DALLAS — Leo Carlsson‘s short-handed goal midway through the third period proved to be the winner as the Ducks rallied to beat the Dallas Stars 7-5 on Thursday night.
Carlsson scored on a slap shot 10:38 into the third period to give the Ducks a 6-4 lead. Troy Terry had an assist on the goal.
Wyatt Johnston had two goals, Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin and Mikko Rantanen also scored for Dallas, which lost for the third time in four games. Miro Heiskanen had four assists and Jake Oettinger made 18 saves.
Dallas had its seven-game points streak halted.
Up next for the Ducks: at the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.
AUSTIN, Texas — Denis Bouanga had two goals and an assist on Sunday night to help LAFC beat Austin FC 4-1 and sweep the best-of-three series in the first round of the MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC, which won Game 1 2-1, plays at second-seeded Vancouver in the one-game Western Conference semifinals.
Son Heung-min added a goal and an assist for No. 3 seed LAFC. Jeremy Ebobisse replaced Son in the 88th minute and capped the scoring in the third minute of stoppage time.
Son, on the counter-attack, hesitated to freeze defender Ilie Sánchez at the top of the area and then exploded toward the left end line and blasted a shot from the corner of the six-yard box inside the back post to open the scoring in the 21st. About four minutes later, Son fed Bouanga for a finish — the 30-year-old’s 100th goal across all competitions for LAFC — into a wide-open net to make it 2-0.
Bouanga cut inside to evade defender Brendan Hines-Ike — who fell to the ground — and then flicked a shot into the net from the left center of the area in the 44th minute.
Bouanga is the only active player — and is one of just nine in history — with at least 10 career goals in the MLS Cup playoffs.
LAFC’s Hugo Lloris — who was second in MLS with 12 shutouts in the regular season — had three saves, including a diving stop on a penalty kick by Myrto Uzuni in the 39th minute after a hand ball in the area by Bouanga.
Ryan Porteous was shown a yellow card for a foul in the area and Dani Pereira converted from the spot in the sixth minute of stoppage time to make it 3-1 at halftime.
CJ Fodrey appeared to have cut sixth-seeded Austin’s deficit to 3-2 in the 71st minute but an offsides call nullified the would-be goal.
Ex-Premier League striker Jamie Cureton tells Monday Night Club on his desire to still play football aged 50, after scoring his debut goal for Kings Park Rangers meaning he has scored in the top-10 tiers of English football.
Coming off a 5-4 shootout loss Saturday night in Nashville, the Kings ended a string of four extra-time games to improve to 4-3-3. They have a game left on a five-game trip that opened with overtime victories in St. Louis and Dallas.
Laferriere tied it 1-1 at 3:29 of the second with a wrist shot off a two-on-one break, and Fiala scored at 4:54 on a wraparound off a breakaway. Joel Armia added a short-handed empty-netter with 1:08 left.
Connor Bedard scored for rested Chicago, and Arvid Soderblom made 19 saves. The Blackhawks dropped to 4-3-2. They had won two in a row and had a five-game points streak.
Bedard opened the scoring on a tip at 7:04 of the first period, with the puck hitting the post and going in off Forsberg’s skate.
Up next for the Kings: at San José on Tuesday night.
Champions League pundit Guillem Balague believes with more teams playing man-to-man marking strikers in modern football are awarded more space to score goals and are also being given “individualised coaching” about how to exploit those spaces.
At this time last year, the pressure was palpable.
Up until last October, the Dodgers had a reputation as postseason failures.
It wasn’t an unwarranted distinction. In each of the previous two seasons, the team had been upset in the National League Division Series by lesser opponents in the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. The fall before that, their title defense flamed out against the underdog Atlanta Braves in the NL Championship Series. Yes, they won a World Series in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. But outside of that, it’d been more than three decades since they last triumphed under typical circumstances.
That checkered history weighed on them. Their urgency to change it in last year’s playoffs was fervent.
“That kind of sour taste that you have when you make an early exit from the postseason, our guys are tired of it,” manager Dave Roberts said on the eve of last year’s postseason. “So this is another opportunity. I do sense that edge.”
This week, of course, the Dodgers face a different kind of dynamic.
After their memorable run to a championship last year, the team has gotten the monkey of its full-season title drought off its back. And while expectations are still high, with the Dodgers and their record-setting $400-million roster set to begin the playoffs with a best-of-three wild-card round starting Tuesday against the Cincinnati Reds, the questions about past October disappointments have dissipated.
