BASKETBALL
Chris Clemons had 26 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists as the Maine Celtics bounced back one night after having their seven-game winning streak snapped with a 111-99 win over the Long Island Nets on Friday night at the Portland Expo.
Long Island beat Maine 97-95 in overtime on Thursday night, the Celtics first loss since Nov. 12.
Jaysean Paige led Maine with 29 points and six rebounds, while Juwan Morgan added 20 points and seven rebounds. Theo Pinson had 12 points and Asante Gist added 11.
Bryce Brown had 26 points and Josh Gray had 21 for Long Island.
HOCKEY
ECHL: The Maine Mariners scored twice in the second period to take the lead for the second time in the game but had to settle for a 3-3 tie with the Lions in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.
Patrick Shea scored 1:31 into the game to give Maine a 1-0 lead. Trois-RIvieres took the lead with two goals by Shawn St-Amant less than three minutes apart. The Mariners took the lead back in the second period with goals by Conner Bleackley and Mathew Santos, but the Lions tied it again when Jonathan Joannette scored with 2:41 left in the second.
Trois-Rivieres also beat Maine 4-2 on Wednesday night.
TENNIS
A rusty Rafael Nadal played his first match in more than four months on Friday, losing in straight sets to Andy Murray at an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion’s chronic foot injury forced him to sit out the final months of this season. Nadal has not competed since early August, when he lost to Lloyd Harris in Washington. He missed Wimbledon, the Tokyo Olympics and the U.S. Open.
LUGE
OLYMPICS: The International Luge Federation has changed some of the qualifying rules for the upcoming Beijing Olympics, largely because many teams and sliders have been forced to use borrowed equipment for the last several weeks.
Instead of using the results from seven World Cup races through Jan. 10 to determine how to allocate starting spots to various nations, the federation decided that it would now eliminate the three worst finishes for each slider and re-calculate accordingly.
It could be a major boost for some athletes who struggled in recent weeks while not having their regular equipment. Nearly three dozen boxes of equipment – including some sleds, which typically are finely honed to each slider’s individual liking – did not make it out of China following three weeks of training there this fall, forcing some athletes to compete in the next three World Cup events without their regular gear.
The rule changes also could benefit athletes who have missed races and couldn’t accrue points. U.S. Olympic veteran Emily Sweeney, a former Falmouth resident, had to miss two World Cup races in Russia; she is an active soldier in the U.S. Army but couldn’t go to the races at the 2014 Sochi Olympics venue because of current military rules prohibiting travel to Russia.
SOCCER
U.S. MEN: Forward Jordan Morris is likely to play his first U.S. national team match in more than two years when the Americans face Bosnia and Herzegovina in an exhibition on Saturday.
Morris, a 27-year-old Seattle Sounders forward, tore his left ACL on Feb. 20 while on loan from Seattle to Swansea, three years after tearing his right ACL. He returned to the field for the Sounders on Nov. 1 and appeared in three club games.
Defender Aaron Long probably won’t play. Long tore his right Achilles tendon while playing for the New York Red Bulls on May 15 and has not appeared in a game since.
GERMANY: Robert Lewandowski took another old record from Bayern Munich great Gerd Muller on Friday.
The Poland star scored his 43rd Bundesliga goal of the year to cap a 4-0 win for Bayern over Wolfsburg and eclipse the previous best mark for goals in a calendar year set by Muller in 1972.
ENGLAND: Premier League managers will meet on Monday to discuss the worsening COVID-19 situation, which has already wiped out half of this weekend games and sidelined star players.
Outbreaks at clubs underscore the worsening health emergency in Britain as the omicron variant spreads. Opinions were wide-ranging regarding what steps to take from here. Some managers advocate a break in play, citing fairness. Others say the games should continue.
FRANCE: Crowd violence forced a French Cup game between Lyon and Paris FC to be abandoned at halftime, with score tied a 1-1.
The start of the second half at Stade Charlety in Paris had been delayed for about 50 minutes when stadium authorities announced over the speakers that the game was abandoned.
At halftime, supporters threw flares, the field was invaded, and fights broke out in the stands.
SKIING
WORLD CUP: Former overall champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde kept up Norway’s success on the Saslong course by winning a men’s super-G in Selva di Val Gardena, Italy.
Austrian skiers Matthias Mayer and Vincent Kriechmayr finished second and third, respectively.
• Swiss skier Lara Gut-Behrami tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the next four World Cup races in France, her team said.
Gut-Behrami, a two-time world championship gold medalist, won a super-G last Saturday at St. Moritz, Switzerland, and is fourth in the overall standings behind Mikaela Shiffrin.
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