BRUNSWICK – The Bowdoin College women’s ice hockey team will play at Plattsburgh State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament next Saturday. The Polar Bears earned an automatic bid to the tourney by winning the NESCAC Championship over Middlebury on Sunday, 4-1.

Plattsburgh lost in the ECAC West title game to Elmira on Sunday, 3-2. Game time is slated for 3:30 p.m.

Snyder heading to the NCAAs

GORHAM – Saco native Wil Snyder of the University of Southern Maine men’s indoor track and field team will be among the 12 athletes who will compete this weekend in the pole vault at the 2004 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships. The meet is being held at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Snyder is the second USM male track athlete to reach the NCAA indoor championships. Since arriving at USM mid-year, Snyder has broken the school record in the pole vault three times. He broke the previous record of 14-9 set by Nick Joy in February, 2000 in his first meet at Brandeis by clearing 15-3 3/4. Two weeks later, he improved upon that mark clearing 15-5 at the USM Co-Ed Invitational.

Colby athletes in search of titles

WATERVILLE – Twelve Colby College athletes from three sports will be heading to different points across the country in search of winning an individual NCAA championship when competition is held in alpine skiing, women’s swimming and diving, and women’s indoor track and field.

Sophomore twin sisters Jenny and Abbi Lathrop make up the women’s team at the NCAA Division I Skiing Championships starting Wednesday and hosted by the University of Nevada. The Lathrop sisters both earned All-America status in the slalom and giant slalom at last year’s NCAA meet. The two combined for four victories on the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) circuit this winter.

For the second year in a row, the Colby men will take a full three-man alpine team to the NCAA meet. Warner Nickerson, who has been battling nagging injuries, won five of the first seven races of the EISA season for the Mules. Robert Saunders, who earned All-America status in the giant slalom last year, and Charlie Reed are Colby’s other skiers.

Selig, union

go to the Hill

WASHINGTON (AP) – Commissioner Bud Selig and players’ union head Donald Fehr have been called to Capitol Hill to answer questions about baseball’s drug policy.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., scheduled a hearing Wednesday to grill Selig and Fehr about why baseball does not have a more comprehensive drug testing plan, like those of the NFL and other pro leagues.

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Gene Upshaw, executive director of the players association, also were scheduled to testify. The committee also plans to discuss legislation that would ban over-the-counter sales of androstenedione, a steroidlike supplement, and the newly detected steroid THG.

The House author of that legislation, Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., said the hearing will be the start of an intense examination by both houses of Congress of steroid use in sports, an issue President Bush touched on in his State of the Union address. “It’s sad to watch my favorite sport not be able to get itself away from and out from this problem,” said Sweeney.

, who will testify at the hearing along with the bill’s Senate sponsor, Joe Biden, D-Del.

Sweeney called baseball’s testing policy “woefully inadequate,” and argued that Congress has some leverage to change things, such as taking a look at public financing of stadiums.

Copy the Story Link