So, does the pressure of this postseason feel different?
“You would think,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said. “But the pressure’s always going to be there. Especially when you’re this team, when you’re the Los Angeles Dodgers, there’s a lot of expectations around you. There’s a lot of pressure.”
Indeed, after an underwhelming regular season that saw the Dodgers win the NL West for the 12th time in the last 13 years, but fail to secure a first-round bye as one of the NL’s top two playoff seeds, the Dodgers have a new task before them.
Erase the frustrations of their 93-win campaign. Maintain the momentum they built with a 15-5 regular-season finish. And recreate the desperation that carried them to the promised land last fall, as they try to become MLB’s first repeat champion in 25 years.
“For us, the challenge is not letting that pressure get to you and finding our rhythm, finding what’s going to work for us this year,” Muncy said. “Each year the team has to find their identity when they get to this point. You have an identity during the regular season, and you have to find a whole ‘nother identity in the postseason.”
The Dodgers’ preferred identity for this year’s team figures to be the opposite of what worked last October.
Unlike last year, the team has a healthy and star-studded starting rotation entering the playoffs. Also unlike last year, the bullpen is a major question mark despite an encouraging end to the regular season.
For the wild-card series, it means the team will need big innings out of Game 1 starter Blake Snell, Game 2 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto and (if necessary) Game 3 starter Shohei Ohtani — who is being saved for the potential winner-take-all contest in part to help manage his two-way workload.
Ideally, their production should ease the burden on a relief corps that ranked 21st in the majors in ERA during the regular season, and has no clear-cut hierarchy for its most trusted arms.
“The starting pitching is considerably better” than it was last year, Roberts said Monday. “That’s probably the biggest difference between last year’s team.”
Granted, the Dodgers do feel better about their bullpen right now, thanks to the return of Roki Sasaki, the reallocation (at least for this series) of Emmet Sheehan and Tyler Glasnow from the rotation to relief roles, and recent improvements from Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott.
“[We have] much more confidence than we had a couple weeks ago,” Roberts said of the bullpen. “I think that it’s because those guys have shown the confidence in themselves, where they’re throwing the baseball. I think last week we saw guys more on the attack setting the tone, versus pitching behind or pitching too careful.”
Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott delivers against the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 19.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Still, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will pitch in the ninth inning, or be called upon in the highest-leverage moments.
Close, late contests would be best for the Dodgers to avoid.
To that end, the continuation of the Dodgers’ recent uptick at the plate would also help. During a dismal 22-32 stretch from July 4 to Sept. 6, the Dodgers ranked 27th in scoring, struggling to overcome injuries to several key pieces, slumps from some of their biggest stars, and a general lack of consistent execution in situational opportunities. Over their closing 20 games, however, the lineup averaged an NL-best 5.55 runs per game behind late-season surges from Ohtani and Mookie Betts, plus team-wide improvements while hitting with runners in scoring position.
“The team is starting to fire on all cylinders, finally,” Muncy said. “It’s something that we haven’t really felt all year.”
The Dodgers had good news on the injury front during Monday’s team workout at Dodger Stadium. Muncy, who missed the last four games of the regular season while battling leg bruises and what Roberts has described as other “overall body” issues, is expected to be in the lineup. So too is Tommy Edman, who hasn’t played in the field since last Wednesday because of a lingering ankle injury.
The big question remains catcher Will Smith, who has been out since Sept. 9 with a right hand fracture.
Roberts said Monday the team has been “encouraged” with Smith’s recent progress. The slugger was even able to take live at-bats Monday night.
“If he can get through today and feel good,” Roberts said, “then it’s a viable thought” that he could be on the final 26-man roster the Dodgers will have to submit ahead of Tuesday’s game for the wild-card series.
Either way, the Dodgers’ biggest concern remains on maintaining their recent level of play. Erasing past October failures might no longer be a motivation. But, like Muncy, Roberts said the urgency to win another World Series remains the same.
“I don’t know if it’s easier or harder that we won last year,” Roberts said. “But, honestly, all we care about is winning this year.”
Jayden Maiava passes for 295 yards despite only playing in the first half as USC scores 42 first-half points on the way to a 73-13 victory.
