IN BRIEF

PRO FOOTBALL

Dolphins DE Starks hits police officer with truck

Miami Dolphins defensive end Randy Starks was charged with using his truck to hit a police officer who tried to stop the vehicle on foot.

Miami Beach Police say the officer tried to stop the 25-year-old player when he was driving a truck packed with 13 people early Sunday in heavy traffic. They say the vehicle was meant for four people.

Police say Starks kept slowly moving forward even as the officer was beside the truck. They say Starks swerved the vehicle slightly, hitting the officer in the chest and pinning him against another vehicle.

The officer wasn't injured, but Starks was charged with aggravated battery.

Starks remained in a Miami jail Sunday afternoon.

Also: The Dallas Cowboys used advice from a man who falsified his educational credentials and served federal prison time for drug trafficking to make major structural reinforcements to the practice facility that collapsed May 2 in Irving, Texas.

A Dallas Morning News investigation showed that the consultant, Jeffrey Lawrence Galland, was engineering director of a Las Vegas company called JCI, even though he had no engineering license. Galland acknowledged the newspaper's findings but said his background had no bearing on his ability to help clients.

Galland, 42, who now runs his own consulting firm, said he is not involved in investigating the collapse of the giant tentlike facility, the newspaper reported. The collapse left one Cowboys employee with a broken neck and another with permanent paralysis.

Galland said JCI president Scott Jacobs, who is a licensed engineer, supervised his Cowboys work.

MISCELLANEOUS

UC Irvine among 16 baseball regional hosts

Top-ranked UC Irvine was selected to host an NCAA college baseball regional for the first time in school history.

The Anteaters, a College World Series participant two years ago, joined Louisville and Texas Christian as first-time hosts. UC Irvine, in its second season under coach Mike Gillespie, won the Big West title and has been ranked at the top of the major national polls the past several weeks.

The 16 host schools selected by the NCAA's Division I baseball committee are guaranteed berths in the 64-team tournament, which starts Friday. The rest of the field, including the top eight national seeds, will be announced today.

Also: Former Cimarron-Memorial standout Travis Feiner had two home runs to help Western Nevada rout Iowa Western 11-0 in an elimination game at the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colo.

Spring Valley graduate David Carroll pitched the distance to get the win in a game called after six innings on the 10-run rule.

Levi Leipheimer has another chance to shed his "perennial runner-up" label today in stage 16 of the Giro d'Italia.

The American cyclist battled through 95-degree heat and hung with the other leaders in the 15th stage. He enters the potentially decisive uphill leg to Monte Petrano, Italy, in third overall, 43 seconds behind race leader Denis Menchov of Russia.

Danilo Di Luca of Italy is second overall, 34 seconds behind Menchov. Lance Armstrong finished 2:56 behind stage winner Leonardo Bertagnolli but moved from 14th to 13th overall.

Northwestern won its fifth straight NCAA championship in women's Division I lacrosse with a 21-7 victory over North Carolina in Towson, Md.