College Women: Cincinnati stuns Irish; Wambach scores 3

Cincinnati stunned Notre Dame and Florida’s Abby Wambach netted her third hat trick this season Sunday as the NCAA Division I women’s field was whittled to 16 teams. The other five seeds in action — No. 1 North Carolina, No. 2 Santa Clara, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 Portland and No. 5 Stanford — also advanced to next weekend’s third round. Princeton, toppled by Rutgers, was the only home school defeated in the second round. Sophomore midfielder Rachel Lieberman, with just one goal entering the match, tallied twice in the first 18 minutes as Cincinnati (20-3) held off seventh-seeded Notre Dame, 3-2, to earn a third-round date with Virginia. The Bearcats ended Notre Dame’s 39-game Alumni Field unbeaten streak and stopped the Fighting Irish two steps from reaching the quarterfinals for the eighth successive season. “The tournament is all about taking chances — you can’t play passive,” said Cincinnati forward Amy Simonson. “I think we came out harder, stronger, more focused. We knew what we were up against, and we knew that hustling and being aggressive would get it done.” Lieberman finished off a loose ball in the 13th minute after Notre Dame goalkeeper Liz Wagner parried Amy Simonson’s shot, then scored from a Simonson pass five minutes later. Amanda Guertin, scoring for the 10th straight match, put the Irish on the board in the 23rd minute, but Simonson — who scored her second and third goals of the season in a 3-2 first-round win Friday over Oakland — restored the two-goal advantage by chipping Wagner from 30 yards after coming upon a loose ball. Cincinnati scored six goals in two playoff games in South Bend, Ind., while putting only 10 shots on target. Vanessa Pruzinsky, moved from the back line to forward in the second half, scored a brilliant goal for the Irish in the 77th minute, with a rising shot through traffic after a 45-yard run. Notre Dame was without freshman defender Candace Chapman, a Canadian national-teamer who was ill. In Gainesville, Wambach netted her 10th hat trick of her career, scoring her 29th, 30th and 31st goals of the season, to lead Florida into the Sweet 16. The senior striker, who has 96 career goals, headed home a Casey Hamel corner kick to give the Gators a third-minute lead, then rebounded home Andi Sellers’ blast off the post in the 30th minute. Wambach redirected Monica Hoyles’ shot two minutes later for a 3-0 lead. Florida (16-5) has outscored its NCAA competition, 7-0, posting its first two playoff wins since capturing the Division I title in 1998. The Gators, who advance to face Clemson in a third-round game next weekend, dropped their NCAA openers in 1999 and 2000. In other action: ò Kristen Strutz set up Nicky Thrasher for the equalizer, then finished Thrasher’s free kick 13 minutes into overtime to lift Texas A&M past surprising SMU, 2-1. Strutz redirected Thrasher’s 25-yard free kick to send the Aggies (16-3-1) to a Sweet 16 showdown with Stanford. Thrasher, with her 16th goal of 2001, headed home a Strutz cross in the 61st minute to overcome an early SMU lead. Sarah Harvey’s third NCAA goal gave the Mustangs, who stunned Texas in a first-round game Friday, a fourth-minute lead, but they couldn’t add another in a brilliant first 20 minutes of the match. ò Marcia Wallis tallied twice in the first 11 minutes and Stanford held off visiting St. Mary’s, 3-1. Wallis tallied just 68 seconds into the game when Gaels goalkeeper Ruth Montgomery couldn’t hold onto the ball after a diving stop. Wallis’ second, nine minutes later, arrived after Montgomery extended to push away Marcie Ward’s shot. St. Mary’s cut the deficit on a fine Sarah Rae Takekawa finish in the 31st minute and pressured Stanford the rest of the way. Kelsey Carlson’s 87th-minute goal sealed the victory for the Cardinal (15-3-2), which