Championships

In just seven minutes, his team trailed by seven goals. But the coach's plan was working just fine. It was Bill Tierney's first game as coach at the University of Denver in 2010. He wanted the Pioneers to get a taste of big-time college lacrosse and they opened the season with a 15-9 loss at Syracuse's Carrier Dome. The freshmen who were on that Denver team are now seniors. On Saturday, the fourth-seeded Pioneers (14-4) will have a chance to show how far they have come when they meet No. 1 Syracuse (15-3)

Aaron Thomas has done the pyramids and the Sphinx. He has ridden a boat on the Nile. He has stayed at swanky hotels in Alexandria. Just don't remind him of the cuisine the Downingtown junior had to stomach in two trips to Egypt this summer with the United States' under-17 national soccer team. "The food was horrible," said Thomas with a recollection of queasiness. "We ate the same thing over and over again: rice and chicken. And the chicken was probably camel meat or llama meat, we didn't even know.

One in a series of articles getting you ready for the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club, June 13-16. THE UNITED STATES Golf Association will conduct 15 national championships or team events this year. Only one of them is a money-maker. That, of course, would be the U.S. Open, which is returning to Merion next month after a 32-year absence. So the organization's marquee competition obviously needs to produce enough revenue to support everything else that the game's governing body in this country has to get done.

NEW YORK - In one locker room, there was a familiar chant, the most familiar one for all St. Joseph's Hawks fans, this time chanted by the Hawks players themselves after they doused their coach with a Gatorade shower, an NCAA tournament celebration. Down the hall, quiet. A last shot, season on the line, so much history backing it up. You wouldn't bother making up the plot. . . . . . . Then a whistle blew. Instead of Fordham trying for a game-winner, St. Joe's walked down to the other end to take free throws with a one-point lead, with 3.8 seconds left in the Atlantic Ten championship game at the Barclays Center.

Most Americans haven't spread out a map on the dining room table, planning their Road to Atlanta. They are focusing on March Madness, the NHL, NBA and the return of major league baseball. Athletes, however, have been training for and thinking about the Summer Olympics for years. The Olympics are on their minds day and night. In gymnasiums and pools, on tracks and fields, Atlanta has been the favorite destination of Olympic hopefuls as they pursue their dream. The Olympic Swim Trials are this week in Indianapolis.

Unlike many people their age, David Wharton and Peter Boden didn't have the chance to sleep late Friday morning. Holidays such as the Fourth of July are cause for celebration, but they are no reason for missing practice. Wharton and Boden joined about 80 other swimmers at the Nor-Gwyn Swim Club in North Wales for their 6:30-to-9 a.m. daily workout. For Wharton and Boden, though, Friday's practice was not just another exercise. It was a preface to participation in the 1986 world swimming championships in Madrid, Spain, Aug. 17-23.

Making the familiar trek from his Vineland home, following a route he has taken the last 12 summers, Asher Schwegel turns off Exit 14 of I-295 and heads west on Floodgate Road. As he navigates the final mile of his trip, across the railroad tracks, past the cornfields and whitewashed Cape Cods, a clearing on the right side of the road reveals his destination. On a 100-acre plot ringed by century-old trees sits Bridgeport Speedway, a clay racetrack five-eighths of a mile long. It's Saturday night, and there's no place Schwegel, 39, would rather be. Normally, he'd split his time between watching the races and serving as crew chief for his brother, Adam.

Even when she was an infant, Meghan Peart showed signs that she would become a swimmer. "Meghan has always loved the water," Peart's mother, Charlyn, said. "She loved to be in the bathtub when she was a couple of months old. When she was 6 months, we took her to family swims at the high school. She loved to splash around in the water. " The playful splashing at the Upper Perkiomen High pool eventually turned into powerful swimming. Peart, a 10th grader at Germantown Academy and a resident of Green Lane, is the nation's No. 1-ranked 15-year-old in the 50-meter freestyle.

Rowan College swimming coach Tony Lisa is known for a sense of humor, but he takes his job seriously. Lisa is now in a position to have a big impact on the sport he loves, having been elected president of the College Swim Coaches Association of America in March. The CSCAA includes all swimming teams from NCAA Division I, II and III, NAIA and junior colleges. Lisa will be president-elect under North Carolina State coach Scott Hammond until September 1998. Then he will take over as president until 2001.

Long before the closing ceremonies drew a record crowd of 48,571, it had become obvious that the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival rated A-OK with a lot of folks in Oklahoma. The most recent edition of the nation's largest amateur sports event generated $3,028,043.50 - a ticket revenue record - and the 13-day attendance of 423,039 left the state's total second only to North Carolina's 464,423, set in 1987. Like its most recent predecessors, the '89 Olympic Festival succeeded best in preparing athletes for the Olympic experience.