Jim Foster

Firefighters battled a brush fire for nearly two hours Tuesday afternoon before they brought it under control. The fire charred nearly 10 acres near Santiago Creek in Orange Park Acres. One police officer was injured when a fire engine backed into his motorcycle and he had to jump free. The fire began just after 2 p.m.

Jessica Davenport used power moves and fallaways to score 18 of her 22 points in the first half, leading No. 6 Ohio State to a 69-38 victory over No. 14 Michigan State on Monday at Columbus, Ohio. The Buckeyes (23-2, 13-1), who maintained their one-game lead in the Big Ten Conference with two games left, built a 19-point lead at halftime while shooting 62% from the field. It was their 14th win in a row and gave Coach Jim Foster his 600th career victory. He is 600-252 in 28 seasons at St.

Tennessee earned this Final Four trip the old-fashioned way-- with defense. The Lady Vols disrupted Vanderbilt's normally efficient offense for much of the game and beat the top-seeded Commodores, 68-63, in the Midwest Regional final Monday night, sending Tennessee to the Final Four for the 13th time. "I thought through the course of the game we really guarded people," Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt said. "We just tried to take them somewhat out of their rhythm."

Seimone Augustus made a clean sweep of the individual major awards for women's college basketball when she was presented with the John R. Wooden Award on Saturday. The Louisiana State junior forward, who helped the Tigers reach a second consecutive Final Four, had also collected the Wade and Naismith trophies before accepting the Wooden Award at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. "This ranks at the top because it has John Wooden's name on it," Augustus said.

Rk. Team Rec. Result Next 1. CONNECTICUT 11-0 Did not play at Seton Hall, Saturday 2. STANFORD 10-1 Did not play California, Saturday 3. NOTRE DAME 12-0 d. No. 18 Vanderbilt, 74-69 at Purdue, Monday Lindsay Schrader has 18 points and 14 rebounds. Skylar Diggins adds 15 points. 4. TENNESSEE 11-1 Did not play No. 14 Oklahoma, Sunday 5. BAYLOR 12-1 Did not play Texas State, Saturday 6. OHIO STATE 15-1 d. Northwestern, 86-60 Michigan, Sunday Coach Jim Foster earns his 700th victory as Buckeyes win seventh in a row. 7. N. CAROLINA 11-1 d. E. Tennessee St., 104-65 Winston-Salem, Saturday Tar Heels reach 100 points for the first time this season.

Buoyed by the knowledge that it will not have to play Tennessee to win the NCAA tournament, No. 1-ranked Virginia overwhelmed West Virginia, 103-83, Thursday night in front of an East Regional record crowd of 8,185 at University Hall. Tennessee, which defeated Virginia in overtime for the 1991 NCAA title, was eliminated by Western Kentucky in the Mideast Regional before the Cavaliers took the court.

In the face of mounting public criticism, San Bernardino County supervisors agreed Tuesday to support releasing a pair of investigatory reports on controversial property purchases -- including one they had recently voted to keep confidential. Supervisor Paul Biane announced at the board's meeting that he backed releasing the two internal reports, one on a land deal by a supervisor's top aide and another that looked at the county's purchase last year of an Adelanto jail for $31 million.

Vanderbilt got a scare when Sheri Sam, its leading scorer and rebounder, was injured, relaxed when it won, then got scared again by what lies ahead. Kelly Dougherty scored 17 points to lead the top-seeded Commodores to a 95-68 victory over Memphis on Sunday in the second round of the West Regional at Nashville, Tenn. Sam, who averages 15.3 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, fell and injured her right wrist with 9:10 to play. Her X-rays were negative and she is expected to play next week.

It used to be that to beat No. 1-ranked Virginia, you concentrated on Dawn Staley, the 1991 Naismith player of the year, and her talented backcourt mate, Tammi Reiss. Now, the Cavaliers' front court, 6-foot-5 juniors Heather and Heidi Burge of Palos Verdes Estates, pose a formidable threat as Vanderbilt Coach Jim Foster acknowledged Friday while his team prepared for today's East Regional final on Virginia's home court, University Hall.

Positioned as somewhere in between the eggheady activism of Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and the anger of Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke," the new Imax film "Hurricane on the Bayou" examines the effect of Katrina on the famed bayou-country wetlands of Louisiana.