Five years ago, when USC first scheduled this 2025 season opener, the plan had been to go big, to test itself with a marquee, non-conference opponent that not only bolstered the Trojans’ strength of schedule but also captured the attention of college football. So, at the time, USC agreed to a home-and-home meeting with Mississippi, when Lane Kiffin, the Trojans’ former coach, would make his much-anticipated return to the Coliseum.
That matchup, of course, never came to fruition. The entire landscape of college football was upended in the meantime. Lincoln Riley became the coach. USC left the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. And the meeting with Mississippi was canceled, the rationale from USC’s leaders being there was no sensible reason, in the age of the expanding College Football Playoff, to test your team with top-tier non-conference competition.
Which is how Missouri State, in its first-ever matchup as a Football Bowl Subdivision program, wound at the Coliseum on Saturday, watching helplessly as USC stopped just short of stealing the Tigers’ lunch money in a 73-13 season-opening beatdown.
It was the most points USC had scored in a football game since 1930, when it put up 74 points on California.
If the intent was merely to get off to a smooth, harmless start, then USC certainly succeeded in that regard.
Quarterback Jayden Maiava was mostly seamless, completing 15 of 18 passes for 295 yards and two touchdowns before taking a seat at halftime. The offense averaged 7.6 yards per carry, busted three plays of 60-plus yards and never punted.
USC’s defense, which had been the talk of the offseason, didn’t disappoint either. The Trojans tallied five sacks after having just 21 total a year ago. They held Missouri State to 224 yards and even put up a pick-six, courtesy of new safety Bishop Fitzgerald. A third-quarter interception, snagged on a tipped pass by reserve defensive end Garrett Pomerantz, nearly handed them another.
But as measuring sticks go, Saturday felt more along the lines of a well orchestrated scrimmage. So much so that five-star freshman Husan Longstreet played the entire second half, completing all nine of his passes and rushing for two touchdowns.
The only suspense, if you can call it that, came in the opening minutes, when Missouri State drove down the field, busted a 23-yard run through the teeth of the Trojans defense and hit a 44-yard field goal.
The Tigers took an early 3-0 lead as if to announce they wouldn’t stand by and simply be trampled.
Then, a few minutes later, the trampling began.
It took USC some time to really find its rhythm. For their first two drives, the Trojans averaged only 8.6 yards per play, a step down from its final total of 11.3 yards per play.
The dam burst by the time USC touched the ball a third time. Maiava found tight end Lake McRee over the middle on the first play of the drive. The field in front of McRae immediately opened up, and the tight end sprinted his way to a 64-yard touchdown.
It was less than 90 seconds later that Fitzgerald put the game out of reach for good, with still three quarters left to go. He picked off a pass and took it 39 yards to paydirt.
Missouri State did manage to reach the end zone once, after a miscommunication in USC’s secondary left a receiver wide open in the corner.
But from there, the Trojans would outscore them 45-3. They’d score on a 75-yard rush, from King Miller, and a 73-yard screen, to Eli Sanders. Maiava and Longstreet combined for three touchdowns on the ground.
As the Coliseum stands continued to clear, the fourth quarter became more a question of mercy than anything.
USC would fall short of its all-time scoring record. But if a smooth start was what it was looking for, it had no issue bullying its way to a win in Week 1.
Real Madrid score twice in two minutes against Mallorca as they come from behind to maintain winning La Liga start.
Published On 30 Aug 202530 Aug 2025
Real Madrid claimed a third straight La Liga victory, with a 2-1 triumph over Real Mallorca, to continue their perfect start to the campaign.
Arda Guler and Vinicius Junior scored in quick succession for Los Blancos on Saturday, after Mallorca’s Vedat Muriqi opened the scoring at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
Xabi Alonso’s Madrid also had three more goals ruled out as they continued to improve following the coach’s arrival at the start of the summer.
After competing in the Club World Cup this summer and not having much of a preseason, winning all their games before the first international break is an impressive feat for Alonso.
The former Bayer Leverkusen coach brought Vinicius Junior and Trent Alexander-Arnold back into the starting lineup, after both began last weekend’s win at Real Oviedo on the bench.
Kylian Mbappe, who has started the season in fine form with three league goals, thought he had broken the deadlock early on after a fine pass from Trent Alexander-Arnold, but was judged to be offside.
Arda Guler of Real Madrid scores his team’s first goal [Denis Doyle/Getty Images]
Mallorca took a surprise lead after 18 minutes, when Vedat Muriqi used his shoulder to divert a corner past Thibaut Courtois.
