Sports in Brief: Netherlands routs Italy, 3-0, in soccer

The Netherlands handed Italy its worst loss ever in the European Championships, a 3-0 rout in Bern, Switzerland, that left the World Cup soccer champions in danger of elimination in the first round.

Ruud van Nistelrooy

and

Wesley Sneijder

scored in the first half, and standout defender

Giovanni van Bronckhorst

added the third goal on a counterattack in the 79th minute.

Romania tied injury-depleted France, 0-0, in Zurich. The French were without captain

Patrick Vieira

and leading scorer

Thierry Henry

.

Trainer

Rick Dutrow Jr.

says he feels "like a loser" after

Big Brown's

stunning last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes, and he was still searching for answers about what went wrong.

"I feel like a loser right now and I don't know why," Dutrow told the Daily Racing Form. "Usually when I get beat I can handle it the right way, and I've handled this the right way, but I just feel like something's not right."

Dutrow said he's been unable to find anything physically wrong with Big Brown. He said the quarter crack on the colt's left front hoof was fine.

The Montreal Canadiens signed forward

Maxim Lapierre

to a two-year, $1.375 million contract. The 23-year-old had 18 points in 53 games last season for Montreal. He'll make $575,000 the first year and $800,000 in 2009-10.

Northwestern named

Joe McKeown

head women's basketball coach. The Father Judge High graduate had spent 19 seasons at George Washington.

University of Oregon wrestlers have gone to court to prevent the school from dropping the sport to make room for a baseball team.

The suit filed Friday in Marion County Circuit Court in Salem contends the plan to eliminate wrestling would violate state law and the Oregon Constitution.

Elsewhere:

Cal State-Fullerton coach

Bob Burton,

who led the Titans to a Big West Conference men's basketball title and their first trip to the NCAA tournament in 30 years, signed a five-year contract extension. . . .

Morakinyo Williams,

a 6-foot-11 center who was one of Kentucky's top recruits a year ago, is transferring to Duquesne. . . . Brown University promoted assistant coach

Jesse Agel

to replace

Craig Robinson,

the brother-in-law of

Barack Obama

who left to take the basketball coaching job at Oregon State.

Banned sprinter

Justin Gatlin

has filed a lawsuit in a last-ditch effort to compete at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in less than three weeks. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in his hometown of Pensacola, Fla. It alleges that penalizing Gatlin for a 2001 doping violation that involved medication for attention deficit disorder is a violation of the Americans With Disability Act.

A judge in Santa Ana, Calif., dismissed the case against a man accused of slipping a date-rape drug into the drink of former Olympic ice dancer

Oksana "Pasha" Grishuk.

Investigators in the Orange County District Attorney's Office concluded that they could not prove the case against

James R. Halstead

beyond a reasonable doubt, a spokeswoman said.

The PGA Tour announced that the AT&T Classic will not return to Atlanta in 2009. The tournament, formerly known as the BellSouth Classic, lost AT&T as its title sponsor in December.

Michelle Wie

qualifed for the U.S. Women's Open.

Wie carded a round of 70 at Woodmont Country Club and 67 at the Manor, both in Rockville, Md. The 137 total was the second-best score of the day and more than enough to qualify for the Open, which will be played June 26-29 at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn.

Four-time champion

Lleyton Hewitt

advanced to the second round of the Artois Championships at Queen's Club in London, beating British wild-card entrant

Joshua Goodall

, 6-4, 6-4, at the Wimbledon grass-court tune-up.

Robby Ginepri

beat

Vincent Spadea

, 6-4, 7-6 (4), in an all-American match.

Former UCLA softball coach

Sue Enquist

and Olympic gymnast

Shannon Miller

are the newest members of the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame

at the Billie Jean King Women's Sports Center in Eisenhower Park, N.Y.