Cristie Kerr, Angela Stanford, Suzann Pettersen and Na Yeon Choi advance to Sybase semifinals

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No. 3 seed Cristie Kerr hasn't played more than 16 holes in any match so far this week.

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By 

Ton Canavan

Associated Press

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Angela Stanford seemingly isn't going to settle for second place in the Sybase Match Play Championship this year.

Stanford birdied four of the final five holes to beat Paula Creamer 2-up Saturday and set up an all-America semifinal with Cristie Kerr in the $1.5 million event at Hamilton Farm Golf Club.

Top-seeded Na Yeon Choi of South Korea will face Suzann Pettersen of Norway in the other semi Sunday morning with the winners going for the title later in the afternoon.

"I love this golf course, Stanford said. "I don't know what it is. I love the greens. I feel like I can really see the break on the greens."

Two down after 13 holes, Stanford, who lost in the final last year to Sun Young Yoo, rolled in 10-foot birdie putts at the 14th and 15th holes to even the match, then took the lead with an 8-footer at the 17th.

After Creamer missed a long birdie putt at the 18th, she conceded Stanford's 10-footer for the match.

"Today, I thought I've got to get back to Sunday because I didn't feel I played my match last year the way I wanted to," Stanford said. "I would like another chance."

Kerr, the No. 3 seed, is going to be a tough opponent. She has a history with Stanford, rallying to beat her twice in 2006, overcoming a four-stroke deficit in the final round in Tennessee and an eight-stroke margin in the Canadian Women's Open.

Stanford doesn't think she has competed against Kerr in match play, but she likes her chances.

"Today the match with Paula gives me a tremendous amount of confidence going into tomorrow," Stanford said. "You know, as much as I believe I can do that coming down the stretch, to see it."

Stanford didn't finish the sentence, but the thought was clear. She believes she can.

Kerr hasn't played more than 16 holes in any match this week and that trend continued in both matches Saturday, the last being a 3-and-2 quarterfinal win over Ai Miyazato of Japan.

Kerr was 3-up after sinking a 30-foot birdie at No. 9. Miyazato birdied the next two to get within a hole but missed a 3-footer at No. 12 that would have tied the match.

"She was on a roll and that kind of stopped her momentum and kind of lifted me up a little bit," said Kerr, the reigning LPGA champion.

Kerr hit her second stiff on No. 13 and had a tap-in birdie and made another long birdie at No. 15 before sinking a 5-footer for par at No. 6 to close out the match.

Pettersen holed an 8-foot birdie putt on her good-luck final hole to edge world No. 1 Yani Tseng of Taiwan. Tseng burned the cup on a birdie attempt from the same range seconds later to give Pettersen the 1-up victory.

In winning four matches this week, Pettersen nailed down her victories at the par-5 final hole.

"It's been good to me so far," said Pettersen, who played a couple of matches with Tseng, her good friend, last week.

"She didn't have a chance," quipped Pettersen, who is starting to feel healthy after battling a flu and fever on Thursday, a day she needed 18 holes to beat Natalie Gulbis.

Choi beat No. 42 Sophie Gustafson of Sweden 2-up in the other quarterfinal.

Choi admitted she was tired after spending 12 hours at the course Saturday and she knows that Pettersen will have an advantage in terms of distance Sunday.

"I am pretty excited to play her," said Choi, who lost in the first round last year. "I think it will be a great match."

The biggest upset of the day was recorded in the third round earlier Saturday when Gustafson beat Michelle Wie. The No. 42 seed sank a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to defeat the ninth-seeded Wie 1-up.

"I played horribly. I didn't hit the ball very well," said Wie, who lost in the quarterfinals last year. "I fought until the end, hit a good bunker shot, but she made a good putt and there is nothing I can do about that."

Wie wasn't the only American to lose at the final hole.

Pettersen made an 8-foot birdied minutes before to eliminate Stacy Lewis 1-up.

In other third-round matches: Kerr beat Kyeong Bae of South Korea 3 and 2; Creamer beat fellow American Brittany Lang 3 and 2; Stanford ousted Meena Lee of South Korea 5 and 4; Miyazato beat Inbee Park of South Korea 2 and 1; Choi defeated Alena Sharp of Canada 3 and 1; and Tseng beat Julieta Granada of Paraguay 5 and 3.

