IN BRIEF

CYCLING

Armstrong sacrifices for teammate in Giro

Lance Armstrong's preparation for the Tour de France is going so well, the seven-time Tour winner put aside his own ambitions to help a struggling teammate.

On a day when the thermometer soared to 100 degrees, Armstrong was riding with the race favorites up the final climb of the 16th stage of the Giro d'Italia on Monday when he realized that fellow Astana rider Levi Leipheimer had dropped behind.

Armstrong looked over his shoulder to see where his teammate was and slowed to escort Leipheimer to the finish in Monte Petrano, Italy.

Armstrong and Leipheimer finished 2 minutes, 51 seconds behind stage winner Carlos Sastre. Denis Menchov crossed second, 25 seconds after Sastre, and retained the overall leader's pink jersey.

"I would have lost much, much more time. He saved me minutes and minutes," Leipheimer said of Armstrong's help.

Still, Leipheimer dropped from third to sixth overall, 3:21 behind Menchov. Armstrong moved up from 13th to 12th overall, 11:06 behind Menchov.

Sastre, the defending Tour de France champion from Spain, clocked a marathon-like 7 hours, 11 minutes, 54 seconds for the 147-mile leg from Pergola to Monte Petrano, over three major climbs.

COLLEGES

Western Nevada alive in JUCO World Series

The Western Nevada College baseball team beat Middle Georgia 11-6 in an elimination game at the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colo.

Boulder City High School graduate Mike Long went 2-for-5 with two RBIs for the Wildcats, and former Sierra Vista standout Lance Ray went 2-for-3 with a solo homer.

Also: Cody Jamieson scored his second goal of the game just 80 seconds into overtime as Syracuse rallied from a three-goal deficit in the final 3:37 of regulation to beat Cornell 10-9 in Foxborough, Mass., and win its second straight NCAA lacrosse championship.

The Big Red took a 9-6 lead with 5:31 remaining before the Orange came back to win their unprecedented 11th college lacrosse title.

Mississippi's Devin Britton and fellow freshman Mallory Cecil from Duke won singles titles at the NCAA tennis tournament in College Station, Texas.

Britton beat Ohio State's Steven Moneke 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 for the men's title, and Cecil beat Miami's Laura Vallverdu 7-5, 6-4 in the women's final.

MISCELLANEOUS

Ethiopia's Korir races to L.A. Marathon win

Wesley Korir set a course record in capturing the Los Angeles Marathon, the 11th straight year a Kenyan man won, and Russia's Tatiana Petrova led the women's field.

Korir covered the 26.2 miles in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 24 seconds. Ethiopia's Tariku Jafar was second in 2:09:32.

Petrova broke away from the pack after 19 miles and won in 2:25:59.

Also: Teenager Tilahun Regassa of Ethiopia won the Bolder Boulder in the fastest time since 1995.

Regassa, 19, finished the 10-kilometer race in Boulder, Colo., in 28 minutes, 17 seconds. Fellow Ethiopian Mamito Daska, 25, won the women's division in 32:48.

A soccer game between the United States and Iran this fall could be in the works.

The possibility exists after the head of Iran's soccer federation said he received a proposal from his U.S. counterpart about an exhibition game in October or November.

The U.S. Soccer Federation would say only that "it's normal for multiple federations to contact each other about the possibility of playing a match on available international dates."