Sudden Death

The Santa Ana Foothill girls' water polo team proved it's still the best in the Southland, even though it took longer than usual on Saturday. Foothill, ranked No. 1 in the region by The Times, needed one overtime and three sudden-death periods to defeat No. 2 Newport Harbor, 10-9, in the championship game of the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions at UC Santa Barbara.

Rumi said it best: "Grief can be the garden of compassion. " I spotted this quote as I sat in my garden grieving over the sudden death of our 26-year-old daughter. Jogging with her fiancé in New York's Central Park on Memorial Day 2008, Lauren Nicole Zussman went into cardiac arrest. One phone call changed the life of a virtually happy family. It happened exactly eight years to the day after she almost died of an overdose of alcohol while vacationing at Lake Havasu. Clean and sober, never wavering, this Ford International Model went on to just about become a poster child for the 12-step program.

Sudden death heart attacks are the result of so many causes doctors cannot pinpoint a recurring trend, Mason Weiss, cardiologist at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, said Sunday night. Weiss, the attending physician Sunday after star basketball player Hank Gathers collapsed and died during a Loyola Marymount game in Westchester, said there is a general misconception of the effects that strike young athletes. "There are very different causes for these deaths," he said.

Despite blowing a four-shot lead and his best chance of winning his first golf tournament since his personal life fell apart on a global stage a year ago, Tiger Woods said Sunday he was optimistic about his future. "Even though I made countless mistakes in the middle part of the round, it said a lot for me to come back and put my swing back together again" late in the round, Woods said after Graeme McDowell beat him on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff Sunday to win the Chevron World Challenge.

Austin Maki of Estancia High defeated Jason Gore of Hart on the first hole of sudden death to win the California Interscholastic Federation/Southern California Golf Assn. finals Monday at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. Maki, who turned a three-shot lead into a one-stroke deficit over the final four holes of regulation play, drilled a 25-foot putt for birdie on his 18th hole to force the playoff. Maki birdied the 510-yard par-five first hole to win the boys' individual title.

Thursday's soccer match between Roosevelt and Chatsworth lasted nearly as long as leisure suits did in the early '70s. And until the end, it was just as ugly. Roosevelt fullback Daniel Diaz scored on a sudden-death penalty kick to end the marathon game and give the Rough Riders a 2-1 victory over Chatsworth in the first round of the City soccer playoffs at Chatsworth. Roosevelt (11-2-2) will meet Kennedy at 2:30 on Tuesday in the quarterfinals. Chatsworth finished 10-3-2.

People who use crack, a smokable form of cocaine, risk dire results, including sudden death, and the potential perils increase with repeated use of the drug, which has rapid impact on both body and brain, warns an emergency-medicine specialist at New York University Medical Center. "Crack is purer, cheaper and far more dangerous than the powdered form of cocaine," said Dr. Neal A. Lewin, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the medical center.

Paulinho scored on a header in sudden death to give the Salsa a 3-2 victory over Ft. Lauderdale in an American Professional Soccer League match Friday in Ft. Lauderdale. Los Angeles (6-2) led, 2-0, but the Strikers scored twice in the second half to force overtime. Paulinho's game-winning goal, his second in two weeks, came on an assist from Jose Vasquez.

Randy Wood kept the season alive for the Toronto Maple Leafs in sudden death. Wood scored 10 minutes into overtime as the Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 5-4, Wednesday night to force a decisive Game 7 in their first-round Western Conference playoff series. Mats Sundin carried the puck behind Chicago's net with a great rush down ice. "I figured if Mats couldn't stuff it he'd at least pop it out into the slot, which luckily happened," said Wood, who scored twice.

In novels such as "Black Knight in Red Square" and "Death of a Dissident," mystery writer Stuart Kaminsky created a Russian Columbo, a war-wounded, barrel-chested detective named Porfiry Rostnikov who solves crimes in Moscow. It's time for Kaminsky to write another novel, this one assigning Rostnikov to the intriguing but potentially deadly case of Russian ice hockey. It would take a book to even begin to sort out who's behind the murders, kidnapping and extortion.

