By The Associated Press

Published: Monday, December 07, 2009
Updated: Monday, December 7, 2009 11:16 AM CST

Here's a look at weekend sports in brief around the country

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

No. 1 Alabama will play No. 2 Texas in the BCS national championship game, a second straight Southeastern Conference vs. Big 12 matchup to decide the title.

Texas (13-0) struggled to beat Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game Saturday night. That 13-12 victory left just a little doubt about whether the unbeaten Longhorns would indeed earn a trip to Pasadena, Calif., for the Jan. 7 title game.

But Texas moved into second-place in the Bowl Championship Series standings as expected and will play Alabama for the first time since the 1982 Cotton Bowl.

The Longhorns are 7-0-1 against the Crimson Tide.

Alabama (13-0) cruised into the national title game, winning the SEC championship with a 32-13 victory against defending national champion Florida.

The other BCS matchups: Oregon against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl; Iowa against Georgia Tech in the Orange; Florida against Cincinnati in the Sugar and TCU against Boise State in the Fiesta.

GOLF

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Jim Furyk ended more than two years without a victory Sunday when he holed key putts on the final two holes for a 5-under 67 and a one-shot victory in the Chevron World Challenge.

It was a fitting conclusion to a week dominated by talk of host Tiger Woods: A guy wearing red shirts and dark pants came through with the clutch putts with the tournament on the line.

Woods, the tournament host, wasn’t around to present the trophy to one of his favorite players on the PGA Tour. He withdrew because of injuries from his Nov. 27 car crash, although he was part of every conversation because of the worldwide publicity over allegations of extramarital affairs.

Over the final few hours, attention shifted to a golf tournament in which six players had a share of the lead at some point Sunday.

Furyk finished at 13-under 275 for a one-shot victory over Graeme McDowell, who replaced Woods in the 18-man field.

TENNIS

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain lifted the Davis Cup for the second straight year on Sunday after completing a 5-0 victory over the Czech Republic in the final.

Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer both won singles matches at the Palau Sant Jordi to complete the sweep as Spain won for the fourth time since 2000 while becoming the first nation since Sweden in 1998 to retain the title.

Spain had already clinched the best-of-five series when Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco won the doubles match on Saturday. The second-ranked Nadal followed up on Sunday by beating Jan Hajek 6-3, 6-4 and Ferrer beat Lukas Dlouhy 6-4, 6-2 on the indoor clay.

SOCCER

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Jessica McDonald scored in the third minute and North Carolina won its second straight NCAA championship on Sunday with a 1-0 win over Stanford in the Women’s College Cup final.

The Tar Heels (23-3-1) earned their 21st national title and their sixth NCAA crown since 1999. They recorded their 10th shutout in 11 games, holding the high-scoring Cardinal to nine shots.

Stanford (25-1) failed in its bid to join North Carolina as the only teams to finish a perfect season — no losses or ties — with a championship.

SKIING

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta (AP) — Lindsey Vonn’s bid for three World Cup wins in three days came up just short Sunday, when she was edged by Elisabeth Goergl of Austria in the super-G.

The two-time defending overall World Cup champion finished just 0.03 seconds behind Goergl’s winning time of 1 minute, 21.91 seconds, while Ingrid Jacquemod of France was third in 1:22.93.

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. (AP) — Switzerland’s Carlo Janka wrapped up quite a weekend by winning a giant slalom Sunday to become the first man in more than 2 1/2 years with three consecutive World Cup victories.

Janka finished two runs down the Birds of Prey course in a combined time of 2 minutes, 29.44 seconds, adding to his wins in a super combined event Friday and a downhill Saturday.

Benjamin Raich of Austria was next, 0.47 seconds behind, and Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway came in third, 0.93 back. Ted Ligety of Park City, Utah, finished fourth, while his U.S. teammate Bode Miller skied out on the first run.

BOBSLED

CESANA PARIOL, Italy (AP) — Steven Holcomb drove United States I to its second consecutive four-man bobsled World Cup victory on Sunday.

Holcomb, Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Curtis Tomasevicz won in a two-run combined time of 1 minute, 51.22 seconds on Sunday, leading both runs on the track used for the 2006 Turin Olympics.

Switzerland I with Ivo Rueegg, Roman Handschin, Cedric Grand and Patrick Bloechliger finished second, a whopping 0.41 seconds behind.

Canada I with Lyndon Rush, Chris Le Bihan, Dan Humphries and Lascelles Brown placed third, 0.45 back.

LUGE

ALTENBERG, Germany (AP) — World luge champion Erin Hamlin of the United States is going to the Olympics.

Hamlin, of Remsen, N.Y., finished fifth in a World Cup race in Germany on Sunday, officially locking up her second trip to the Olympics by meeting one of USA Luge’s selection criteria.

The rest of the U.S. team for the Vancouver Games will be unveiled Dec. 18.

Tatjana Huefner led Germany’s women to a sweep of the top four places in a World Cup luge race that extended their winning streak on the circuit to 93 races — although Hamlin won the world championship in February on her home track in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Huefner had the fastest runs in both heats Sunday to grab her 18th World Cup win with a two-run time was 1 minute, 47.555 seconds. Natalie Geisenberger, Anke Wischnewski and Corinna Martini followed for the Germans, while Hamlin’s time was 1:48.522.

Hamlin needed to finish fifth or better to clinch, and edged sixth-place finisher Nina Reithmeyer of Austria by only 0.062 seconds.