BASEBALL

Brendan Tinsman, a catcher from Cape Elizabeth, earned his first professional baseball promotion on Thursday when he was assigned to the Los Angeles Angels’ high-Class A team, the Tri-City Dust Devils in Pasco, Washington, which plays in the Northwest League.

Tinsman was a 20th-round pick in the 2022 Major League Baseball draft. He was first assigned to the Arizona Complex League Angels, which recently completed its season. Tinsman appeared in six games, batting .250 (5 for 20) with one double. Defensively, he handled 40 chances without an error and threw out one of two players attempting to steal.

The 2018 Maine Sunday Telegram high school player of the year, Tinsman played in college at Wake Forest. This past season, as a redshirt junior, Tinsman hit .355 tied the school record with 24 home runs.

EASTERN LEAGUE: The Portland Sea Dogs were rained out Friday night against the Hartford Yard Goats and will play a doubleheader Saturday at Hadlock Field, starting at 4 p.m.

The Sea Dogs had a half-game lead over the Somerset Patriots in the Northeast Division second-half standings going into Friday’s games.

BASKETBALL

WNBA: Becky Hammon was named Coach of the Year after she led the Las Vegas Aces to the top of the league in her first year.

Hammon guided the Aces to a 26-10 record and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. The Aces host the Seattle Storm in Game 1 of the best-of-five semifinals on Sunday.

Hammon received 27 votes from a national panel of 56 media members. Tanisha Wright of the Atlanta Dream was second (18 votes) and James Wade of the Chicago Sky was third (8).

The Aces averaged a WNBA-high 90.4 points, the third-highest scoring average in league history, and dramatically improved their 3-point shooting. Las Vegas made a league-record 23 3s last week in a playoff win over Phoenix.

Hammon played 16 seasons in the WNBA, eight with the New York Liberty and eight with the San Antonio Silver Stars. She then spent eight seasons as an assistant coach with the San Antonio Spurs, who hired her in 2014 as the first full-time female assistant in league history.

GOLF

LPGA: Narin An shot a 6-under 65 to top the leaderboard Friday in the suspended second round of the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open in Ottawa, Ontario.

An had her second straight bogey-free round at Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club after opening with a 64 on Thursday. An LPGA Tour rookie after winning twice in South Korea, the 26-year-old An had a 13-under 129 total.

Minutes before darkness forced the suspension of play in a round delayed for two hours in the morning because of heavy rain and lightning, Nelly Korda closed with a birdie on the par-5 ninth for a 63, moving into a tie for second at 11 under.

CHAMPIONS TOUR: Fred Funk bettered his age by a stroke with a 7-under 65 for the first-round lead in the The Ally Challenge in Grand Blanc, Michigan.

Funk closed his bogey-free round with a birdie on the par-4 ninth at Warwick Hills.

“It’s the first time I shot my age or broke my age in competition, so that was really cool,” Funk said.

Funk’s last individual victory on the senior tour was in 2012.

Woody Austin, the 1995 Buick Open winner, was a stroke back at 66, along with Brett Quigley and Stephen Ames. Scott Parel followed at 67.

EUROPEAN TOUR: Thriston Lawrence and Alejandro Cañizares stayed in a share of the lead at 13 under on a weather-affected day at the European Masters in Lausanne, Switzerland, where neither could complete their second round.

Lawrence and Cañizares were both 5 under for the day after 14 and 13 holes, respectively, when play ended around 8 p.m. in darkness in the Swiss Alps.

Back-to-back rounds of 65 left Nacho Elvira and Marcel Siem as clubhouse leaders on 10-under 130.

SOCCER

BAN LIFTED: FIFA lifted a suspension of India’s soccer federation, allowing the country to host the Under-17 Women’s World Cup in October.

The move was expected this week after India’s Supreme Court handed back control of the national soccer federation to its administration – restoring management of the body to soccer officials as FIFA wanted.

FIFA suspended the federation from international soccer last week “due to undue influence from third parties.” The tactic is sometimes used by FIFA to protect its member federations by exerting leverage over government or legal authorities that seek to influence soccer at national level.

The court had in May ousted Praful Patel as president of the All India Football Federation for not holding elections that were due by December 2020 and for continuing in the position past that date. Patel is a member of FIFA’s ruling council as one of Asia’s elected delegates.

CYCLING

SPANISH VUELTA: Jesús Herrada of Spain won the seventh stage in Cistierna, Spain.

Remco Evenepoel stayed safely in the peloton to hold on to the overall lead ahead of Rudy Molard, while Herrada prevailed in a breakaway group to win his second ever stage in the Vuelta. The Cofidis rider narrowly edged Samuele Battistella and Fred Wright after a 118-mile mid-mountain stage in northern Spain.

TENNIS

UMPIRE BANNED: An Italian tennis umpire was banned for seven years and six months Friday after admitting to charges of match-fixing.

Lorenzo Chiurazzi, a national-level chair umpire and line judge, was also fined $50,000 – $33,500 of which is suspended – in a case investigated by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.

The offenses relate to matches at a tournament in Perugia, Italy, in 2021, the agency said. They include Chiurazzi delaying inputting scores into the scoring device, inputting scores which did not reflect the actual scores on court, failing to co-operate with the corruption investigation and failing to report corrupt approaches.

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