COLLEGES

UMaine to face FBS Liberty in football in 2019 season

The University of Maine announced it will play Liberty University in football during the 2019 season.

Maine will travel to Lynchburg, Virginia, to play the Flames on Oct. 19, 2019. That will give the Black Bears two games against Football Bowl Subdivision teams in the 2019 season. Liberty is moving to the FBS level next season to play in the Big South Conference. Maine previously announced a 2019 game at Georgia Southern.

The Black Bears have played Liberty once before, defeating the Flames 42-20 on Oct. 10, 1992, in Orono.

“It’s a talented program,” said Maine Coach Joe Harasymiak. “They seem very well coached on film. It’ll be a challenge.”

Liberty’s athletic director is Ian McCaw, who worked at Maine from 1986-92 in a variety of athletic administration positions.

BASKETBALL

WNBA: Sylvia Fowles had 17 points and broke her WNBA finals record by grabbing 20 rebounds to lead the Minnesota Lynx to their fourth championship in seven years with an 85-76 win over the Los Angeles Sparks in Game 5 at Minneapolis on Wednesday night.

Maya Moore had 18 points and 10 rebounds and hit a huge runner with 26 seconds to play, Lindsay Whalen had 17 points and eight assists and Seimone Augustus added 14 points, six assists and six boards to help the Lynx move into a tie with the Houston Comets for most titles in league history.

NBA G-LEAGUE: The league will use four referees for preseason and regular-season games through November and expand its playoffs from eight to 12 teams under changes announced Wednesdy.

The new playoff format will give berths to each of the six division winners, with the remaining spots filled by three wild-card teams in each conference.

The top two seeds in each conference will earn byes into the second round. The playoffs will begin with three single-elimination rounds before culminating with a best-of-three final.

Also, overtime periods will be reduced from three to two minutes, and the coach’s challenge has been revised to one per game.

GOLF

PGA: Justin Thomas was voted PGA Tour player of the year for his remarkable season of five victories, his first major championship and the FedEx Cup title.

Also on the ballot were Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama.

Xander Schauffele, whose two victories this season included the Tour Championship, was voted PGA Tour rookie of the year.

PREP SCHOOLS

FIELD HOCKEY: Lily Rennie scored the go-ahead goal off an assist from Ciara Logan early in the second half to send Berwick Academy to a 2-1 win over Dana Hall at Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Sydney Foster also scored for the Bulldogs (2-2-1).

GIRLS’ SOCCER: Caroline Starr and Aaliyad Farid each scored twice in leading Berwick Academy (7-1) to a 6-0 Eastern Independent League victory over Dana Hall (2-5) at South Berwick.

Rayne Zimmerman and Holly Cannon also scored.

AUTO RACING

INDYCAR: Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves will move to Team Penske’s sports car program next season, bringing his 20-year full-time IndyCar career to an end. He will still drive for Penske at the Indy 500.

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