There's no danger of Sherri Steinhauer feeling overconfident with a two-stroke lead over Lorie Kane heading into Sunday's final round of the areaWEB.COM Challenge.

After all, that's the same situation she was in three weeks ago at the Big Apple Classic, and that wasn't settled until Steinhauer beat Kane in a five-hole playoff.

And this time, there's also a third person in the mix -- Hall of Famer Beth Daniel.

"Beth is a great player," said Steinhauer, who was in high school when Daniel was named the LPGA rookie of the year in 1979. "I definitely was in awe of Beth Daniel."

Steinhauer birdied the final two holes for a 3-under-par 69 today to improve to 11-under on the par-72, 6,334-yard Pleasant Valley Country Club course. The winner gets $120,000 of the $800,000 purse.

Kane shot a 1-under 71 on the day to finish the third round two strokes back at 9-under. Daniel followed a bogey on No. 10 with an eagle on the 11th hole, then birdied No. 18 to finish at 69 and 8-under, three strokes back.

Mardi Lunn birdied the first hole, then parred the next 17 and also was three strokes behind Steinhauer.

Because of thunderstorms forecast for Sunday afternoon, the pairings have been changed to threesomes and the players will tee off of Nos. 1 and 10 in the morning in an attempt to beat the rain. That means Steinhauer and Kane, who played all 77 holes of the Big Apple Classic together, will play with Daniel as well.

Lunn will pair with Jane Crafter and Jan Stephenson, who were four strokes back, along with Dottie Pepper. Four more were five strokes back.

Denise Killeen made five consecutive birdies on the back nine and was 7-under after 16 holes, but she also had four bogeys on the day to finish at 6-under.

Despite shuffling sponsors and dates almost annually, Pleasant Valley had been a stop on the men's tour every year from 1968 until last year, when the club hosted the last CVS Charity Classic.

But with the tournament repeatedly getting bad dates on the tour schedule, more and more players were choosing to skip it to rest up for, or from the majors. And sponsors were leery of committing big purses to no-name fields.

The course is not new to the LPGA, though. The tour played here several times from the 1962 Lady Carling Open to the LPGA Championship in 1974.

Daniel has 32 career victories, but none since 1995. That one was also in the Boston area -- the 1995 Ping-Welch's Championship at the Blue Hills Country Club in Canton, Mass.

"I still feel I can win," said Daniel, who had rotator cuff surgery in 1997 and didn't feel normal until late last year. "When I don't feel that way, I'll hang up my spikes."

Kane's runnerup finish in the Big Apple Classic was her third second-place finish this year. Since joining the tour in 1996, she has had eight second-place finishes and is still looking for her first victory.

She came pretty close last time, and she thinks she might be in position this time to finish the job. While she considered it important to be playing in the leaders' group, she doesn't mind having to play catch-up.

"It's always easier to be the chaser than to be the one being chased," she said.

AP