Sports briefs 1/21/05

Baseball

* n Major league baseball's return to the nation's capital will be under the lights. The Washington Nationals said Thursday they will play their April 14 home opener against Arizona at 7:05 p.m. It will be the first regular-season game at RFK Stadium since the expansion Washington Senators left after the 1971 season and became the Texas Rangers.

Colleges

* Sophomore forward P.J. Tucker, the leading scorer and rebounder for No. 15 Texas, is academically ineligible and will miss the rest of the season, the school announced Thursday.

Tucker, averaging 13.7 points and 8.0 rebounds a game, will stay in school and be allowed to practice but is not eligible for competition.

Football

* The Chicago Bears hired Perry Fewell on Thursday to be their new defensive backfield coach.

Fewell spent the last two seasons as the secondary coach for the St. Louis Rams where he worked previously with Bears head coach Lovie Smith. Before his work with the Rams, Fewell spent five seasons as defensive backfield coach with Jacksonville.

Golf

* Tom Lehman was so locked into his game Thursday that he didn't realize until after his round he had birdied the last six holes for a 10-under 62 and a one-shot lead in the Buick Invitational.

One thing was clear: He must have been on the North course at Torrey Pines.

In a tournament that takes two days to figure out who's playing the best, Lehman matched his career-low round on the easier North course with a steady diet of fairways and greens. He birdied nine of his final 12 holes for a one-shot lead over Dean Wilson.

All but two of the top 17 scores came from the North course, which played nearly three strokes easier.

Aaron Baddeley (66) and Peter Lonard (67) had the best scores on the South course, which plays at 7,568 yards and will host the U.S. Open in 2008.

Among the top six players in the world at Torrey Pines, only Ernie Els(65) played the North course (6,873 yards).