Sports

Colleges

USF staggering into season's final series

Compiled from staff and wire reports
Published May 17, 2006

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TAMPA - If USF's baseball team had hoped to gain momentum Tuesday night for a key weekend series at West Virginia, Stetson did little to help the Bulls, who hardly helped themselves in their final home game.

Three Bulls errors contributed to an easy 9-2 victory for the Hatters (32-21), who completed a three-game season sweep and gave USF (21-32) its ninth loss in 10 games.

USF starter Nick Manganaro (3-4) pitched only two innings, and all five Bulls pitchers gave up at least one run. A grounder under the glove of third baseman Dexter Butler led to Stetson's first run, and another through the legs of second baseman Nick Cardieri led to two unearned runs in the fourth. Stetson scored one on a balk, another during a two-out rundown and three after another error in the ninth.

Brian Baisley hit his team-leading fifth home runin the seventh.

Only the top eight Big East teams qualify for the league tournament in Clearwater next week, and the Bulls stand in eighth, one game ahead of Georgetown, entering a season-ending three-game series at West Virginia.

- GREG AUMAN, Times staff writer

S. ALABAMA 7, FSU 2 (10): The Jaguars scored five unearned runs in the 10th to hand the host Seminoles their fifth loss in their past six games.

SEC TOURNAMENT: The tournament will remain in Hoover, Ala., at least through the 2011 after the league signed a five-year contract extension.

VALDOSTA ST.: Coach Tommy Thomas will retire after the 2007 season, ending a 40-year career, the school said. Thomas, 65, is 1281-786, the most wins in Division II history.

USF loses another coach

TAMPA - USF women's basketball coach Jose Fernandez now has two openings to fill.

Less than two weeks after associate coach Harry Elifson's contract wasn't renewed, assistant Amy Wright announced her resignation, though she said the departures shouldn't be taken as a sign of problems with one of USF's most successful programs.

"Harry and I are two different people, and this is two totally separate decisions," said Wright, who spent three years on Fernandez's staff.

Wright said she wasn't leaving for a specific job and said she expects to continue working in basketball, either as a college coach or in a sports-related business. With Elifson and Wright gone, Fernandez only has first-year assistant Jeff Osterman and first-year director of operations Shalon Pillow left on his staff.

The Bulls have made their first three postseason appearances in the past three years, including the program's NCAA Tournament debut this spring.

- GREG AUMAN, Times staff writer

Georgia usurps UF

ATHENS, Ga. - For the first time, Georgia won seven SEC championships in an academic year, most coming this spring.

Now comes affirmation of the Bulldogs' big year: Georgia has broken Florida's 14-year hold on the SEC's all-sports trophy.

The seven SEC championships came in football, men's golf, men's tennis, gymnastics, women's swimming, women's indoor track and women's outdoor track.

A-SUN ADDS SCHOOL: South Carolina Upstate of Spartanburg accepted an invitation to join the Atlantic Sun, the school's latest step in advancing from Division II to Division I.

Football

BROADCASTING: ABC Saturday Night College Football will begin this fall with Notre Dame at Georgia Tech on Sept. 2. The 12-week prime-time series is a first for a broadcast network. All games will begin at 8 p.m.

OBITUARY: George Blackburn, Virginia's coach from 1965-70, died Monday in Dublin, Ohio. He was 93.

Basketball

VOL PLEADS GUILTY: One of two Tennessee players suspended after their March 5 arrest on drug charges pleaded guilty in Knoxville to a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession. Anthony Passley, 21, a transfer, was ordered to pay a $250 fine. Jordan Smith's case was bound over to the grand jury after a preliminary hearing.

[Last modified May 17, 2006, 01:29:12]