Newfoundland scored three goals in the third period, the last coming with 42 seconds left in regulation, and rallied to a 4-3 win over the Maine Mariners in an ECHL game Friday at Cross Insurance Arena.
Maine overcame a 1-0 deficit with three second-period goals by Conner Bleackley, Tyler Hinam and Brendan Soucie before the Growlers rallied.
Zach O’Brien scored at 11:03 before Noel Hoefenmayer power-play goal tied the game with 1:28 left. O’Brien netted the winner less than a minute later.
Callum Booth had 29 saves in goal for Maine. Evan Cormier made 36 stops for the Growlers.
BASKETBALL
WNBA: Sue Bird officially re-signed with the Seattle Storm, her only WNBA team, in what is expected to be her final season.
Bird, the oldest player in the WNBA at 41, previously announced she would return for one more season. She waited until Seattle finished its offseason maneuvers – including bringing back Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart – before signing her deal.
The four-time WNBA champion and 12-time All-Star selection was the No. 1 pick of the 2002 WNBA draft by Seattle. The 2022 season will be Bird’s 21st overall with the franchise, but she missed the 2014 and 2019 seasons due to injury.
GOLF
PGA: Joaquin Niemann shot a second straight 63 to shatter the 36-hole record in the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles.
Niemann was at 16-under 126, which broke the previous record set about 20 minutes earlier by Cameron Young, a 24-year-old PGA Tour rookie who birdied his last four holes for a 62. Young was at 128, at least giving Niemann some company atop the leaderboard.
CHAMPIONS TOUR: Three-time champion Bernhard Langer shot his age Friday to take the first-round lead in the Chubb Classic in Naples, Florida.
Langer, the 64-year-old German star who has six Charles Schwab Cup season titles and 42 victories on the 50-and-over tour, had five straight birdies on the back nine in a bogey-free 8-under 64. He has bettered his age once and matched it one other time on the tour.
The two-time Masters champion won the event – in its 35th season, the longest-running PGA Tour Champions tournament in the same city – in 2011, 2013 and 2016. Robert Karlsson and Tim Petrovic were two strokes back, and Retief Goosen, Thongchai Jaidee and Paul Stankowski followed at 67.
FOOTBALL
NFL: Tom Clements is back for a second stint as Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach, a move that could reunite him with four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers.
Clements, 68, previously worked for the Packers from 2006-16 in roles that included quarterbacks coach (2006-11), offensive coordinator (2012-14) and associate head coach/offense (2015-16).
SOCCER
WORLD CUP QUALIFYING: Mexico will play its March 24 World Cup qualifier against the United States at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, where the Americans have 12 losses and four draws in qualifying.
The match will start at 10 p.m. the governing body of North and Central America and Caribbean soccer said Friday.
The United States hosts Panama three days later at Orlando, Florida, and finishes qualifying against Costa Rica at San Jose, Costa Rica, on March 30.
All four matches on the final night will have simultaneous kickoffs at 9:05 p.m., CONCACAF said. Honduras is at Jamaica, El Salvador at Mexico and Canada at Panama.
ALGARVE CUP: The Danish women’s national soccer team has pulled out of the Algarve Cup in Portugal because of an outbreak of COVID-19 in its squad.
The team’s game against Sweden scheduled for Friday was canceled.
The Danish soccer federation said three members of its team, including Coach Lars Søndergaard, tested positive for the coronavirus.
TRACK AND FIELD
DOPING: In one of Britain’s biggest Olympic doping scandals, the 4×100-meter relay team was stripped of its silver medal from Tokyo after C.J. Ujah’s doping violation was confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Ujah was part of the quartet alongside Zharnel Hughes, Richard Kilty and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake that finished second to Italy in a close race by 0.01 seconds in August. But a sample taken from Ujah after the race in the Japanese capital was found to contain the prohibited substances ostarine and S-23, which are muscle-building selective androgen receptor modulators.
Canada will be upgraded to silver with China taking bronze.
• Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare received a 10-year ban for being part of an “organized doping regimen” ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, the Athletics Integrity Unit said.
The former world championships silver medalist was initially suspended in July just before she was due to run in the semifinals of the 100 meters at the Olympics.
Okagbare tested positive for blood booster EPO in Nigeria in June, in addition to another failed test for human growth hormone in Slovakia in July. A ban of five years was imposed by the AIU for the presence and use of multiple prohibited substances and the suspension was doubled for her refusal to cooperate with the investigation.
AUTO RACING
FORMULA ONE: Formula One announced a new five-year contract with the Circuit of the Americas to keep the United States Grand Prix at the Texas track through 2026.
The 2022 U.S. Grand Prix is scheduled for Oct. 23 and has been on F1’s official calendar without a formal contract. The track’s original 10-year deal expired with the 2021 race, which drew more than 300,000 fans.
• Lewis Hamilton urged social media companies to do more to stop the spread of online abuse after fellow Formula One driver Nicholas Latifi received death threats following the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Latifi crashed his Williams car with a few laps left and with Hamilton coasting toward an eighth F1 title. The incident led to a safety car, and Max Verstappen overtook the seven-time F1 champion Hamilton on the last lap to win the world title amid huge controversy.
Although blameless, Latifi was hounded online as outrage grew at how Hamilton’s title was so suddenly lost.
TENNIS
COVID-19: Australian tennis player Alex de Minaur has denied wrongdoing after being linked to a Spanish police investigation of people suspected of paying for false COVID-19 vaccination certificates.
Spanish media reported that De Minaur is among 2,200 people that the National Police say are under investigation for having paid a criminal ring for forged certificates.
“I want to make it 100% clear that I received my second shot, that I have a completely valid, accurate and true vaccination record,” the 23-year-old De Minaur, whose mother is Spanish, wrote Thursday evening on Twitter. “Everyone around me, including my family, is fully vaccinated.”
He said he is not under investigation “in any way.”
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