Sports digest 4/8/02

AREA

SOUTHEAST GYMNASTS PLACE LOW AT REGIONAL EVENT

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Southeast Missouri State University gymnasts Ashley Godwin and Michelle Walker finished well off the pace during Saturday night's NCAA South Central Regional at Arizona State University.

Godwin, a sophomore, was 11th in the all-around competition with a score of 38.700.

Walker, a senior, tied for 21st in the floor exercise (9.700).

Jackson JV soccer fourth in tournament

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Jackson's girls' junior varsity soccer team had a fourth-place finish at the Carbondale Tournament Saturday.

The Indians defeated Belleville (Ill.) East 2-0, with Jenny Nagel and Leah Lorberg scoring, before dropping games to Granite City (Ill.) 2-0 and Marion (Ill.) 1-0.

ELSEWHERE

MOTORSPORTS

A daylong rain forced postponement of the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

NASCAR officials made the call about 2 1/2 hours after the scheduled start. The 500-mile race will start today at noon EDT.

Pole-winner Bill Elliott led 12 drivers who were faster than the previous Texas qualifying record on Friday.

Colleges

Jim Les, one of Bradley's greatest basketball players, is the team's new head coach. The 38-year-old Les had been an assistant coach with the Sacramento Monarchs of the WNBA.

Les was a leader on Bradley's winningest team ever. In the 1985-86 season, he teamed with sophomore Hersey Hawkins to lead the Braves to a 32-3 record, including 16-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Bradley fired coach Jim Molinari after the Braves went 9-20 last season. That was the team's worst showing since his first year in 1991, when Bradley was 7-23. He was 174-152 and took his 1996 team to the NCAA Tournament.

Kim Anderson is the new head basketball coach at Central Missouri State University. He succeeds Don Doucette, who had resigned.

For the past two seasons Anderson has been assistant commissioner of the Big 12 in Dallas; he was the conference's director of basketball operations before that.

Anderson, 46, had also been assistant basketball coach at the University of Missouri, where he played from 1973 to 1977.

--From staff, wire reports