It was the first goal Madrid had conceded in La Liga this season after two clean sheets in their opening victories.
Alonso’s side responded with two goals in under two minutes.
Dean Huijsen headed Alvaro Carreras’s cross into the 6-yard box for Arda Guler to nod home in the 37th minute.
With Mallorca rocking, Vinicius surged into space before breaking into the box and scuffing a finish into the bottom corner.
Mbappe could have extended Madrid’s lead before the break, but nudged wide from close range after Guler’s drive was deflected into his path.
The Frenchman struck moments later, but was again offside, and the goal was ruled out.
Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior scores their second goal [Isabel Infantes/Reuters]
Bright summer signing Franco Mastantuono fired narrowly over, early in the second half, on the 18-year-old’s first Santiago Bernabeu start, during which he showed few nerves.
The Argentinian attacker was involved in Madrid’s third disallowed goal of the night, after some superb footwork in the box, before he forced Roman into a save, and Guler eventually turned home.
However, the Turkish playmaker was judged to have handled the ball before striking, and the goal was ruled out, upsetting Madrid fans.
Carreras produced a spectacular goal-line clearance to keep out Samu Costa’s thumped effort to safety, as Mallorca sniffed for an equaliser.
Under Alonso’s predecessor, Carlo Ancelotti, Madrid were not always able to close games out, but after that scare, they showed a good level of control in the final stages to keep Mallorca at arm’s length.
On Sunday, champions Barcelona visit Rayo Vallecano, looking to match Madrid on three wins from three. Villarreal and Athletic Bilbao could also do the same should they beat Celta Vigo and Real Betis, respectively.
The rivalry between the old-school Galaxy and its upstart neighbor LAFC was once the best in MLS. The Galaxy traces its roots to the inception of the league while LAFC helped define its modern era, setting up a turf war so good, so competitive and so emotional, it had its own nickname.
Much of that drama had faded from El Tráfico in recent matches. But that changed Saturday when Maya Yoshida scored on the last touch of the game to give the Galaxy a 3-3 draw before a packed house of 22,301 at BMO Stadium.
And the teams didn’t limit their fight to the scoreboard. A tense shoving match broke out seconds into stoppage time, leading referee Guido Gonzalez Jr. to send off LAFC’s Eddie Segura with a red card while handing two yellow cards to the Galaxy and one to LAFC goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
Galaxy and LAFC players get into a on-field scuffle during Saturday’s 3-3 draw at BMO Stadium.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
The most devastating punch, however, came from Yoshida, who was in the center of the shoving match. Minutes later his header off a cross from Mauricio Cuevas — his first goal and just his second shot on target of the season — capped a Galaxy comeback from a late 3-1 deficit.
The draw gave the Galaxy (3-14-7) points in five of their last seven games, the team’s best stretch of the season. LAFC (10-5-6) is unbeaten in four straight and has lost just once in 14 league games since April 5. But the two points it lost on Yoshida’s goal dropped it to fifth in the Western Conference standings.
Bouanga’s fifth goal in six games gave LAFC the early lead in the 26th minute and, significantly, it was the first goal in that span that didn’t come from the penalty spot. It also gave him a goal in his last six games against the Galaxy.
LAFC star Denis Bouanga celebrates after scoring in the first half against the Galaxy on Saturday.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Dilrosun doubled the lead with his second MLS goal on a counterattack five minutes later.
Pec halved the deficit for the Galaxy on a penalty kick less than 10 minutes before the intermission. That goal, set up by a Ryan Hollingshead hand ball in the box, snapped a 375-minute scoreless streak for LAFC.
Bouanga extended the LAFC lead on another counterattack set up by a Galaxy mistake in the 67th minute. Afterward, as the teams walked back to the center circle, Pec and Galaxy defender Emiro Garces, who was out of position on the breakaway, engaged in a heated argument.
Pec calmed down enough to get his fifth goal of the season, on a cross from Marco Reus, to pull his team closer in the 79th minute. The Galaxy then appeared to tie the score just before stoppage time, but Lloris made a spectacular kick save on Christian Ramirez while lying on his back on the goal line.
That set the stage for Yoshida, however, with the Galaxy captain slipping in front of Nkosi Tafari to redirect a glancing header inside the far post, earning the Galaxy a league result at BMO Stadium for the first time since August 2021, a game that also ended in a 3-3 draw.
