Sports in Brief: New MLS team picks DeMerit

The Vancouver Whitecaps have made United States defender

Jay DeMerit

their first Major League Soccer signing. The Whitecaps will join MLS next season.

DeMerit's contract with English club Watford expired before the World Cup. The 30-year-old from Wisconsin started all four games for the U.S. team at the World Cup.

The Kansas City Wizards are changing their name and logo, just in time to move into their new stadium. The club has announced that the team's name has been changed to Sporting Kansas City.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Greg McElroy completed 12 of 13 passes for 159 yards and two touchdowns and No. 10 Alabama routed fledgling Georgia State, 63-7, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. It's the most points for the Crimson Tide (9-2) since a 66-3 win over Vanderbilt in 1979.

The game against a Football Championship Subdivision team competing in its first year of college football was predictably little more than a warm-up for next week's showdown with No. 2 Auburn.

Jake Locker scored on a 3-yard run in the first half, and Quinton Richardson returned an interception 28 yards for a touchdown with 6:22 left to help Washington keep its bowl hopes alive with an ugly 24-7 win over UCLA in Seattle.

TENNIS: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who have won 25 of tennis' last 30 Grand Slam titles between them, will meet in a pair of exhibition matches next month to benefit their charitable foundations.

The best-of-three-set hard-court matches will be played in each player's home country and televised on ESPN2. Federer's foundation will receive the proceeds from their Dec. 21 match in Zurich, while the Dec. 22 meeting in Madrid will benefit Nadal's organization.

GOLF: New Zealander Mark Brown made a late charge to top the first-round leader board at the Hong Kong Open, shooting an 8-under-par 62 to lead by 1 stroke over two-time runner-up Rory McIlroy.

Brown surged late at the Fanling course to overtake McIlroy, the early leader, who took advantage of benign morning conditions to shoot a 63. McIlroy was joined in second place by India's Jeev Milkha Singh, with Englishman Simon Dyson and Denmark's Soren Hansen in a tie for fourth.

The LPGA ShopRite Classic will be played the first weekend in June next year. Tournament executive director Tim Erensen announced Thursday that the $1.5 million event will be played at the Bay Course at Seaview in Galloway, N.J., June 3-5.

- Associated Press