SOFTBALL
The Bonny Eagle Little League softball team fell one game shy of the World Series, falling 11-1 to Milford, Connecticut, in the final of the New England Regional on Friday in Bristol, Connecticut.
The Maine champions followed up an opening loss to Vermont with victories over Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island to make the final, but could muster only one hit against Milford pitcher Grace Weber.
Bonny Eagle took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Nora Spires singled, went to second on a fielder’s choice, advanced to third on Maris Lopresti’s walk and scored on Lily Regan’s groundout.
The lead was short-lived, however, as Milford scored two runs in the first, six in the third, two in the fourth and one in the fifth to invoke the mercy rule.
Regan, Bonny Eagle’s pitcher, finished the tournament with 43 strikeouts in 26 innings.
BASEBALL
EASTERN LEAGUE: Grant Gambrell allowed just three hits over seven innings, and Tyler Esplin drove in five runs as the Portland Sea Dogs snapped a three-game losing streak with a 12-0 win over the Richmond Flying Squirrels in Richmond, Virginia.
The Sea Dogs matched a season high with 17 hits, but the game was scoreless until the sixth, when RBI singles by Chase Meidroth, Blaze Jordan and Phillip Sikes made it 3-0. Nick Yorke doubled home Esplin in the seventh, and Portland broke it open with five runs in the eighth, highlighted by Esplin’s three-run double.
Esplin, Sikes and Corey Rosier all finished with three hits.
Gambrell struck out eighth and walked only one.
NECBL: Devan Bade capped an 11-run second inning with a three-run homer, Jeremiah Jenkins also smashed a three-run homer, and the Sanford Mainers extended their winning streak to four with a 15-4 victory over the Vermont Mountaineers in Montpelier, Vermont.
Calvin Hewett doubled twice during the big inning and Bade also had two hits. Simmi Whitehall contributed a two-run triple, Devin Russell singled home two runs, and Matthew Polk added an RBI triple.
AUTO RACING
FORMULA ONE: Runaway F1 championship leader Max Verstappen had the fastest time in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, but Charles Leclerc will start the race from pole position because of Verstappen’s five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
Verstappen will begin Sunday’s race in sixth position. The two-time reigning Formula One champion won in Belgium last year from 14th on the grid.
XFINITY: The NASCAR Xfinity Series plans to make The CW its exclusive television home.
NASCAR announced a deal that will have The CW airing 33 live Xfinity Series races each year from 2025 through 2031. The CW also will televise practice and qualifying events each weekend.
That 2025 season will mark the first time that every Xfinity Series race will be available on free, over-the-air broadcast television.
SOCCER
UEFA: Juventus was removed from European competition for the upcoming season and Chelsea was fined $11 million in separate UEFA rulings over financial rules breaches.
The expulsion of Juventus from the third-tier Europa Conference League was expected because of a false accounting case. UEFA said that Juventus also must also pay a fine of 10 million euros ($11 million) for breaking Financial Fair Play rules.
Chelsea will also pay a settlement of 10 million euros to UEFA for incorrect financial information submitted between 2012 and 2019 when the club was owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Chelsea, which won the Champions League in 2021, did not qualify for this season’s European competitions.
TENNIS
PRAGUE OPEN: Russian and Belarusian players will not be allowed to participate in next week’s Prague Open, the organizers of the women’s event said Friday.
The announcement came a day after police prevented a Russian player from entering the country, organizers said.
The WTA Tour allows Russians and Belarusians to play tournaments as neutral athletes. But the Czech government has banned athletes from Russia and Belarus from sports competitions in Czech territory because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
HAMBURG EUROPEAN OPEN: German teenager Noma Noha Akugue, playing in her first WTA Tour event, reached the final in her hometown tournament with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Diana Shnaider.
The WTA said Saturday’s final between Noha Akugue and Arantxa Rus will be the first between left-handers on the women’s tour since 2018.
In the men’s tournament, top-seeded Casper Ruud was upset 6-0, 6-4 by Arthur Fils in the quarterfinals, and Laslo Djere stunned defending champion Lorenzo Musetti, 7-5, 6-3.
SWIMMING
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Qin Haiyang of China set a world record in the men’s 200-meter breaststroke in Fukuoka, Japan, winning the gold medal in 2 minutes, 05.48 seconds.
Zac Stubblety-Cook of Australia held the old record of 2:05.95.
OLYMPICS
TRACK AND FIELD: Former Olympic pole vault champion Thiago Braz was suspended after testing positive for ostarine, track and field authorities said.
Braz, 29, won a surprising gold medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics with a jump of 6.03 meters that still stands as the Olympic record. He took bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
FENCING: The IOC assured Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan that she will have a place at the Paris Olympics next year after she was disqualified Thursday from a key ranking event for refusing to shake hands with a Russian she had beaten.
Kharlan, a four-time Olympic medalist, was disqualified from Thursday’s competition by the International Fencing Federation after she beat Russian opponent Anna Smirnova, 15-7, but then refused a handshake.
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