will meet Texas A&M next weekend. ò Whitney Jones finished off a bouncing free kick from Bethany Bogart three minutes into the second half to give third-seeded UCLA a 2-1 triumph over visiting Pepperdine. The Bruins (19-2), who will play host to Dayton next Saturday afternoon, went ahead on an 26th-minute own goal by Waves defender Mary Stuart, a transfer from UCLA. Ali Pavoni pulled Pepperdine even nine minutes later, heading home a 50-yard Ashley Swanson free kick. ò Megan McKnight curled home a corner kick just 1:22 into the game, then placed a free kick on Erin Showalter’s head for another goal just before halftime, and Dayton held off Miami (Ohio), 2-0, at Morgantown, W.Va. The victory was a school-record 15th in succession for the Flyers (17-5), who started 2-5 while adjusting to the loss of All-American forward Missy Gregg, who transferred in August to Division II Christian Brothers. ò Mary McVeigh finished off a frenetic sequence in the 86th minute to carry Dartmouth to a 1-0 victory over Michigan at Milwaukee, Wis. Jamie Lang booted a Janet Light throw-in into the Wolverine box, and Lea Kiefer redirected it off a post. McVeigh knocked in the rebound to send the Big Green (11-4-1) to a third-round encounter Saturday afternoon at second-seeded Santa Clara. Dartmouth had been scheduled to play Santa Clara in the Stanford tournament in September, but the university canceled its California trek after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Defender Shannon Agner led the Big Green defense, holding Abby Crumpton (13 goals, 4 assists) without a shot. Michigan’s Amy Sullivant and Dartmouth’s Katherine Kannenberg — the goalscorer in Friday’s OT win over UW Milwaukee — both hit the crossbar. ò Freshman Leslie Osborne broke a second-half deadlock, set up a penalty kick and added an assist as Santa Clara romped to a 4-1 victory over Syracuse at Champaign, Ill. The Broncos (19-2), who needed 59 minutes to find the net in a 3-0 first-round win over Evansville, finally broke through on Osborne’s 47th-minute strike, her 12th goal of the season. Aly Wagner converted a 57th-minute penalty kick after Candy Reich pulled down Osborne in the Syracuse box. Devvyn Hawkins made it 3-0 four minutes later, nodding home an Osborne header from a Danielle Slaton corner kick. Kristi Candau scored her third NCAA tournament goal in the 73rd minute. ò Sarah Lane, Lindsay Gusick and Ashley Meeker each scored goals within 147 seconds as Virginia routed visiting William & Mary, 4-1, and advanced to play Cincinnati. Lane, who netted the finale in the Cavaliers’ 3-0 first-round win over Liberty, fired Virginia (16-3-2) ahead from close range in the 11th minute. Gusick beat a defender and won a footrace for her goal, her 14th of the season, in the 12th minute. Meeker curled in a corner kick in the 14th. Taylor Wood made it 4-0 in the 33rd. ò Paige Ledford’s 10th goal of the season, off a give-and-go with Lindsay Browne in the 76th minute, enabled host Clemson to overcome dominant Florida State. It marked the second straight season the Tigers (15-4-1), who’ll meet Florida in the third round, have eliminated their ACC rival in the NCAA tournament. Ledford, who slipped between defender Heather Dyche and goalkeeper Ali Mims to finish Browne’s feed, also was a defensive hero for Clemson. The freshman cleared an Amber Tollefson rebound off the goal line after Maren Vik Edvardsen struck the post midway through the first half. ò Maggie Tomecka scored her second playoff goal and Jordan Walker also tallied as top-seeded North Carolina handled ACC rival Duke, 2-0. Tomecka headed home an Anne Remy cross in the 35th minute, eight minutes after Walker scored from an Alyssa Ramsey feed. The Tar Heels (21-0) will meet Rutgers in the third round. ò Keri Lages’ 27th-minute goal, off short passes from Erica “Boo” Schubert and Carli Lloyd, lifted Rutgers (14-7-1) past host Princeton. Lloyd, the Big East Conference Rookie of the Year, broke the Rutgers single-season scoring record with her 37th point (15 goals, 7 assists) of the season. She had the first goal in the Scarlet Knights’ 4-1 first-round romp over Boston University. Schubert assisted on two goals in that win. ò Christie Welsh netted her 25th goal of the season and assisted on two Heidi Drummond headers as Penn State scored three times in the first 28 minutes in a 3-0 romp over visiting Villanova. Drummond, who has 16 goals, finished Welsh’s crosses in the 11th and 28th minutes. Welsh, who has 17 assists, finished a Stephanie Smith feed in the 17th. The Nittany Lions (20-3-1) take on Connecticut in the third round. Penn State won a Sept. 2 meeting, 2-0, at Notre Dame’s tournament. ò Australian national-teamer Lisa Casagrande took advantage of a defensive miscue in the 24th minute, then assisted on freshman Christine Sinclair’s 20th goal of the season four minutes later to lead fourth-seeded Portland past Washington, 2-0. The Pilots (18-3) will take another whack at Nebraska next Saturday afternoon. Portland romped, 3-0, in the first Merlo Field meeting on Oct. 23. Casagrande has scored three goals with an assist in the past six games. She has seven goals and three assists in 2001. The junior forward beat Washington goalkeeper Hope Solo to a loose ball after some Husky miscommunication in the back for the first goal. She took a short pass from Erin Misaki and pulled Solo from her net before feeding Sinclair for the second. NCAA DIVISION I WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP SECOND ROUND Sunday’s results at Chapel Hill, N.C. North Carolina 2 Duke 0. Goals: Walker (Ramsey, Felts) 27, Tomecka (Remy) 35. at Princeton, N.J. Rutgers 1 Princeton 0. Goal: Lages (Lloyd, Schubert) 27. at State College, Pa. Penn State 3 Villanova 0. Goals: Drummond (Welsh) 11, Welsh (Smith) 17, Drummond (Welsh) 28. at Stanford, Calif. Stanford 3 St. Mary’s 1. Goals: Wallis (Myers) 2, Wallis (Ward) 11, Carlson (Sanderson) 87; Takekawa (Crenshaw) 31. at College Station, Texas Texas A&M 2 SMU 1 (OT). Goals: Thrasher (Strutz) 61, Strutz (Thrasher) 103; S. Harvey 4. at Portland, Ore. Portland 2 Washington 0. Goals: Casagrande 24, Sinclair (Misaki, Casagrande) 28. at Los Angeles UCLA 2 Pepperdine 1. Goals: own goal Stuart 29, Jones (Bogart) 48; Pavoni (Swanson) 35. at Morgantown, W.Va. Dayton 2 Miami (Ohio) 0. Goals: McKnight 2, Showalter (McKnight) 42. at Clemson, S.C. Clemson 1 Florida State 0. Goal: Ledford (Browne) 76. at Gainesville, Fla. Florida 3 Georgia 0. Goals: Wambach (Hamel) 3, Wambach (Sellers, Murphy) 30, Wambach (Hoyles, Floyd) 32. at South Bend, Ind. Cincinnati 3 Notre Dame 2. Goals: Lieberman 13, Lieberman (Simonson) 18, Simonson 62; Guertin (Scheller) 23, Pruzinsky 77. at Charlottesville, Va. Virginia 4 William & Mary 1. Goals: Lane (Trainor) 11, Gusick (Fabrizio) 12, Meeker 14, Wood 33; Flint 80. at Milwaukee, Wis. Dartmouth 1 Michigan 0. Goal: McVeigh (Kiefer, Lang) 86. at Champaign, Ill. Santa Clara 4 Syracuse 1. Goals: Osborne (Cathcart) 47, Wagner pen. 59, Hawkins (Slaton, Osborne) 64, Candau (Ballweg) 73; Parsons (Sybert) 83. Saturday’s results at Storrs, Conn. Connecticut 1 Harvard 0. Goal: Graczyk (Borisjuk) 66. at Lincoln, Neb. Nebraska 3 BYU 0. Goals: Latham (Anderson) 37, Tanaka (Anderson) 51, Harms 83. THIRD ROUND (all times local) Friday’s game Texas A&M (16-3-1) at Stanford (15-3-2), 7:30 p.m. (PST) Saturday’s games Rutgers (14-7-1) at North Carolina (21-0), 2 p.m. (EST) Penn State (20-3-1) at Connecticut (18-5), noon (EST) Nebraska (17-4-1) at Portland (17-3), 1 p.m. (PST) Dayton (16-5) at UCLA (19-2), 1 p.m. (PST) Cincinnati (20-3) at Virginia (16-3-2), 7 p.m. (EST) Dartmouth (11-4-1) at Santa Clara (19-2), 1 p.m. (PST) Sunday’s game Clemson (15-4-1) at Florida (16-5), 2 p.m. (EST)