Sports shorts
Basketball Swink update
Connellsville graduate Beth Swink will be playing close to home Tuesday night when St. Francis (Pa.) travels to West Virginia for the first meeting between the two women’s basketball programs.
Swink has picked up right where she left off last season, coming off a game-high performance in points (23), rebounds (12), assists (5) and steals (4) in the Red Flash’s 68-57 win over Central Connecticut State.
Swink, the 2003-04 Northeast Conference Player of the Year, leads the team in field goals (30), field goal attempts (59), free throws made (21), free throws attempted (31), and rebounding (37). She’s tied for the lead in assists with 12 and second in steals with seven.
Soccer
Notre Dame women win
CARY, N.C. (AP) – Notre Dame won its second NCAA women’s soccer championship by beating UCLA 4-3 on penalty kicks after the teams tied 1-1 through 110 minutes of regulation and overtime Sunday.
The Fighting Irish (24-1-1) also won the national title in 1995 and joined North Carolina as the only multiple champions.
Jill Krivacek made the deciding kick in the first NCAA women’s soccer title game decided by penalties. The game ended when Irish goalkeeper Erika Bohn turned Lindsay Greco’s shot wide on the next attempt.
UCLA (18-6) led 1-0 in the 60th minute on Gudrun Gunnarsdottir’s own-goal. Notre Dame tied it on Katie Thorlakson’s penalty kick in the 74th.
The 90 minutes of regulation ended frantically, with Bohn saving a penalty kick in the 84th, and Notre Dame’s Candace Chapman clearing the ball off her line after a goalmouth scramble seconds later.
The Irish had outscored their five previous tournament opponents 11-1, while the Bruins had nothing but shutouts in outscoring their foes 9-0.
Notre Dame created repeated chances, calmly passing through tight spaces in the midfield and attacking down the flanks.
UCLA goalkeeper Valerie Henderson was forced to confront Irish attackers by charging from her line and hitting the ground to block a shot with her body.
The Bruins supplemented their defense by taking advantage of long-range shots. One good chance came about 15 minutes before halftime, when Bristyn Davis – the Bruins’ leading scorer with 14 goals and six assists – laced a shot that caromed off the crossbar from 30 yards out.
Notre Dame was making its fourth trip to the championship game. The Irish lost in 1994, 1996 and 1999 – each time to North Carolina. UCLA’s only previous NCAA women’s soccer final came in 2000, when the Bruins lost 2-1 to UNC.