Alabama Gains Baseball Top Seed

Alabama, the regular-season and tournament champion in the top-rated conference in the country, received the top seeding in this weekend’s College World Series at Omaha, Neb.

“This is probably one of the strongest fields the College World Series has ever had,” said Ron Maestri, chairman of the NCAA Baseball Committee.

Alabama (49-17) will represent the Southeastern Conference in its third CWS appearance and open Friday against eighth-seeded Oklahoma State (45-19). In Friday’s second game, No. 4 Clemson (49-15) will meet No. 5 Miami (47-13).

In Saturday’s games, No. 2 Florida (48-16) will play No. 7 Florida State (51-15), and No. 3 Wichita State (54-9), will meet No. 6 LSU (48-15).

Golf

Costantino Rocca of Italy fought off Nick Faldo with a final round 69 and won the $1.5 Volvo PGA by two strokes at Virginia Water, England.

Faldo, who caught Greg Norman on the final round at Augusta to sweep to his third Masters title, made up three strokes on Rocca by the 15th hole. But Faldo was unable to get birdies at 17 and 18, and Rocca birdied the 17th and the final hole.

Lacrosse

Princeton’s Jesse Hubbard scored 34 seconds into overtime to give the top-ranked Tigers their third title in five years with a 13-12 victory over Virginia in the NCAA lacrosse championship at College Park, Md.

Princeton (14-1) blew a three-goal lead in the final 9:23 of regulation but avenged its only loss of the season.

Michael Watson had five goals for the third-seeded Cavaliers (12-4).

Track and Field

For the first time in three years, Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie did not set a world record but he still won the 3,000 meters at the Adriaan Paulen Memorial Invitational meet at Hengelo, Netherlands.

Gebreselassie, who set world marks at 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters at the Paulen meets in 1994 and 1995, finished in seven minutes, 34.66 seconds, off of Noureddine Morceli’s world record of 7:21.11.

Soccer

The Los Angeles Galaxy today will announce a broadcast agreement with Channel 5 to televise games, starting with Saturday’s match against the Mutiny at Tampa Bay.

Carlos Queiroz, who turned down a chance to coach the U.S. national team last spring, was hired as coach of the New York/New Jersey MetroStars of the Major League Soccer.

Jurisprudence

Peter Johnson, a 30-year-old soccer fan, was charged with killing Kelvin Noon, 24, before a soccer playoff game outside Wembley stadium in London last week.

Vanderbilt basketball player Pax Whitehead was arrested over the weekend and charged with drunken driving and unlawfully carrying a pistol. Whitehead was the team’s fourth-leading scorer last season and will be a senior in the fall. He was celebrating his 23rd birthday when he was stopped early Saturday at a police roadblock in Nashville, Tenn.

Miscellany

The Netherlands beat Taiwan, and Japan beat Ukraine to earn Olympic berths in women’s volleyball at Osaka, Japan in the last tournament before the Olympics.

Unbridled’s Song, a beaten favorite in his last two races, was diagnosed with a lung infection that could sideline him until August.