BLACKTOWN, Australia (AP) _ The Southern Hemisphere hex has been broken.

A day after a ceremony in the athletes' village to cleanse itself of a "voodoo curse," the American softball team snapped a three-game losing streak on Friday (Thursday night EDT) with a 2-0 victory over New Zealand.

"It just got all the bad stuff off," said Lisa Fernandez, who snapped her 0-for-the-Olympics slump with a single. "The voodoo's gone. We're ready to rock and roll."

Jennifer Brundage was 3-for-3 with a homer and Lori Harrigan pitched a one-hitter for 5 1-3 innings as the defending Olympic champions moved just one victory from the medal round.

Harrigan, who pitched a no-hitter in the tournament opener, struck out eight before she was lifted with one out in the sixth. Christa Williams got the last five outs for the save.

More importantly, the Americans scored their first runs in regulation after three games without one.

"It was a big sigh of relief to get that first run in the first seven innings," Brundage said.

Their 112-game winning streak a receding memory and their gold-medal hopes in danger, the players gathered at their house in the athletes' village on Thursday night.

Rather than letting the Down Under losing streak get them down, they piled into Harrigan's shower in their white uniforms _ the same ones they wore again Friday _ and cleansed themselves of what outfielder Christie Ambrosi first dubbed a "voodoo curse."

They brought along the uniforms for those who couldn't be there and soaped them up, too. They jumped up and down, chanting "Voodoo Gone!"

And as the water washed down the drain, so did the losing streak.

"We're just Down Under, and things are a little opposite," said Dot Richardson, who made two errors in the loss to Japan that was the first in two years. "We needed to start thinking a little differently."

The Americans (3-3) would advance to the medal round with a victory over Italy on Saturday. Once there, they would need to win three consecutive games to repeat as gold medalists.

"Everybody talked about how many games in a row we won," Richardson said. "We would take a five-game winning streak right now over any 112-game winning streak."

The U.S. hitters, who came into the game batting just .181, managed six hits off Kiwi workhorse Gina Weber, who has pitched in five of her team's six games.

Brundage homered to lead off the second inning, then scored on Richardson's groundout with the bases loaded in the fourth.

"We knew that they desperately wanted to win this game. They wouldn't have made the playoffs, and that would be the first time," said Weber, whose team was eliminated with the loss.

"I thought they would come back stronger. And they did."

The Americans also held a more serious meeting in which they threw a softball around the room. The person who caught the ball would say something positive about her performance at the games.

This victory probably had more to do with the competition.

New Zealand (2-4) was tied with the United States entering the game but is now firmly entrenched in the bottom tier in the eight-team tournament. None of the bottom four teams has beaten any of the top four.

(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)