HIGH SCHOOLS

Leah Landry, a forward from Lewiston High, won the fifth annual Becky Schaffer Award, given to Maine’s top high school senior in girls’ hockey.

Landry led Maine in scoring during the regular season with 26 goals and 21 assists. She also had four goals in the playoffs, including two in the Class A state championship game, which Lewiston won 3-0 over Scarborough on Feb. 19.

Becky Schaffer was a 2006 Yarmouth High graduate who played on her school’s club girls’ team while also playing on the boys’ varsity and junior varsity squads. She is regarded as one of many trailblazers who helped girls’ hockey become sanctioned by the Maine Principals’ Association in 2008.

Schaffer, a McGill University graduate and Peace Corps member, died in a hiking accident in 2011 at the age of 23 while on a teaching mission in Micronesia.

TRACK & FIELD

USA TRACK AND FIELD INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS: With a final-lap push, Lewiston native Isaiah Harris finished second in the men’s 800-meter run final on Sunday in Spokane, Washington.

With his runner-up finish, the 2015 Lewiston High School grad qualified for the World Athletics Indoor Championships, to be held March 11-13 in Belgrade, Serbia.

Harris finished the four-lap race in a season-best 1:46.30, one second back of winner Bryce Hoppel.

He was in fourth place heading into the final lap, then surged to second on the back stretch of the 200-meter track.

GOLF

PGA: Bryson DeChambeau withdrew from the Arnold Palmer Invitational, saying he did not want to risk further injury to his hand and hip because he wasn’t completely ready to defend his title at Bay Hill.

DeChambeau has not competed since pulling out after the first round of the Saudi International on Feb. 3. The previous week, he missed the cut at Torrey Pines.

DeChambeau said he would try to be ready for The Players Championship next week. He said he is able to hit golf balls in a simulator but it’s not “comfortable.”
“It’s just not ready yet,” he said.

He has been dealing with a bone bruise in his left hand. And he said he hurt his hip when he slipped and fell in Saudi Arabia.

RYDER CUP: Zach Johnson was on a ski vacation in Colorado in late January when what he figured was a routine video call turned into much more. On the call was the entire Ryder Cup committee asking him to be the next American captain.

“I had a pretty good ski day that day,” Johnson said with a broad smile. “I had some blue pants and a red top and I hit the white powder.”

The gold Ryder Cup trophy was on a table next to him at PGA of America headquarters as Johnson was introduced as the 30th U.S. captain. His job is to try to achieve what six previous captains could not – win the Ryder Cup away from home.

The expectations of the Americans winning on European soil for the first time since 1993 at The Belfry will be greater than ever. They are coming off the biggest blowout ever over Europe, a 19-9 margin at Whistling Straits.

Johnson wasn’t about to change anything.

The U.S. went from eight automatic qualifiers and four captain’s picks to six of each because of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that left an uncertain PGA Tour schedule and eventually led the matches to being postponed one year.

Johnson said it will stay the same for 2023 – six qualifiers, six picks – with the same points system in place. PGA Tour players can earn points only at the majors, The Players Championship and a World Golf Championships event this year. And then in the Ryder Cup year, there will be points for every tournament (except opposite-field events), with the four majors getting one-and-a-half more points (double for the winner).

BASEBALL

MAJORS: The New York Yankees have hired Hensley Meulens as assistant hitting coach after the crosstown Mets poached Eric Chavez from the same position last month.

Meulens played for the franchise from 1989-93 at the start of a seven-year major league career, then won three World Series titles over 10 seasons as a bench coach and hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants. His most recent big league job was as bench coach for the Mets in 2020.

The Yankees hired Chavez in November as one of two assistants to new hitting coach Dillon Lawson. A few weeks later, the Mets hired the 17-year big leaguer to be their primary hitting coach. The Yankees knew Chavez might take the promotion when they hired him.

SOCCER

PELE: Pele has been released from hospital after a urinary tract infection was treated.

The 81-year-old Pele was admitted on Feb. 13 to Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo to continue treatment for colon cancer, but days later doctors discovered an infection. The hospital reported the football great was released on Saturday.

“The patient is in stable clinical condition, already cured of his urinary tract infection, and will continue treatment for the colon tumor, identified in September 2021,” the hospital said.

PREMIER LEAGUE: American coach Jesse Marsch was hired by Leeds, with the club hoping a late-season change in manager can help to preserve its English Premier League status.

Marsch replaced Marcelo Bielsa, who was fired on Sunday following a dramatic downturn in results, and is back in work nearly three months after leaving German team Leipzig.

TENNIS

WTA: Top-seeded Elina Svitolina, a 27-year-old professional tennis player from Ukraine, says she will withdraw from the Monterrey Open rather than face a Russian opponent at the Mexican tournament unless tennis’ governing bodies follow the International Olympic Committee’s lead and insist that players from Russia and Belarus are only identified as “neutral athletes.”

Svitolina wrote on Twitter that she did not want to play her opening-round contest against Anastasia Potapova “nor any other match against Russian or Belarussian tennis players until” the WTA women’s tour, ATP men’s tour and International Tennis Federation “follow the recommendations of the IOC” and bar those countries’ competitors from using any national symbols, colors, flags or anthems.

RANKINGS: Daniil Medvedev officially moved up to No. 1 in the ATP rankings, overtaking Novak Djokovic to become the 27th man to hold the top spot since computerized rankings began in 1973.

Medvedev, a 26-year-old from Russia who won last year’s U.S. Open and was the runner-up at this year’s Australian Open, rose from No. 2.

Djokovic slid down one place after having participated in only one tournament in 2022 because he has not been vaccinated against COVID-19. He was deported from Australia and not allowed to try to defend his title at Melbourne Park because he is not inoculated – and has said he won’t get the shots, even if he needs them to be able to play elsewhere, such as the French Open or Wimbledon.

Medvedev is the first player other than Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Andy Murray to get to No. 1 since February 2004, when Andy Roddick was there.

Alexander Zverev remained at No. 3 after getting kicked out of the Mexico Open for a violent outburst directed at a chair umpire.

SKIING

RETIREMENT: Five-time Olympic medalist Kjetil Jansrud will end his ski racing career at home in Norway on Saturday.

The 36-year-old Jansrud wrote on Instagram that he will finish at the course where he got the first of his 23 World Cup wins.

Jansrud is retiring weeks after making an unexpected recovery from a knee injury to compete at the Beijing Olympics, where he was seeking a medal from a fourth straight Winter Games.

He took gold in super-G at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and also won two silvers and two bronzes between 2010 and 2018 – twice sharing a podium with friend and teammate Aksel Lund Svindal.

Jansrud also won a world championships title in downhill in 2019, and topped the World Cup downhill standings in the 2014-15 season. He earned three more crystal globe trophies as the season-long champion in super-G.

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