"I thought I could change what I am. Keep my family safe. But it doesn't matter what I do, what I choose. I'm what's wrong. This is fate. " Those were Dexter Morgan's last words to the viewer in the jaw-dropping fourth season finale of "Dexter. " Poor Dexter had danced with his biggest foe and allowed himself the possibility of becoming a better man. Instead, the truth revealed itself in his wife's pool of blood: Dexter Morgan can't be anyone but who he is. The shocking twist — Rita's death and what it means for Dexter — places Showtime's highest-rated series at a compelling crossroads for its fifth season premiere on Sunday.

Duke won its first NCAA men's lacrosse championship in dramatic fashion, defeating Notre Dame, 6-5, Monday on a goal by C.J. Costabile with five seconds gone in sudden-death overtime at Baltimore. Costabile won the faceoff from Trever Sipperly and sprinted downfield before beating standout goaltender Scott Rodgers with a shot from directly in front of the net. The Blue Devils immediately rushed onto the field and created a massive pile of players, sticks and helmets while celebrating the fastest goal to start an overtime in NCAA championship history.

John Madden isn't in the broadcast booth anymore, but he still has a booming voice with the NFL. Madden, 73, is an advisor to Commissioner Roger Goodell on football matters and chairs a coaches' subcommittee to the competition committee. He watches every game from his viewing complex in Pleasanton, Calif., reviews video during the week, and keeps close tabs on players and trends of the game. This week, from his home in Carmel, he spoke to Times NFL writer Sam Farmer about overtime, the draft, technology, and a certain quarterback who's on the fence about returning to the Minnesota Vikings.

In a startling and controversial twist Tuesday, the NFL's one-possession overtime system met a sudden death. Just like that, it was gone — in the postseason, at least. Moving with uncommon speed and decisiveness, team owners voted 28-4 to approve a new system — one that for the moment only will be used in the playoffs — that increases the likelihood of both teams touching the ball. The vote was expected to take place Wednesday, but the league acted quickly to poll the owners once it was clear it had the required three-quarters majority to pass the measure, which was supported by Commissioner Roger Goodell.

I think of the NFL's overtime rule the way Winston Churchill looked at democracy. It's the worst possible system — except for all the others that have been tried. The overtime rule, sudden death that starts with a coin flip, is unfair, imbalanced, hopelessly flawed … and the best that we have. Not everyone agrees. So this month, at the owners' meeting in Orlando, Fla., the league's competition committee will propose a revamped overtime, one that gives both teams a better chance to touch the ball.

Screening young athletes for heart abnormalities with an electrocardiogram test may be a cost-effective way to identify at-risk youth and save lives, according to a new study. But the findings may also add fuel to what has become an often emotional debate. Researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine examined sudden cardiac deaths among U.S. high school and college athletes aged 14 to 22 and conducted a calculation to see what influence various types of screenings would have.

Hector Marinaro scored his second goal 4:44 into sudden death overtime Sunday and the Lazers ended a two-game losing streak by defeating the Baltimore Blast, 6-5, in a Major Indoor Soccer League game at Baltimore. Goalkeeper Kris Peat made 23 saves as the Lazers (15-15) ended Baltimore's three-game winning streak.

The game was so good that you didn't want it to end, and toward the end you began to wonder if it would. With just more than a minute remaining in the third sudden-death overtime period, the water polo thriller between Rosary, ranked fourth in Orange County, and No. 1 Irvine finally did end.

The truth was hard to hear amid a Superdome din, difficult to see through French Quarter tears, impossible to reckon immediately after what felt like one of the most deserved victories in NFL history. Two days later, though, it's still there, pounding like a hangover, reeking like a Bourbon Street back alley. Two days later, the truth is staring in the face of a league too shrouded in 36 years of silly tradition to see it. That great victory by the New Orleans Saints against the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC championship game Sunday night?

The feeling can be scary: During exercise, the heart begins to beat quickly and irregularly for a short period of time. No wonder, then, that many people who experience it stop working out, afraid that they might have a heart attack. Previous studies have found a link between that type of rapid heartbeat (called non-sustained ventricular tachycardia) and sudden death in people who had prior heart attacks. But a new report suggests that people without underlying heart disease may have little to fear.