Unforced Errors

Emily Stuard helped Liberty show visiting Richard Montgomery the importance of power in volleyball last night.Stuard dominated play at the net with nine kills and seven blocks, and Richard Montgomery could do little to stop her as Liberty needed only 55 minutes to score a 15-1, 15-12, 15-2 victory in the Class 3A West region final.This was the first region championship for Liberty (15-3) since 1991. The Lions advance to the Class 3A state semifinal Wednesday at 6 or 8 p.m. at Essex Community College against Northern-Calvert.

It took almost the entire season, but McDonogh sophomore Chris Chiu finally found redemption yesterday at the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference tennis finals.Chiu's only loss during the regular season came against Loyola's Kevin Strouse, the tournament's top-seeded singles player, on April 3, so Chiu was eager for a rematch in yesterday's No. 1 singles final.In the end, Chiu not only claimed his first singles title with a 6-3, 6-2 victory but also erased the memory of his first defeat in high school competition.

PARIS -- Her game is fragile, and so is her psyche, bad ingredients in a sport with little patience for shortcomings, particularly those of a prodigy who spurned it.Falling from the tennis pedestal happened much more easily than climbing back. First time around, she could do no wrong; second time around, she is worried she can do no right.Jennifer Capriati, who charmed the French Open as a bubbly 14-year-old phenomenon in 1990, is an adult now, but she is making her comeback in baby steps.

WASHINGTON -- Things seemed to be all too easy for Stefan Edberg going into the quarterfinals of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.The tournament's second seed and defending champ had not been challenged in his two previous matches in any sense. He had surrendered a total of seven games and had faced just four break points (he saved all).To reach the semifinals, all he had to do was get past a third unseeded player -- Italy's Cristiano Caratti -- and survive a rain delay.And Edberg did just, persevering through a nearly four-hour delay and early subpar play to down Caratti, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7-1)

WASHINGTON -- Things seemed to be all too easy for Stefan Edberg going into the quarterfinals of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.The tournament's second seed and defending champ had not been challenged in his two previous matches in any sense. He had surrendered a total of seven games and had faced just four break points (he saved all).To reach the semifinals, all he had to do was get past a third unseeded player -- Italy's Cristiano Caratti -- and survive a rain delay.And Edberg did just, persevering through a nearly four-hour delay and early sub-par play to down Caratti, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7-1)

MELBOURNE, Australia -- A distinctly unsummerlike wind roared in from the South Pole yesterday, and any third-round Australian Open contender who failed to adjust wound up being blown out of the running.And one, the often undiplomatic Thomas Muster, departed with more resentment than the rest.The 14th-seeded Muster was the only loser sore enough to blame his opponent for Mother Nature's rude intrusion into their match.According to Muster, who was upset, 6-3, 6-2, 2-6, 7-5, by the 24th-ranked Jacco Eltingh, the amiable Dutchman took advantage of the adverse weather conditions to turn their match into a circus.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- It was the sun worshipers who fared best yesterday at the Australian Open, where the courtside temperature crawled toward 100 degrees and putting up a cool and composed front became almost as important as holding serve.The tactic worked well for a pair of unseeded American veterans, Aaron Krickstein and Patrick McEnroe, whose stoicism helped them advance to the third round and, in Krickstein's case, led to a significant upset.The 45th-ranked Krickstein admitted he was only pretending to be unaffected by the heat, a professional bluff that eventually tricked 11th-seeded Wayne Ferreira into a 6-3, 6-7 (8-10)

WASHINGTON -- The Arantxa Sanchez Vicario express made a stop here last night without being derailed.The third-ranked player in the world used powerful ground strokes and some untimely unforced errors from Mary Joe Fernandez to win, 6-2, 6-4, on the second night of the Elizabeth Arden Women's Tennis Association Challenge at the William H. G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.In the second match, No. 12 Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere of Switzerland rallied from a set down and beat No. 23 Lori McNeil of Houston, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.The four players were half of eight top-ranked players in the world who took part in the team competition.

Someone was missing from yesterday's volleyball match between No. 5 Broadneck and Glen Burnie -- Gophers star Heather Hutson. With its primary setter sitting on the bench because of an intestinal virus, host Broadneck cruised past the Gophers, 15-3, 15-3, 15-2.Glen Burnie (5-4, 5-3) seemed to lack a passing game and rhythm without its honorable mention all-metro selection."We missed her leadership on the court," Glen Burnie coach Juanita Milani said. "She will run anything down and set it. We just didn't get the ball up to the setters.