IN BRIEF

FOOTBALL

Hornung, Starr, others eulogize friend McGee

Paul Hornung recalled his wild days with Max McGee as hundreds of people gathered Sunday at a megachurch in Eden Prairie, Minn., to remember the talented and quirky Green Bay Packers receiver who caught the first touchdown in Super Bowl history.

Hornung, Bart Starr, Fuzzy Thurston and other players from the dominant Packers teams of the 1960s spoke at a service that drew as many laughs as tears.

McGee died at age 75 on Oct. 20 when he fell while clearing leaves from the roof of his home in Deephaven, a Minneapolis suburb.

Starr talked about how McGee stayed up all night partying before Super Bowl I in 1967, his disheveled appearance prompting the quarterback to think, “Oh my gosh, I hope Boyd Dowler doesn’t go down.”

Dowler separated his shoulder, as all Packers fans know, and McGee finished with 138 yards receiving and two touchdowns as Green Bay beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.

Also: Southern Methodist coach Phil Bennett was fired, a day after the Mustangs lost 29-23 at Tulsa and were eliminated from bowl contention.

Bennett, who is 18-48 in six seasons, will finish out the season, athletic director Steve Orsini said.

The Mustangs are 1-7 with four games remaining.

Two Illinois State players were charged with stealing a classmate’s wallet and were dismissed from the team.

Cameron Cyril Thompkins, 18, of Sanford, Fla., and Micha Gordon, 19, of Peoria, were removed from the squad because of “violations of team rules,” athletic department spokesman Todd Kober said.

Texas’ Trinity University used 15 laterals after a completed pass on the final play of the game for an unlikely touchdown and 28-24 victory Saturday at stunned Millsaps in Jackson, Miss. Call it the “Mississippi Miracle” for the Tigers, an NCAA Division III team from San Antonio.

There were 2 seconds left, only enough time to snap the ball once, when Trinity took over at its own 40.

Blake Barmore dumped a short pass over the middle to a wide-open Shawn Thompson, who gained 16 yards before he ran into a defender and made the first pitch to Riley Curry. Then there was another lateral, and another and another.

Curry got the ball four times, the last after it was bounced off the turf into his hands around the 34 and he sprinted in to the end zone. He crossed the goal line 62 seconds after the ball was snapped.

RUNNING, TRIATHLON

Ex-Georgetown star wins Arlington race

Kristen Henehan, a three-time All-American in track at Georgetown, won the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Va.

Henehan finished the course among the monuments in the nation’s capital in 2 hours, 51 minutes, 9 seconds, edging ahead of Lisa Thomas in the final mile to win by 27 seconds.

Ethiopian Tamrat Ayalew was the fastest of more than 22,000 runners, finishing the final 5 miles all alone to unseat two-time defending champion Ruben Garcia with a time of 2:22:18 in the men’s race.

Also: Wilfred Kigen of Kenya won his third straight Frankfurt Marathon in Frankfurt, Germany, finishing in 2:07:58.

Kigen pulled away from two Kenyans over the final couple of miles through Frankfurt’s downtown as he lowered his own course record by 31 seconds. Hosea Rottich was second in 2:08:11, followed by Sammy Kurgat in 2:08:38.

Melanie Kraus of Germany caught Svetlana Zakharova late in the race to win the women’s title in 2:28:56. The Russian finished in 2:29:12 in her first race since the former Boston and Chicago winner had a child.

She just edged Norway’s Kirsten Melkevik Otterbu, who posted the same time.

Conrad Stoltz of South Africa claimed the Xterra World Championship in Honolulu.

Stoltz finished the nearly 27-mile triathlon in 2 hours, 40 minutes, 54 seconds, becoming the first male to win three times since the race started in 1996.

Julie Dibens of England won the women’s title in her first attempt

She led throughout and finished in 3:01:24.

MISCELLANEOUS

Rash claims Masters bowling championship

Sean Rash, of Wichita, Kan., won the U.S. Bowling Congress Masters title Sunday in Milwaukee by defeating Steve Jaros 269-245 in the final.

Rash got a break on a crossover strike in the third frame and struck out after leaving a 6-pin in the fifth.

He has won titles in each of his first four TV appearances, tying Hugh Miller as the only bowlers to accomplish that feat.

Rash improved to 7-0 in TV matches to start his career and is one shy of tying the record 8-0 start of George Branham III.

Also: Kimmie Meissner, the U.S. champion and 2006 world gold medalist, edged current world champ Miki Ando of Japan at Skate America in Reading, Pa., even though Ando won the free skate.

The results were strikingly similar to Saturday’s in the men’s event, when Japan’s Daisuke Takahashi won even though U.S. champion Evan Lysacek took the free skate.

Earlier, four-time U.S. champions Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, ranked first in the world in ice dancing, won all three portions of their weekend event. They put the finishing touches on their fourth Skate America crown with a flowing, romantic free skate to music by Chopin.

Aksel Lund Svindal began defense of his World Cup overall and giant slalom titles with a victory at the season-opening race on the Rettenbach glacier in Soelden, Austria.

Svindal delivered the fastest final run to make up a 1.17-second deficit from the opening leg and won with a combined time of 2 minutes, 17.87 seconds.

Olympic combined champion Ted Ligety led after the first leg of a World Cup race for the first time, which meant he was also the last one out of the start hut for his final run. Despite a strong performance, he finished 0.32 seconds behind the big Norwegian.

U.S. light heavyweight Christopher Downs dropped out as the first week of competition in the World Boxing Championships concluded in Chicago, leaving the U.S. team with eight qualifiers for the round of 16 out of a possible 11.

The 33-year-old fighter from Knoxville, Tenn., fell behind England’s Tony Jeffries in the second round and couldn’t make up the difference in a 19-8 decision.

After a rest day today, the championships will resume Tuesday at the UIC Pavilion with the round of 16. The quarterfinals will be Thursday, the semifinals Friday and the championship round Saturday.

Brooklyn lightweight Sadam Ali was eliminated in the afternoon session, falling to 20-16 Armenia’s Hrachik Javakhyan.

Light flyweight Luis Yanez, a high school senior from Duncanville, Texas, and welterweight Demetrius Andrade of Providence, R.I., both advanced in the tournament.

Both fighters are one victory away from qualifying for the Beijing Olympics.

Yanez won by walkover during the morning session.

In the afternoon, Andrade pounded Latvia’s Dmitrijs Sostaks with strong shots to the body in the third round and went on to post a 19-3 victory.

Wyoming’s Tamika Wilson scored in the 52nd minute and goaltender Ashley Sheppard stopped four shots as the Cowgirls ended UNLV’s seven-match winning streak with a 1-0 victory in a Mountain West Conference soccer match in Laramie, Wyo.

The loss dropped UNLV to 4-1-1 in league and 9-4-5 overall, while Wyoming improved to 3-3 and 8-9.