Sports digest 2/7/02

AREA

Notre Dame girls roll past St. Vincent

n Deana McCormick became Notre Dame's all-time leading scorer in girls basketball during Wednesday night's 55-19 victory over St. Vincent in Perryville, Mo.

McCormick scored 10 points to run her career total to 1,299 points, breaking the record established by Kim Cooper-Hunter in 1988.

Courtney Vickery led Notre Dame (19-2) with 12 points, while Ashley Millham also finished with 10.

Chelsey Brown led St. Vincent (7-13) with eight points.

ELSEWHERE

Baseball

Retired Baltimore Orioles star Cal Ripken has purchased a minor league baseball team and will move it to his hometown of Aberdeen, Md.

Ripken Baseball announced Wednesday that it has purchased the Utica, N.Y., Blue Sox of the Class A short-season New York-Penn League. The team will join the Orioles organization and will move to Aberdeen for the upcoming season, starting in June.

The failed attempt to eliminate the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos this season could wind up costing baseball owners money.

The players' association is pressing ahead with its grievance that claims owners violated their labor agreement when they voted in November to fold two teams, and the union said Wednesday it intends to seek damages.

Agents claim it has been harder to find jobs for their players during this offseason than in the past, and cite the uncertainly caused by contraction and a possible dispersal draft.

"I believe that it affected every single free agent this year," said agent Tommy Tanzer. "What they attempted to do was glut the market with players."

Boxing

Boxer Andrew Golota is free on bail after being charged with impersonating a police officer during a traffic stop.

Golota, who gained notoriety for quitting in the second round of an October 2000 fight against Mike Tyson, was arrested by Illinois State Police after allegedly showing an officer a badge and claiming he was a New Jersey police officer during a traffic stop. Will County prosecutors said Golota, 34, received the honorary badge from the police department in Hudson County, N.J., for performing charity work.

College football

Nebraska coach Frank Solich will not release defensive lineman Manaia Brown from his scholarship until he is certain the player was not influenced to transfer.

Solich said Wednesday he and other school officials are investigating whether another school, which he would not name, contacted Brown about transferring when he was home for the holidays.

"We are certainly looking into that. You can never condone anything like that and we are trying to get to the bottom of that," Solich said Wednesday.

Brown left the team last month to be with his 81-year-old father in West Valley City, Utah, near Salt Lake City.

Solich's stance drew immediate criticism from outspoken state Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who addressed Brown's situation Wednesday morning on the floor of the Legislature.

Cycling

Three-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong did not answer a summons in a French inquiry into whether his U.S. Postal Service team used doping products during the 2000 Tour.

Armstrong and nine teammates had been summoned to appear Tuesday before investigators seeking additional information in connection with an inquiry into whether the 2000 team violated anti-doping rules.

Olympics

The tattered American flag from ground zero will be carried into the opening ceremony of the Winter Games and flown beside the Olympic flame, a source familiar with the situation said Wednesday.

The International Olympic Committee originally said that American athletes would not carry the flag, although plans were to raise it as the official U.S. flag at the ceremony. It marked a quick reversal on an issue that the IOC found to be outside its normal rules and operations.

Details still had to be worked out, but the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "athletes and other heroes" would carry the flag "in a dramatic procession to the flagpole" at Rice-Eccles Stadium Friday night.

-- From staff, wire reports