BASEBALL
Mason Amergian had a grand slam, an RBI double and earned the pitching win as Gray-New Gloucester/Raymond beat Canton, Massachusetts, 7-1 on Monday in Bristol, Connecticut, to advance to the championship game of the Little League Baseball New England Region tournament.
Gray-New Gloucester/Raymond will play for a spot in the Little League World Series at 7 p.m. Thursday against the winner of Wednesday’s game between New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Amergian pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowing one run on five hits, striking out six and walking three.
HOCKEY
NHL: Defenseman Matt Dumba signed a one-year, $3.9 million deal with the Coyotes.
Dumba played 10 seasons with Minnesota after the Wild selected him with the seventh overall pick in the 2012 NHL draft. He served as an alternate captain for the Wild the past two seasons, playing more of a shutdown role after being one of the NHL’s better two-way defensemen.
BASKETBALL
WNBA: A day after multiple players were ejected in a pair of games, the WNBA handed out the punishment.
Ruthy Hebard received the only suspension from the league as she will have to sit out one game for leaving the bench area during an on-court altercation in the Chicago Sky’s win over the Dallas Wings on Sunday.
Hebard left the bench when teammate Dana Evans and Dallas’ Odyssey Sims got involved in a dust-up on the court in the third quarter. She’ll miss the team’s game on Tuesday against Minnesota. Hebard had two points and three rebounds in seven minutes.
Wings’ guard Arike Ogunbowale was ejected from the game with 52 seconds left after making unnecessary contact with an official. She was fined for that as well for making inappropriate comments toward the official and publicly criticizing officiating after the loss.
Chicago’s Courtney Williams was fined for leaving the bench area during the altercation as well.
The WNBA also handed out fines in the Washington-Los Angeles game from Sunday. Layshia Clarendon and Brittney Sykes were penalized for making unnecessary contact with each other and escalating the situation that occurred in the game with 33 seconds left. Both players were ejected.
Ariel Atkins and Shakira Austin, who both are injured and didn’t play in the contest, were fined for leaving the bench area during the altercation.
The WNBA doesn’t disclose the amount of fines.
GOLF
PGA: The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is cutting its field nearly in half and eliminating one of the three courses, part of the price to become a signature event with a $20 million purse in a revamped 2024 schedule the PGA Tour released.
Pebble Beach replaces the Phoenix Open as a signature event, which was expected. What it gave up was the 156-man field, each with a prominent amateur, playing Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula over 54 holes before a cut to the final round.
Next year Pebble Beach will have 80 players and 80 amateurs competing for 36 holes at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, with only the pros advancing to the weekend at Pebble Beach.
The signature events, with fields between 70 and 80 players, will not have a 36-hole cut except for the three player-hosted invitationals — the Genesis Invitational at Riviera (Tiger Woods), the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill and the Memorial (Jack Nicklaus).
COLLEGES
FOOTBALL: Liberty University said that freshman football player Tajh Boyd, 19, has died.
The school identified Boyd as an offensive lineman from Chesapeake, Virginia. It did not indicate when Boyd died or the cause, and calls and a text message were not returned. A spokesperson for Lynchburg police said the department did look into Boyd’s death and determined a criminal investigation was unnecessary.
In the announcement, AD Ian McCaw and first-year football coach Jamey Caldwell said Boyd joined the football program “as recently as January” and added “Our thoughts and prayers are with Tajh’s family, his teammates and friends, our football coaching staff, as well as our entire athletics department and the greater Liberty University community. We grieve together as a family and will seek guidance, comfort and understanding from the Lord during these difficult times.”
• Wake Forest receiver Donavon Greene has a knee injury that could keep him out for the season.
The school announced Greene would miss three to five months after suffering the injury on the first day of preseason camp. Greene was expected to take a leading role among the receivers working with new starting quarterback Mitch Griffis.
• Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham has dismissed linebacker Juwan Mitchell from the team.
The school did not disclose the reason for Mitchell’s dismissal.
Mitchell was expected to be a starter at Arizona State after transferring from Tennessee. The sixth-year linebacker played 12 games over two seasons with the Vols after two seasons at Texas, where he was the team’s leading tackler in 2020.
TENNIS
PRAGUE OPEN: Nao Hibino cruised past fourth-seeded Linda Nosková 6-4, 6-1 to win the rain-hit tourney.
The 28-year-old Hibino broke Nosková twice in the final set to jump to a 4-1 lead before the match was interrupted by rain when she was 30-0 up in the sixth game.
After the final resumed, Nosková double-faulted on Hibino’s first match point.
In the opening set, Hibino came back from 3-0 down.
It’s Hibino’s third career title after Hiroshima (2019) and Tashkent (2015).
Earlier Monday, Hibino beat Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-3 after their semifinal was interrupted three times Sunday before it was suspended at 15-15 in the eighth game of the third set with Hibino leading 5-2.
Nosková, 18, eased past Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch 6-1, 6-1 on Sunday.
Rain washed out the entire Saturday schedule.
NATIONAL BANK OPEN:Venus Williams lost to fellow American Madison Keys at Montreal, falling 6-2, 7-5 in the opening round.
The 43-year-old Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, dropped to 2-4 in six career matches against the 28-year-old Keys.
• Canada’s Milos Raonic beat American Frances Tiafoe 6-7 (12), 7-6 (4), 6-3 in an epic first-round match at Toronto.
The ninth-seeded Tiafoe outlasted the Canadian in a 20-minute tiebreaker in the first set.
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