TRACK AND FIELD
Cheverus High graduate Victoria Bossong finished fourth in the 400 meters at the Nike Outdoor Nationals on Friday at the University of Oregon.
Bossong, who set three meet records at the Class A state championships in June, finished in 54.21 seconds. Aaliyah Butler of Florida won in 53.48, followed by Sydney Harris of Georgia in 53.89 and Sophia Gorriaran of Rhode Island in 54.10.
Bossong will also compete in the 800 on Saturday.
BASEBALL
MINOR LEAGUES: The Portland Sea Dogs doubleheader against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats on Friday was rained out. It was the third straight night the teams have been impacted by weather. Wednesday night’s game was rained out and scheduled as a doubleheader on Thursday. The team played one game Thursday, with the second was rained out and rescheduled as part of a doubleheader on Friday.
One of Friday’s games will be made up Saturday as part of a doubleheader. The second game will be made up as a doubleheader Sept. 1.
NECBL: The North Adams SteepleCats scored three times in the top of the eighth inning to beat the Sanford Mainers in the first game of a doubleheader on Friday in Sanford.
Brian Zeldin pitched five innings allowing just one hit, while Samuel Bennett allowed one hit and one run in three innings for North Adams.
Martin Higgins hit a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh to send the seven-inning game to extra innings.
Sanford won the second game, 9-3.
GOLF
PGA TOUR: Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama has withdrawn from the Rocket Mortgage Classic after testing positive for COVID-19.
The PGA Tour made the announcement Friday just before Matsuyama was scheduled to start his second round. Tour officials were unable to say whether Matsuyama has been vaccinated. The PGA Tour, though, does not test fully vaccinated players.
“I will take all the necessary precautions to ensure the health and safety of all others,” he said in a statement. “I appreciate and thank everyone for their concern in advance. I look forward to full recovery and returning to competition as soon as possible.”
Matsuyama shot an even-par 72 on Thursday, playing with PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler.
Mickelson and Fowler were informed of Matsuyama’s positive test shortly before they began play Friday. According to the PGA Tour’s COVID-19 protocols, Mickelson and Fowler were not subject to contact tracing.
• Joaquin Niemann and Tom Lewis topped the jam-packed leaderboard heading into the weekend in the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
Niemann and Lewis each shot 3-under 69 to reach 10-under 134. Troy Merritt (68), Chris Kirk (68) and Max Homa (65) were a shot back.
First-round leader Davis Thompson was one of eight players two strokes back. The 22-year-old Thompson had a 1-over 73, a day after matching a Detroit Golf Club record with a 63.
CHAMPIONS TOUR: Bernhard Langer holed a 90-yard wedge shot for eagle on the par-5 eighth to get to 6 under, then had two birdies and three bogeys on the back nine for a 5-under 67, leaving him a stroke behind first-round leader Wes Short Jr. in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open in Endicott, New York.
Cameron Beckman matched Langer at 67, a stroke ahead of Ernie Els, David Toms, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Skip Kendall, Willie Wood, Tom Byrum, Jerry Smith and Billy Andrade.
OLYMPICS: Sungjae Im and Siwoo Kim have withdrawn from the British Open so they can focus on preparations for the Tokyo Olympics at the end of the month.
Im and Kim are the male Olympic qualifiers for South Korea. Both are subject to mandatory military service at some point, which they can avoid only by winning an Olympic medal.
FOOTBALL
NFL: The Dallas Cowboys will be featured for the third time in the 20th anniversary season of “Hard Knocks.” HBO and NFL Films announced that the five-episode season will debut on Aug. 10 at 10 p.m. Eastern.
The Cowboys are the first team to make three appearances on the training camp documentary series. The first was in 2002 and most recent was in 2008.
“America, America’s game and America’s Team had a tough 2020. I feel like this is a perfect happenstance of football, the Cowboys and hopefully the country,” said NFL Films’ Ken Rodgers, the senior coordinating producer of “Hard Knocks.” “I’m sure the Cowboys want to put their difficult season behind them more than anyone.”
Dallas went 6-10 last season in Mike McCarthy’s first year as coach. Quarterback Dak Prescott suffered a dislocated right ankle and compound fracture that forced him to miss the final 11 games.
COLLEGES
FOOTBALL: Eleven years after his Heisman Trophy was vacated and his legendary 2005 season was erased from the NCAA record books, former USC star running back Reggie Bush might soon be free to reclaim his coveted trophy.
The Heisman Trust broke its longstanding silence on the issue, responding to public calls from Bush to have the trophy returned in the wake of the NCAA’s new policy allowing athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness. In a statement, the group in charge of college football’s most prestigious award said that “should the NCAA reinstate Bush’s 2005 status, the Heisman Trust looks forward to welcoming him back to the Heisman family.”
CYCLING
TOUR de FRANCE: Matej Mohoric posted his first stage win in the Tour de France following a long breakaway in the race’s longest stage.
The 155-mile hilly trek from Vierzon to Le Creusot in the seventh stage was the longest in 21 years.
Mohoric was part of a group that formed more than 200 kilometers before the finish line. He went solo in the stage’s finale, using a tough climb to drop his remaining breakaway companions and reach the finish line in Le Creusot alone.
Mathieu van der Poel looked exhausted when he crossed 1 minute, 40 seconds behind. He kept the race leader’s yellow jersey with a 30-second advantage over Wout van Aert,
The day’s biggest loser was last year’s runner-up, Primoz Roglic, who crashed earlier in the race. Roglic did not recover and struggled in the climb on Friday. He managed to get to the finish with a deficit exceeding nine minutes and his hopes of winning the three-week race are effectively over.
GIRO d’ITALIA: Ruth Winder slipped into the leader’s pink jersey after her Trek-Segafredo team won the opening team trial of the Giro d’Italia Donne, the most important stage race for female cyclists and a key effort ahead of the Olympic road race.
Winder, who has medal ambitions with the U.S. team heading to the Tokyo Games, was joined by Dutch rider Ellen van Dijk, Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy and Lizzie Deignan of Britain in powering her American squad across the finish line first.
AUTO RACING
FORMULA ONE: Mercedes found welcome speed in the rain at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton leading a damp second practice ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas.
The conditions proved less to the liking of championship leader Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver topped the leaderboard early on but drifted down to third place as the track became wetter.
Hamilton was .189 seconds ahead of Bottas and .217 clear of Verstappen on Red Bull’s home track.
OLYMPICS
TRACK AND FIELD: Olympic champion Brianna McNeal lost her appeal against a five-year ban for breaking anti-doping rules that prevents the American defending her 100-meter hurdles title at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said its judges dismissed McNeal’s challenge to the ban imposed by track and field authorities for “tampering or attempted tampering with any part of doping control.”
The court, and track and field’s Athletics Integrity Unit previously, have not given specifics of the case. A detailed verdict was not published Friday.
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