Tony Meola, who set a Major League Soccer record with 16 regular-season shutouts, became the first goalkeeper to win the league’s most-valuable-player award Friday. Meola also set a league record with a 681-minute scoreless streak and has led the Kansas City Wizards into Sunday’s MLS Cup against the Chicago Fire.

Meola earlier this week was named goalkeeper of the year and comeback player of the year.

Auto Racing

For the second year in a row, Joe Nemechek has won the pole for the Winston 500 at Talladega, Ala. Nemechek had a fast lap of 190.279 mph in Andy Petree’s Chevy on the 2.66-mile oval. Nemechek’s lap was easily the best of the day, beating out Talladega qualifying record-holder Bill Elliott, whose Ford took the other front row spot for Sunday’s race at 190.045.


NASCAR trucks driver Tony Roper was critically injured after his truck slammed into a wall during the O’Reilly 400 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Roper, 35, was unconscious and unresponsive when he was pulled out of his vehicle. He was airlifted to a Dallas hospital, where he was listed in critical condition and in need of a ventilator to assist in breathing.

College Basketball

Minnesota senior guard Mitch Ohnstad was dismissed from the team for reasons that Coach Dan Monson said went beyond a second arrest for drunk driving. Monson only recently learned that Ohnstad was arrested Aug. 20 on charges of drunk driving. Ohnstad also was arrested in March 1999 for the same charge, but Monson said they were only two examples in a pattern of behavioral problems that led to the decision. Ohnstad transferred from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo after his freshman season, and has no more eligibility remaining.

Rolando Howell, a prized freshman recruit for South Carolina, was cleared to practice with the team even though the 6-foot-9 forward was suspended after his arrest last month on charges of forgery and conspiracy. Prosecutors say Howell and two others cashed hundreds of dollars in bad money orders obtained from a Columbia, S.C., grocery store. School officials said any further decision regarding Howell would be made after “the legal process has run its course.”


Notre Dame’s Troy Murphy, last season’s Big East player of the year, was among three Irish athletes cited for underage drinking, South Bend’s WNDU-TV reported.

UCLA announced that senior guard LaCresha Flannigan has been declared academically ineligible for the fall quarter. Flannigan averaged 6.7 points a game last season.

Bradley’s Lynn Pastucha committed suicide by taking about 900 over-the-counter pain pills, the coroner’s office in Peoria, Ill., said. Pastucha, 19, was found dead in her university apartment Sept. 7. Pastucha was carrying a 4.0 grade-point average into her sophomore year at Bradley.

Miscellany


Jennifer Capriati defeated Anna Kournikova of Russia, 7-6 (4), 6-4, in an error-filled match to claim a spot in the semifinals of the Swisscom Challenge at Zurich, Switzerland. There were more than 40 unforced errors. Lindsay Davenport, seeded second, was down 2-0 in the first set and 3-0 in the second before rallying to defeat seventh-seeded Chanda Rubin, 6-2, 6-4. . . . Top-seeded Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, dizzy and drained from a bad cold, quit during the third set of his quarterfinal with Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia at the Japan Open in Tokyo. Hrbaty advanced past Kuerten with the score 6-7 (6), 6-2, 3-0.

Kenneth Rice, a former Alabama basketball player, is free on $50,000 bond and will face a cocaine conspiracy charge in the multistate drug-smuggling case against former Crimson Tide running back Sherman Williams. Rice surrendered to federal marshals this week in Birmingham, and his case was moved to Mobile, where Williams awaits trial.

Australia’s Matt Welsh broke the world short-course record in the 200-meter backstroke with a time of 1:51.62 at the Australian swim championships in Melbourne. The old mark of 1:52.43 was set by Lenny Krayzelburg in February. . . . After winning the time trials for under-23 men, Evgeni Petrov of Russia won a second gold medal in the road race at the world cycling championships at Plouay, France.