Fotopoulos Sets NCAA Goal Record

Danielle Fotopoulos, a 22-year-old University of Florida forward, has broken the NCAA career goal-scoring record held jointly by her U.S. national team teammates, Mia Hamm and Tiffeny Milbrett.

Fotopoulos, from Camp Hill, Pa., scored a hat trick in the Gators’ 9-1 victory over Mississippi on Sunday, bringing her career total to 106 goals, three ahead of Hamm and Milbrett.

“I think I had so many emotions, I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I couldn’t remember how it [breaking the record] happened until halftime when everybody told me. I’m just glad the pressure is off and the team can move on.”

Fotopoulos, the top scorer in the nation in 1995, when she played for SMU, and in 1996, has 20 goals in 15 games this season. She sat out 1997 after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee.

Also a striker for the W-League’s Tampa Bay Extreme, she made her national team debut in 1996 and has scored four goals for the U.S.

She is one of 15 players nominated for the Missouri Athletic Club’s college-player-of-the-year award.

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Whatever power it is that Cal State Fullerton holds over UCLA, the rest of the nation’s college teams would like to have it.

The Titans defeated the reigning NCAA champions for the third time in a row, 2-1, at Fullerton on Sunday, breaking the Bruins’ nine-game winning streak and dropping them from No. 2 to No. 5 in the national rankings.