SOCCER / GRAHAME L. JONES : North Carolina Women Tie, Streak Broken at 92

It had to end sometime and Sunday was that time.

The University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, which had won 92 consecutive games, finally met its match.

The fact that it was Notre Dame that ended the Tar Heels’ record streak should not have come as any surprise to UNC Coach Anson Dorrance.

It was Notre Dame that ended the UCLA men’s basketball team’s NCAA-record 88-game winning streak set between 1971-’74, so the Irish have a history of playing the spoiler.

On Sunday, Notre Dame held North Carolina to a 0-0 tie after overtime in St. Louis to snap the longest winning streak in college sports history.

“If you look at us five years ago, or even four years ago, we didn’t belong on the field with North Carolina,” said Notre Dame Coach Chris Petrucelli. “Even last year, we couldn’t stay with them.”

But North Carolina, which has won eight consecutive NCAA championships and 12 of the last 13 titles, still has one streak going.

The Tar Heels, whose teams features many of the players on the defending world champion U.S. women’s national team, are unbeaten in 97 games since tying Central Florida in 1990.

The goal of 100 still is within reach.

*

U.S. national team defender and former UCLA star Mike Lapper set a record of sorts in his debut for VfL Wolfsburg of the German second division.

Playing against Fortuna Koln, the 23-year-old scored a goal on his first shot in the league when he fired home a deflected corner kick. First-place Wolfsburg won, 3-0.

Lapper’s performance earned him a spot on Kicker magazine’s team of the week.

*

Anghel Iordanescu, Romania’s national team coach who led his country into the quarterfinals of the World Cup, has been rewarded, sort of.

Iordanescu has been promoted from colonel to major general in the Romanian army.

*

Colombian prosecutors have been unable to uncover sufficient evidence to keep two men in prison on suspicion of ordering the murder of World Cup team defender Andres Escobar.

The men have been released on bail, but Umberto Munoz Castre, the man accused of committing the murder, remains behind bars in Bogota awaiting trial.

*

Miguel Kodja Neto, the president of the Brazilian club Santos, is having second thoughts about his criticism of Pele.

Neto fired Pele from his position as “international adviser” to the club he helped make world famous in the 1960s after the two had disagreed over Pele’s role at the club.

“He just comes here as a visitor and all he does is complain,” Neto said.

In a show of solidarity with Pele, the rest of the Santos board of directors immediately resigned, leaving Neto to run the club on his own.

*

Santos has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately.

First there was the incident with the club’s fiery coach, Serginho, who was fined $50,000 for an on-field incident after Santos had been beaten, 4-0, by Guarini.

Walking past the Guarini bench on his way back to the locker room, Serginho kicked a Guarini club official in the groin after the man allegedly had called him a “cowardly pig.”

Then, during another match against Vasco da Gama in Rio de Janeiro, Santos fans became involved in a brawl, the highlight of which, for neutral observers, was a Brazilian policeman being bitten by his own dog while trying to quell the riot.

*

From the “what goes around, comes around” department: Leonardo, the Brazilian player whose dangerously thrown elbow felled U.S. midfielder Tab Ramos in the World Cup, has found himself on the receiving end of an opponent’s anger.

Playing for his new club, the Kashima Antlers in Japan’s J-League, Leonardo was sent writhing to the ground in agony after a hard tackle by an Urawa Reds’ player.

The tackle injured Leonardo’s right knee, which will require surgery and will keep him sidelined for two months or more.

The get-well card from Ramos is in the mail.

*

Mexico’s World Cup coach, Miguel Mejia Baron, has been given a new, four-year contract that will run through the 1998 World Cup in France.

Under terms of the agreement, Mejia Baron also will have charge of Mexico’s 1996 Olympic, Under-20 and Under-17 national teams.