BRIEFLY GALAXY TRADES VETERAN PENA.

Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services

Danny Pena, a midfielder for the Galaxy for the last five seasons, was traded to Tampa Bay for a conditional 2003 third-round pick.

``It was a difficult decision because he has been a valuable member,'' said Sigi Schmid, the team's coach and vice president of soccer operations.

The 33-year-old Pena made 103 appearances (97 starts) in five seasons with the Galaxy, registering five goals and nine assists for 19 points. He helped the Galaxy to a Western Conference title and its second MLS Cup final in 1999, playing and starting in all 12 of the Galaxy's playoff contests and recording four goals.

He appeared in only 10 matches this season after a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee forced him to miss nearly the entire second half of the 2000 season.

The Culver City native was picked by the Galaxy in the 1997 MLS supplemental draft.

HOCKEY: Left wing Mike Leclerc, who had 15 goals and 20 assists in 54 games for the Mighty Ducks last season, agreed to a two-year contract to stay.

--Olli Jokinen, a 22-year-old from Finland who had six goals, 10 assists and 106 penalty minutes in 78 games for Florida last season, re-signed with the team for one year. He originally was drafted by the Kings.

TRACK AND FIELD: Russia's Maksim Tarasov, the 1999 world pole vault champion, dislocated his left ankle while trying to clear 19 feet, 2 1/2 inches at the Herculis IAAF Golden League meet in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Doctors said he would not be able to defend his title at the world championships in Edmonton next month.

TENNIS: Former Davis Cup captain Tom Gullikson was fired as the U.S. Tennis Association's director of coaching.

--Top-seeded Gustavo Kuerten struggled into the semifinals of the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart, Germany, to join qualifier Marc Lopez, a Spanish teen-ager playing his first ATP tournament.

Kuerten defeated ninth-seeded Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador 6-4, 6-7 (8-6), 6-3 in the $800,000 clay-court event. Lopez upset countryman Alberto Martin 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. He will play 10th-seeded Guillermo Canas in the semifinals today after Canas ousted second-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.

--Defending champion Magnus Gustafsson of Sweden advanced to the semifinals of the $400,000 Energis Open in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, downing Alex Calatrava of Spain 6-3, 7-5.

--Top-seeded Kim Clijsters recovered after losing the second set to beat Magui Serna 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 and reach the semifinals of the $110,000 WTA Sanex Trophy in Belgium.

OLYMPICS: Federal prosecutors sought to shore up their fraud case after a judge in Salt Lake City tossed bribery and racketeering charges out of the Olympic corruption trial.

Even if their million-dollar scheme to influence IOC members wasn't bribery, the Salt Lake bid leaders who won the 2002 Winter Games were not authorized to spend money that way, and they kept their board of trustees from learning about the details, the government said.

``The defendants contrived through false representations, material omissions and various schemes'' to hide their activities, Justice Department attorney Richard Wiedis argued Friday in a brief.

His 34-page pleading asked U.S. District Court Judge David Sam to uphold the government's fraud charges and a conspiracy count.

The defendants have asked that those charges be dismissed, too, and Sam is the judge who on Monday gave the boot to bribery and racketeering.

Sam ruled Utah's commercial bribery law doesn't apply to a foreign organization like the IOC, so he knocked out the federal travel-in-aid- of-racketeering charges that depended entirely on the state bribery misdemeanor.

--Former Olympic skier Gladys ``Skeeter'' Werner Walker died of cancer. She was 67.

The widow of former Heisman Trophy winner and Pro Football Hall of Famer Doak Walker lived in Colorado Springs, Colo. She was first alternate on the 1952 U.S. Olympic team and finished 10th in the downhill in the 1956 Olympics.