San Diego

SAN DIEGO -- The Naval Academy didn't seem to be part of the Department of Defense last night, as the Midshipmen were overrun by the University of San Diego, 93-76.The Toreros, who had been averaging 72 points, took control in the second half and finished with a shooting percentage that improved from 53 percent in the first half to 69 percent for the game.Navy (2-7) shot 60 percent but couldn't execute off the pesky, trapping defense coach Pete Herrmann repeatedly pleaded for from the bench.

SAN DIEGO -- The guessing game over President Clinton and the Final Four is over.He's going.Clinton had been saying all week he'd like to go to the Arkansas-Arizona semifinal in Charlotte, N.C., but there were lingering doubts about whether he would attend.Those doubts ended yesterday when aides said he would fly straight from his vacation in Southern California to North Carolina tomorrow. Clinton, a diehard Razorbacks fan, was diplomatic when a Wildcats fan shouted "University of Arizona" at him during his morning jog."

A Cockeysville investment broker accused of bilking clients of more than $800,000 in savings has been arrested in San Diego, where he had assumed a new name and been living since 1989, according to the Maryland attorney general's office.Michael E. Hart, 34, was arrested Wednesday, two weeks after a Baltimore County grand jury indicted him on 29 counts of theft, fraudulent misappropriation of funds and securities fraud from 1986 to 1989. He also is charged with failing to file income tax returns in 1988 and 1989.

Q: We'll be flying to California in June and plan to rent a car and explore. Can you tell me something about the old Spanish missions? We'd like to visit some.A: If you started in San Diego and drove north, you could spend a whole vacation going from mission to mission. You could stay at Clint Eastwood's hotel/restaurant on part of the Carmel Mission property and visit William Randolph Hearst's "Castle" at San Simeon, on land that was once San Miguel mission.The 21 missions built by Spanish Franciscan friars in the late-18th and early-19th centuries are strung out for 600 miles from San Diego to Sonoma, meant to be a day's horse back ride apart along the Camino Real, the King's Highway, roughly the route of today's U.S. 101.They're beautiful adobe and brick buildings with red-tiled roofs, weathered arches, bell towers and handsome colonnades, dressed up with fountains, grape arbors, trees and flowers.

A dream or a nightmare?Here's the possible situation: The San Francisco 49ers are down by four points with the ball on the San Diego Chargers' 10-yard line with three seconds left in the game. Receiver Jerry Rice is split right, covered man-to-man by Chargers cornerback Sean Vanhorse."Every player has dreamed of this situation," said Vanhorse, a graduate of Northwestern High in Baltimore. "The Bowl, playing against the best ever with the game on the line. Then I make the play to win the game."

There were good finishes (see Kansas City) and bad finishes (that's you, Houston) yesterday in the NFL. Then there was another mystifying Marty finish. You know, Mr. Ultra Conservative, Marty Schottenheimer, the coach who plays it so close to the vest he needs a respirator by game's end. Schottenheimer very nearly coached his San Diego Chargers to another come-from-ahead loss in Week 9 in the New Jersey Meadowlands. After nursing a 15-point lead into the fourth quarter, Schottenheimer watched the New York Jets pull within 28-20.

With three losses in four games, the last thing the Pasadena Saints needed was a hot opponent.They ran into a scorcher yesterday.San Diego continued its domination of the Continental Amateur Baseball Association 18-and-under World Series with an 11-0 trouncing of the Saints at Arundel High School in a game that was halted after five innings by the 10-run rule.The California All-Star team was 5-0 going into last night's game against Brooklyn (N.Y.) at Joe Cannon Stadium. It has won championships the past two years at different levels, and has outscored its opponents in this tournament, 49-11.

SAN DIEGO -- A cross-border tunnel nearly half a mile long, from a nondescript industrial building in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego, is thought to be the longest illegal tunnel ever discovered along the U.S.-Mexican border, federal authorities said yesterday. Stacked near the tunnel - a deep passage with lighting, ventilation and a pulley system - authorities found more than two tons of marijuana. The tunnel is 2,400 feet long and roomy enough for people to run through. U.S. and Mexican authorities, who have found several border-crossing tunnels in recent years, have made no arrests.

The new rhyme Waad Hirmez is reciting says somethin about the way he feels about his former team, the San Diego Sockers.Through the years, as the Sockers have accumulated nine Major Soccer League championships, they have fulfilled four of their slogans at the expense of the Blast: They won the "Battle of the Best," "[Kept] The Streak Alive," learned "Seven is Heaven" and that "Eight is Great."Along the way, Hirmez and Rod Castro -- another former Socker who has joined the Blast this year -- have had more than a little to do with those outcomes.

They've been struggling against each other for a decade now: the perennial champion San Diego Sockers and the Blast, the team that most often has tried to oust them from their throne.They have hurled insults at one another and often worked as hard off the field as on to undermine each other's confidence. And, always, since their first meeting in the Major Soccer League championship series in the 1982-83 season, the Sockers have had their way."I figure I'm doing [them] a favor," Sockers coach Ron Newman said yesterday.