Denis Bouanga scored on a first-half penalty kick and Hugo Lloris made it stand up for his third straight clean sheet as LAFC edged Minnesota United 1-0 on Wednesday night.
Bouanga scored his 11th goal when he sent a right-footed shot past Dayne St. Clair in the 42nd minute. The PK was awarded after Jeremy Ebobisse was fouled by defender Nicolás Romero, who received a yellow card.
Lloris finished with three saves for his league-high-tying ninth clean sheet of the season for LAFC (10-5-5).
St. Clair entered with nine shutouts and totaled five saves for Minnesota United (11-5-7), which falls to 6-3-3 at home.
Minnesota United has just one home win over LAFC, which joined the league in 2018. That came in March of last season in the debut of Minnesota manager Eric Ramsay.
LAFC posted a 1-0 victory over Minnesota United at home in the season opener.
LAFC improves to 2-3-4 on the road. The club was coming off shutout wins at home over the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas by a combined 5-0 score.
It was the kind of offense they’d been chasing all season.
Cuts darted through closing doors, warping the Connecticut’s defense into knots, and the Sparks’ monster frontcourt threw its weight around and pounded out a 57-point stampede.
Rickea Jackson, with her wiry strength and burst, knifed past defenders as Dearica Hamby mixed bruising post work with feather-soft finishes and Azurá Stevens — the most versatile of the bunch — filled every gap. And as Jackson and Hamby created real estate down low, the Sparks’ backcourt dished out 22 assists.
Kelsey Plum even caught a groove in the third. Rae Burrell clawed her way into the lane for jabs that jolted her Sparks back to life.
With touches flowing from sideline to baseline, the Sparks kept their half of the scoreboard flashing in a wire-to-wire 92-88 victory over a flailing Sun squad.
There wasn’t much time to breathe at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday afternoon, whether decked out in white and purple or black and orange.
Not when every possession felt like a pendulum swing — the Sparks (6-14) surging and the Sun (3-18) countering with Bria Hartley’s steady hand on the perimeter and Saniya Rivers’ muscle inside.
Clinging to a fragile five-point lead, Julie Allemand elevated what could’ve been the dagger with 48 seconds left — a shot that would’ve ballooned the lead to eight.
Instead, it went to a jump ball, Jackson got charged for a personal, and Rivers went to the free-throw line. Drowned in the noise of a frenzied Crypto.com Arena, the rookie scored on only one of her two shots, keeping it a two-possession game.
Hamby could only find iron on the next possession.
Coming out of a Connecticut timeout, Stevens rebounded a 26-foot heave from Hartley that clanged off the rim. Hartley fouled Stevens.
True to her steady hand, Stevens buried both free throws to secure the win.
The GAA has admitted there was “confusion” over the final score of Tipperary’s All-Ireland Hurling Championship semi-final win over Kilkenny.
The full-score at Croke Park has been confirmed as a 4-20 to 0-30 victory for Tipp, but it had been recorded as a 4-21 to 0-30 win.
The confusion came after Tipperary midfielder Noel McGrath’s effort in the 70th minute was waved wide but was registered as a point on the scoreboard in the stadium – which left the eventual winners with 4-21.
That left Kilkenny chasing a goal in the closing stages thinking they were four points behind, when in theory they could have taken points to draw level in additional time as there were three points between the sides.
“The GAA can confirm that the official score at the end of the Tipperary v Kilkenny GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Semi-Final was 4-20 to 0-30,” the statement read.
“The GAA acknowledges there was confusion over the final score.
“The CCCC is awaiting the full referees report in order to establish how the initial mistake occurred.”
Speaking on the GAA Social podcast, two-time All-Ireland winner Jamesie O’Connor said: “This type of thing shouldn’t happen, especially at Croke Park.
“If it’s three points with four minutes left you are more inclined to tap it over the bar. With the time that was there Kilkenny have every right to feel aggrieved.
“It shouldn’t take away from Tipp’s win, which was merited, but this type of controversy, in a game of this magnitude and at headquarters with the technology that is available to us, it shouldn’t have happened.”
When asked if he would go off the scoreboard in the stadium if he was playing at Croke Park, Limerick’s five-time All-Ireland winner Seamus Flanagan said: “100%”.
“It has a massive bearing on the game, it really does,” he added.
