<h4>Ouch! </h4>
Los Angeles Angels' Torii Hunter can't catch a two-run, inside the park home run hit by the Colorado Rockies' Jeff Baker in the first inning Wednesday in Tempe. Hunter was injured on the play and left the game.
University of Arizona football players will be watching hoops instead of practicing Friday afternoon.
The Wildcats will get the chance to view the men’s basketball team compete against Louisville in the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 in Indianapolis.
UA coach Mike Stoops moved practice to the early morning instead of the usual time of 4 p.m. to accommodate the 4:10 tip-off.
“It is such a big game. We are pulling hard for them,” Stoops said. “It will be great for our kids to watch the games.”
Stoops has special admiration for interim UA coach Russ Pennell.
“Russ has done everything right and done a great job with this team. I think they are going to play well,” Stoops said.
“I think they are going to play loose. They have to keep doing the thing they have been doing. I could not be more excited for our basketball team, those guys and our basketball program.”
UA gymnasts honored
UA’s Bree Workman and Sarah Tomczyk have been named to the All-Pac-10 gymnastics first team, with three other Wildcats earning second-team honors.
Workman, a senior, competed in the Pac-10 meet last week, with a high of 9.875 on the floor. Junior Tomczyk also competed and had a high of 9.925 in the floor exercise,
Senior Briana Bergeson was named second team, having posted a season-high of 9.9 three times in the vault this year. She has competed in every UA meet in her four-year career.
Freshmen Deanna Graham (9.9 twice on the vault) and Rebecca Cardenas (high of 9.925 in the floor exercise) were also named to the second team.
The Wildcats will compete in their 23rd consecutive NCAA Tournament on April 4 in Fayetteville, Ark.
BRYAN LEE
Russell first in Pro-Am
Mike Russell of the Golf Club at Vistoso shot a 5-under-par 65 to win the Southern Chapter Dell Urich Pro-Am this week.
Russell birdied five consecutive holes on the front nine to get the lead and held off Josh Wilks (The Gallery) and Dean Vomacka (Stone Canyon) to win.
Citizen Staff Report
Ex-Cat in ‘Big Break’
Former University of Arizona golfer Derek Gillespie will compete in Golf Channel’s “Big Break” series.
The 12th “Big Break” season will premiere at St. Edward Island at 6 p.m. April 20. Contestants will compete for $100,000 and a chance to earn PGA Tour status for a year.
The series will have 11 episodes.
Gillespie has played on the Canadian pro tour after golfing for Arizona from 1998-2000.
He was named to the All-Pac-10 team twice and is in the UA Golf Hall of Fame.
Citizen Staff Report
Seaman wins close race
Robert Seaman edged Shaun Haley at the end to win the annual Southern Arizona Roadrunners Dave’s Run for ALS at Dove Mountain and Tangerine Road on Sunday.
Seaman, 30, won in 15 minutes, 46.7 seconds to Haley’s 15.48.2. Haley, 40, was the men’s masters age winner.
Paula Morrison, 35, was the women’s winner at 19:53.5. Barbara Leinweber, 43, was the women’s masters winner at 20:34.7.
Citizen Staff Report
Bryant’s maid files suit
SANTA ANA, Calif. – Kobe Bryant’s former housekeeper is suing the NBA star and his wife, contending she was “harassed and humiliated,” denied health insurance and forced to quit because of “intolerable” working conditions.
In one instance, Maria Jimenez says Bryant’s wife ordered her to put her hand in a container of dog waste to retrieve the price tag of a blouse.
Jimenez filed the lawsuit Friday in Orange County Superior Court. She says in court papers that Vanessa Bryant “badgered, harassed and humiliated” her in front of Kobe Bryant, the couple’s children and others.
She said the couple failed to provide health coverage, as promised when she was hired. She said she didn’t learn she didn’t have it until she was ill and sought medical attention.
The action seeks unspecified general, punitive and special damages, as well as back pay and overtime Jimenez says she is owed. Jimenez said in court papers she is owed more than $20,000 in earnings that were wrongly withheld, as well as unpaid overtime.
The Bryants’ lawyer, Mark D. Campbell, issued a statement Wednesday calling the allegations “totally unfounded and patently false.”
The Associated Press
Vick in hot water again?
RICHMOND, Va. – The U.S. Department of Labor filed complaints Wednesday accusing suspended NFL star Michael Vick of illegally spending about $1.3 million in pension plan funds for his own benefit, including paying restitution ordered in his dogfighting conspiracy case.
The department filed the complaints in federal district and bankruptcy courts the same day Vick left a federal lockup in Kansas, apparently bound for Virginia to appear at a bankruptcy hearing next week.
Vick was at the Federal Transfer City in Oklahoma City late Wednesday afternoon.
Mark Lichtenstein, one of Vick’s bankruptcy attorneys, declined to comment on both the Labor Department allegations and the details of Vick’s apparent temporary move to Virginia for the April 2 hearing.
The Labor Department said Vick made a series of prohibited transfers from a pension plan sponsored by MV7, a celebrity marketing company owned by Vick.
The department alleges that Vick violated his duties as trustee of a pension plan that covered nine current or former MV7 employees.
“This action sends a message that the Labor Department will not tolerate the misuse of plan money and will take whatever steps necessary to recover the assets owed to eligible workers,” Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said in a statement.
The Associated Press
NUMBER OF THE DAY
29
Points scored by Khalid Reeves when the No. 2-seeded Arizona Wildcats defeated No. 3 seed Louisville 82-70 in the 1994 Sweet 16 in Los Angeles.
The guard was 9 for 17 from the field and 6 for 6 from the free throw line as the Wildcats took a nine-point halftime lead and then poured in 47 second-half points.
UA beat Missouri two days later to advance to the Final Four, where it lost to Arkansas.
QUOTABLE
'We get another banner. Hopefully we can get two more.'
DWIGHT HOWARD,
Magic center, on his team clinching the Southeast Division title on Tuesday with a win over the Celtics.
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ON THIS DATE
2002: Utah’s John Stockton turns 40, becoming the 10th player in NBA history to play at that age. Stockton scores 20 points in the Jazz’s 109-105 victory over Houston.
2005: In the NCAA men’s basketball regional finals, Louisville and Illinois make tremendous comebacks to force overtime and advance. Louisville, trailing by 20 to a West Virginia, completes an amazing come-from-behind 93-85 win. Illinois, trailing by 15 with just four minutes to play, goes on a dazzling 20-5 run to send Arizona to a crushing 90-89 defeat.
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SPORTS SOUND-OFF
Wildcats will have support in Indianapolis
Re: UA takes on Louisville in Sweet 16
• A lot of Michigan State and Kansas fans will be there and they will be rooting for Arizona. Simple, they’d rather play us. So, although Louisville will be loud, I have a feeling we will have support as well.
TGREEN1985
The Cats, and these players in particular, have the ability to beat this great team. If they play the type of game they played against Washington, UCLA, Kansas or Gonzaga, they can win.
JCS
(UA) hasn’t played anyone . . . Cleveland State and Utah? Two mid-major schools. I hope they win against Louisville but let’s keep it in perspective.
JOHN7294