Sports digest 3/31/03

Colleges

Caesar Garcia won the platform diving competition Saturday to help Auburn take the team title in the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championships in Austin, Texas.

Auburn placed a swimmer and diver in each event to compile 609.5 points for its third NCAA championship. Texas, the winner the last three years, finished second with 413 points.

Hockey

The women's world hockey championships in China were called off Sunday because of the mysterious disease that has killed at least 57 people and sickened 1,600 worldwide.

The tournament was to have started Thursday and end April 9. The International Ice Hockey Federation in Zurich said it could no longer assure the health of the teams and has yet to decide if this year's event will be rescheduled.

The IIHF advised teams in the eight-nation tournament to return home as soon as possible.

Switzerland, Sweden, Russia and Germany already were in Beijing with the host Chinese team. Squads from the United States, Canada and Finland were about to leave.

Two Buffalo Sabres players who might have been exposed to a mysterious and potentially deadly respiratory illness aren't showing any symptoms and may return before the end of the season.

Defensemen Rhett Warrener and Brian Campbell, who did not travel with the team for its game at Carolina on Saturday, worked out together Sunday at the Sabres' arena, team spokesman Michael Gilbert said.

Health officials suggested Saturday that they remain isolated for 10 days, but the team lists the players as day-to-day. Gilbert didn't rule them out of the rest of the season.

The players had limited exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, after a female relative of Campbell's visited the room he shared with Warrener earlier in the week.

Tennis

Andre Agassi won a record sixth Key Biscayne title, capturing the tournament for the third straight year by beating Carlos Moya 6-3, 6-3 Sunday in the Nasdaq-100 Open final.

Agassi, who won his first Key Biscayne title in 1990 when he was 19, earned $500,000 and improved to 18-1 this year. His only loss was to Thomas Enqvist at Scottsdale in February.

Moya received $250,000.

Agassi surpassed his wife, Steffi Graf, who won the tournament five times.

"I finally beat her at something," Agassi said with a grin during the trophy ceremony. "I'm still healthy and eager, and I enjoy being out here."

Graf and their 17-month-old son, Jaden Gil, were part of the stadium crowd that watched Agassi earn his third title this year and the 57th of his career.

The No. 2-seeded Agassi, who turns 33 next month, nearly withdrew before the tournament because of a sore shoulder. But he showed no signs of injury in winning his third match in as many days.

In fact, Agassi's serve was the difference. Despite a steady breeze, he smacked eight aces, lost only seven of 38 points on his first serve and was never broken.

Area digest

Central track team wins big meet

Central High School's boys track team won Saturday's Gateway Invitational at Washington University in St. Louis, scoring 101 points to beat a field of more than 25 squads.

First-place finishers for the Tigers were Andy Matthews in the pole vault (12 feet), Jeremiah Dukes in the triple jump (44 feet) and Calen Wills in the 400-meters (50.07 seconds).

No other results were available from the meet.