BRIEFLY.

Byline: Staff and Wire Reports

U.S defeats Cuba to claim gold in baseball qualifier

Michael Bourn homered twice and three teammates also hit homers to lead the United States to an 8-5 win over Cuba on Tuesday night in the gold-medal game of a qualifying tournament for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Havana.

The U.S. and Cuba already both qualified for the 2008 Games by reaching the championship contest.

Bobby Hill, Angels farmhand Brandon Wood and Jarrod Saltalamacchi also homered for the Americans, who finished the tournament with an 8-1 record. Cuba also finished 8-1.

Bourn, Wood and Mike Kinkade each had two RBIs for the winners, who took an early 4-1 lead but could not prevent the Cubans from tying the score 5-5 in the seventh.

The Americans scored two in the eighth to break the tie, and added a run in the ninth.

BASKETBALL: The WNBA fined Detroit Shock coach Bill Laimbeer for criticizing the officiating after his club's loss to the Sacramento Monarchs in Game 3 of the WNBA finals.

The league didn't announce the amount of the fine, but the WNBA's fines typically are a fraction of similar fines in the NBA.

GOLF: Michelle Wie will compete against men for the 10th time in her career when she tees it up at the European Masters in Crans-Sur-Sierre, Switzerland. The 16-year-old American will make her European Tour debut Thursday, playing with Nick Dougherty of England and Gonzalo Fernandez- Castano of Spain. Wie made the cut at an Asian Tour event in May.

John Daly withdrew from the Canadian Open in Ancaster, Ontario, five days after he pulled out of a tournament in Germany because of a gastrointestinal virus.

SOCCER: Former Juventus defender Gianluca Pessotto, who leapt from an office window in a June suicide attempt after the Turin-based club was charged with Italy's match-fixing scandal, was released from Turin's Molinette hospital.

TRACK: Mark Graham, a former Nebraska track star, died Monday in Afghanistan while serving with the Canadian military.

He was 33.

A Canadian soldier was killed when two NATO warplanes mistakenly fired on a platoon during an anti-Taliban operation in Kandahar province after ground troops requested air support, according to NATO.

VOLLEYBALL: UCLA senior Nana Meriwether, who helped the Bruins women's volleyballteam win the Hawaiian Airlines Classic this past weekend in Honolulu, has been named Sports Imports/American Volleyball Coaches Association National Player of the Week.

- Erik Boal