Sports briefs 3/18/05

Basketball

* The Orlando Magic decided it was time for a shake-up.

Coach Johnny Davis was fired Thursday, shortly after the Magic lost their sixth straight game and moved closer to falling out of playoff contention. Assistant Chris Jent was named interim coach.

Davis was dismissed along with assistant coach Ron Ekker hours after Wednesday night's 110-102 road loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, dropping the Magic to 31-33 and leaving them tied with Philadelphia for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.

Football

* The Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday said team president Carl Peterson has agreed to a four-year contract extension, keeping him at the team's administrative helm through the 2009 season.

The current contract for Peterson, who joined the club in December 1988, was scheduled to expire at the end of the 2005 season.

The Chiefs declined to release any information about Peterson's new contract.

Team owner Lamar Hunt focused on the triumphs during Peterson's 16 seasons as the Chief's leading executive -- eight playoff appearances, four AFC West titles and a trip to the AFC Championship in 1993. During the 17 years before Peterson, the team reached the playoffs once and had only four winning seasons.

"Carl was instrumental in leading the Chiefs back to the top echelon of the NFL," Hunt said in a written statement.

Tennis

* Lindsay Davenport got off to a sluggish start, turned it up a notch in a tiebreaker, then went on to post another victory over Nathlie Dechy.

Top-ranked Davenport defeated Dechy 7-6 (2), 6-0 Thursday to reach the semifinals of the Pacific Life Open.

Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova also advanced, avenging an earlier loss to Mary Pierce with a 6-4, 6-3 victory. Pierce beat her in three sets in the third round of last year's U.S. Open, their only other match.

Sharapova, a 17-year-old Russian, improved her match record this year to 17-1, with the only defeat a taut, three-set loss to eventual champion Serena Williams in the Australian Open semifinals.

Giullermo Canas advanced to the men's semifinals with a 7-6 (1), 7-5 victory over Tim Henman, who played for the title in two of the last three years.

Wrestling

* Oklahoma State put itself in early position for a third straight NCAA wrestling championship Thursday night, advancing eight athletes to the quarterfinals.

Heavyweight Steve Mocco's first-period pin capped a big opening day for the Cowboys, who were in first place with 39 1/2 points and had a double-digit lead in the three-day tournament. Minnesota was second with 28 1/2 points and Iowa State third with 27, followed by Oklahoma (26 1/2) and Michigan (25 1-2).

"As a team, you can't ask for anything more than what we've done tonight," coach John Smith said. "You can't ask for a better situation. We're doing what we need to be doing."

Minnesota entered the meet with wrestlers in all 10 classifications, but only two made it to the quarterfinals. Coach J Robinson, whose team won the championship in 2001 and '02, knows the Gophers are already all but out of it.

Iowa State, Oklahoma and Michigan each had five qualifiers, giving those schools the best shot at unseating Oklahoma State.