected to be added from the U.S. national team as the three wild-card players not subject to FIFA’s Olympic age restriction.

The Los Angeles Galaxy today will announce a broadcast agreement with Channel 5 to televise games, starting with Saturday’s match against the Mutiny at Tampa Bay.

Carlos Queiroz, who turned down a chance to coach the U.S. national team last spring, was hired as coach of the New York/New Jersey MetroStars of Major League Soccer.

Jurisprudence

Vanderbilt basketball player Pax Whitehead was arrested over the weekend and charged with drunken driving and unlawfully carrying a pistol.

Miscellany

Princeton’s Jesse Hubbard scored 34 seconds into overtime to give the Tigers their third title in five years with a 13-12 victory over Virginia in the NCAA lacrosse championship at College Park, Md. . . . The Netherlands beat Taiwan, and Japan beat Ukraine to earn Olympic berths in women’s volleyball at Osaka, Japan. . . . Unbridled’s Song, a beaten favorite in his last two races, was diagnosed with a lung infection that could sideline him until August.