Sports briefs for May 26, 2005

Thursday, May 26, 2005 | 10:36 a.m.

Rebels open MWC against Utah

UNLV was scheduled to play Utah in the second round of the Mountain West Conference baseball tournament at 2 p.m. today.

The No. 5 seed Utes upset No. 4 New Mexico 2-0 Wednesday to earn the right to play the top-seeded Rebels.

In the other semifinal game No. 2 seed BYU will play third-seeded San Diego State, which beat No. 6 seed Air Force 21-6 in the first game of the tournament Wednesday.

UNLV (30-26 overall, 23-7 MWC) wrapped up its regular season with a three-game sweep of Utah (19-32, 10-20) last weekend and overall it took five of the six meetings between the teams this year.

Tennessee right-hander Luke Hochevar, Ryan Braun of Miami and Arizona outfielder Trevor Crowe also were picked as finalists.

UNLV opener moved to Labor Day morning

UNLV's 2005 opener has been shifted to Monday, Sept. 5, to accommodate a Labor Day morning national telecast on ESPN2. The game at Albuquerque will start at 10 a.m. Las Vegas time.

Although this will be UNLV's first Monday football game, the Rebels are not strangers to non-traditional scheduling. In the program's 37-year history there have been eight Thursday games, seven Friday games and one Sunday game with the Rebels compiling a 10-5-1 record in those outings.

Nehles advances

UNLV senior Henner Nehles extended his personal winning streak to 11 matches as he cruised to victory in Wednesday's first round of the NCAA singles championship tournament at College Station, Texas.

Fighting through sticky weather conditions, the 74th-ranked Nehles swept No. 39 Scott Brown (17-7) of Vanderbilt 6-2, 6-4.

Brown was the highest-ranked opponent Nehles defeated since stunning then-No. 8 Michael Kogan of Tulane on Feb. 7, 2004.

Nehles was scheduled to play today in the second round against Franticek Babej of South Alabama.

Negotiators talking

Small groups of negotiators from the NHL and the players' association met for 6 1/2 hours Wednesday, just days after reporting progress in full bargaining sessions. Both sides declined comment after the meeting, as talks are ongoing this week. This latest set of discussions were to resume this morning, again without commissioner Gary Bettman and union executive director Bob Goodenow.

Man U says sell

Remaining stockholders in Manchester United were told today by the club's board take the offer of $5.55 per share and sell out to new owner Malcolm Glazer, who has increased his share of ownership in the world's richest soccer club to 76.2 percent. -- Sun wire services