TRACK

Kate Hall captures NCAA long jump title

Kate Hall of Casco broke her own school record and edged University of Georgia teammate Keturah Orji to win the long jump at the NCAA Division I track and field championships Thursday night in Eugene, Oregon.

Hall, a redshirt freshman, jumped 22 feet, 1 inch, on her first attempt, and her lead held up through the rest of the competition. Orji, a two-time NCAA triple jump champion, was the only other athlete who came close to Hall’s mark, but her best jump was 22-1/4.

Hall’s jump was her second-best ever, behind only her national high school record of 22-5.

SKIING

BOWER DIES: John Bower, a two-time Olympic skier from Auburn who had two stints as Nordic director of the U.S. ski team, died Tuesday in Park City, Utah. He was 76.

Bower graduated from Edward Little High in 1959 and from Middlebury College in 1963. He was the NCAA Nordic combined champion in 1961 and won four U.S. championships. He also became the first American to win the King’s Cup at the Holmenkollen Ski Festival in Norway in 1968, and was inducted into the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame in 1969.

In the 1990s, Bower was the first director of the Utah Olympic Park and helped develop that venue for the 2002 Olympics.

HIGH SCHOOLS

AD CONFIRMED: Scott Walker, 43, was confirmed Wednesday by the MSAD 15 school board as the new athletic director for Gray-New Gloucester high school and middle school.

Walker, currently the athletic director and an assistant principal at Morse High in Bath, will replace Aaron Watson, who resigned in May after three years.

SOCCER

U.S. MEN: Christian Pulisic rescued the United States with a pair of second-half goals, and the Americans beat Trinidad and Tobago 2-0 at Commerce City, Colorado, to move into third place at the halfway point in the final round of World Cup qualifying.

Pulisic, an 18-year-old phenom from Hershey, Pennsylvania, ended a frustrating start for the U.S. offense with a goal in the 52nd minute, then added another in the 62nd. He has seven goals and five assists in 15 international appearances, including four goals and three assists in his last four contests.

UNDER-20 WORLD CUP: England and Venezuela both came from behind to advance to the final in South Korea. The English team got a pair of goals from Dominic Solanke in a 3-1 win over Italy in Jeonju. Venezuela goalkeeper Wuilker Farinez made the key save in a shootout to help his team beat Uruguay 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in Daejeon.

GOLF

PGA: Matt Every, Scott Brown, Stuart Cink and Sebastian Munoz each shot 6-under 64s to share the lead after one round at the St. Jude Classic at Memphis, Tennessee.

Charl Schwartzel and Matt Jones were each one stroke back at the final tuneup before the U.S. Open.

EUROPEAN: Chilean golfer Felipe Aguilar shot a 7-under 65 to build a two-stroke lead over a group of three on a sunny opening day of the Lyoness Open at Atzenbrugg, Austria.

BASKETBALL

D-LEAGUE: The Milwaukee Bucks announced that their new D-League team in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, will be known as the Wisconsin Herd. An arena is being built for the team, which starts play in November.