Irish to go bowling

Notre Dame accepted an invitation Sunday to play in the Insight Bowl in Phoenix against a Pac-10 team on Dec. 28.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Sun Belt Conference champion North Texas will face Southern Mississippi in the New Orleans Bowl on Dec. 14. Southern Miss accepted an invitation to the game after becoming bowl eligible with a win over Alabama-Birmingham on Saturday. North Texas had clinched its fourth consecutive Sun Belt title and its fourth trip to the New Orleans Bowl on Nov. 13.

BTENNIS

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia edged defending champion France 3-2 to claim its first Fed Cup title Sunday, with Anastasia Myskina and Vera Zvonareva beating Marion Bartoli and Emilie Loit 7-6 (5), 7-5 in the decisive doubles match.

Russia had lost its four previous Fed Cup finals.

The two-day final was tied 1-1 heading into Sunday, and Myskina beat Nathalie Dechy 6-3, 6-4 to put Russia ahead 2-1. But U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova wasted a chance to clinch the title, losing to 16-year-old Tatiana Golovin 6-4, 6-1.

BBOXING

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Marco Antonio Barrera won a majority decision over Erik Morales Saturday night to take the WBC 130-pound title in a wild slugfest.

After 12 rounds of almost nonstop action, Barrera was favored 115-113 on one card and 115-114 on a second. The third judge had it 114-114.

BSKIING

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta (AP) — Bode Miller became the first man to open a World Cup season with three victories in three disciplines, winning a super-giant slalom Sunday ahead of Hermann Maier.

Miller’s first career Super G win came one day after his first World Cup downhill victory. He also won the season-opening giant slalom in Soelden, Austria, and is just the fourth skier to win World Cup races in all five disciplines over his career (slalom and combined are the others).

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen won for the second time in three races at Aspen Mountain, beating Italy’s Manuela Moelgg by more than a second in a World Cup slalom on Sunday. American Kristina Koznick was third.

After winning the giant slalom on Friday and finishing second to Croatia’s Janica Kostelic in the first slalom race Saturday, Poutiainen overcame a couple of loose spots on her final run Sunday to win again.

BFIGURE SKATING

MOSCOW (AP) — World champions Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov easily won the ice dance Sunday, giving the home country its third victory in four events at the Cup of Russia.

On Saturday, Russians Evgeni Plushenko and Irina Slutskaya captured the singles titles, while the pairs event went to Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China.