Saturday morning results:
(6) Ai Miyazato beat (11) Inbee Park, 2 & 1
(3) Cristie Kerr beat (47) Kyeong Bae, 3 & 2
(18) Angela Stanford beat (33) Meena Lee, 5 & 4
(10) Paula Creamer beat (35) Brittany Lang, 3 & 2
(1) Na Yeon Choi beat (50) Alena Sharp, 3 & 1
(5) Suzann Pettersen beat (21) Stacy Lewis, 1-up
(42) Sophie Gustafson beat (9) Michelle Wie, 1-up
(4) Yani Tseng beat (62) Julieta Granada, 5 & 3

Saturday afternoon results:
(3) Cristie Kerr beat (6) Ai Miyazato, 3 & 2
(18) Angela Stanford beat (10) Paula Creamer, 2-up
(1) Na Yeon Choi beat (42) Sophie Gustafson, 2-up
(5) Suzann Pettersen beat (4) Yani Tseng, 1-up

Madden Nation Arrives in Baltimore

Posted Aug 25, 2008

By Geoff Peckham



Gamers competed at M&T Bank Stadium during a recent taping of the popular ESPN reality show.


36-year-old Robert Hart played various positions in high school, ranging from quarterback to kicker. But the position that has gotten him the farthest in life is gamer.

Hart, otherwise known as 40Gs, was among the contestants for the popular cross-country reality game showMadden Nation, which filmed an episode in Baltimore earlier this month. The show recently finished filming its fourth season, but this was its first-ever stop at M&T Bank Stadium.

The show follows some of the best competitive Madden video game players in the nation as they travel to multiple NFL cities and stadiums over a two-and-a-half week span. The gamers compete against one another in the iconic video game, with the ultimate prize being $100,000. The Madden Nation tour bus had already made previous stops in other cities like Tampa and New Orleans, with the finale taking place in Times Square in Manhattan.

“The show has evolved quite a bit over the years,” said Executive Producer Brian Richardson. “In the beginning, the gamers had no idea what the show was, or what the experience would be like. We had to convince them to be on the show. Now, most of the top gamers come looking for us to try and get on the bus.”

“A lot of gamers fight tooth-and-nail to get on this show,” said producer Lee George, who travels with the contestants throughout the entire season. Contestants are ultimately chosen based on their statistics in regional competitions, although how well their personalities translate to television is often a secondary requirement.

George described how the competitors are broken into two teams, the AFC and NFC, who will compete in a “control game” at a neutral location in the city each episode is filmed. The ESPN Zone in the Inner Harbor served as the site for this particular episode’s control game. The winners of that game choose a competitor from each side to play each other in an elimination game, whereby the loser is eliminated from the competition. For this episode, the setting was the visiting team’s locker room at M&T Bank Stadium.

You don't realize how popular it is until you're out on the road,” Richardson said. “We'll be driving through Mississippi, and a truck filled with teenagers will pull up next to us on the bus and honk and scream out the windows. Whenever we've got the bus parked at a hotel or even a gas station, people come up and ask how they can get on the show. To the people who play the game, the show has become really well known.”

Each gamer represents a real NFL player, and wears their jersey throughout the season. For Hart, this proved to be particularly ironic, as the Redskins fan was assigned Dallas Cowboy linebacker DeMarcus Ware.

“The world knows me,” Hart, the veteran of the contestants said. He has been playing competitive Madden since 1989, only the second year of the game’s release. He has traveled throughout the nation playing the game and making a living off of it.

“You can always find someone who thinks they’re better [than you are],” Hart offered confidently, adding that as a new version of the game is released each year, more of the “professionals” will not be able to play it at the same level of the previous version.

Hart threw the ball around with his fellow competitors on the field at M&T Bank Stadium while the cameras rolled, even making a few field goals. Other competitors like ONE9, YoungNef, and RG ran elaborate routes, demonstrating knowledge of football that would certainly be needed to successfully play the video game counterpart.

The show’s host, called Curly Top, then arrived to greet the contestants. In true reality show form, he stated that as great as each contestant had played, only one would be the winner.

Hart said that win, lose or draw, the game may have run its course for him, and he may start devoting himself to other endeavors after the competition is over. Preparing for this show alone led to eight hours of practice a day.

Richardson recognizes the devotion. “Madden has just exploded in the last few years,” he said. “The sales of Madden '09 are just unbelievable, and it's not just that people play the game, they get passionate about it.”

“Hopefully, even people who aren't that familiar with it can watch the show and still enjoy the competition.”