UT volleyball team advances

The Texas women advanced to their fifth consecutive NCAA volleyball Final Four with a 25-19, 25-20, 25-11 victory over Creighton at Austin. The Longhorns will play Nebraska in the national semifinals at Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday. …

Russian teen Evgenia Medvedeva and Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu did not need their best skating to successfully defend their Grand Prix Final titles at Marseilles, France. Medvedeva, 17, stumbled on her first jump while Hanyu botched a quad salchow and failed to complete a triple lutz and yet still won a fourth consecutive title. Hanyu’s winning score of 293.90 put him way ahead of his established main rivals — two-time former champion Patrick Chan of Canada and two-time world champion Javier Fernandez of Spain. Both failed to finish in the top three. Instead, 17-year-old American Nathan Chen got the best free score to finish second overall in his first senior final with 282.85 points, doing just enough to beat 18-year-old Shoma Uno of Japan on 282.51. Medvedeva won with a score of 227.66, well ahead of Japan’s Satoko Miyahara (218.33). Anna Pogorilya made it two Russian women on the podium, rising up to third on 216.47. …

Tessa Worley won her second consecutive World Cup giant slalom after first-run leader Mikaela Shiffrin struggled in her second trip down the 2006 Turin Olympics course at Sestriere, Italy. Charging after placing third in the opening run, Worley captured her 10th career giant slalom win. Worley finished 0.15 seconds ahead of rising Italian skier Sofia Goggia. …

A hand injury could not stop Frenchman Alexis Pinturault from conquering the icy Face de Bellevarde course at Val d’Isere, France, as he won another World Cup giant slalom race to ramp up the pressure on rival Marcel Hirscher of Austria. Pinturault, 25, earned his 17th career World Cup win and eighth win in GS. Despite severely bruising his right hand in a training fall Thursday, Pinturault finished .33 seconds ahead of Hirscher.

From wire reports