SAN JOSÉ — Brandt Clarke scored the tiebreaking goal from the right circle with 6:40 left and the Kings beat the San Jose Sharks 4-3 on Tuesday night after blowing a three-goal lead.
Corey Perry got his third goal in four games for the Kings. Jeff Malott and Drew Doughty also scored, and Darcy Kuemper made 37 saves.
It was the Kings’ second consecutive victory in regulation after going to overtime in their previous four games.
Will Smith, Philipp Kurashev and Alexander Wennberg each had a goal for the Sharks, the only NHL team without a win in regulation. During a 57-second span in the first period, San Jose missed four clean looks.
Things got dicey for the Kings near the end. The Kings played the final 76 seconds short-handed after Joel Edmundson was whistled for delay of game after flipping the puck over the glass into the crowd.
San Jose took six shots during that stretch but failed to score.
Perry scored on a putback midway through the first after Adrian Kempe’s shot deflected off Collin Graf’s stick, hit the right post and landed in front of the net.
Malott got his second goal of the season on a breakaway, assisted by Perry and Edmundson.
Three minutes later, Doughty made it 3-0 with his first goal of the season on a shot from the right circle.
The Sharks broke through late in the second with two goals in less than two minutes. Smith scored off a cross-ice pass from Macklin Celebrini, then Kurashev slapped in a wraparound pass from Wennberg.
Less than five minutes into the third, Wennberg tied it at 3.
DALLAS — Adrian Kempe scored 37 seconds into overtime and the Kings beat Dallas 3-2 on Thursday night, handing the slumping Stars their fourth consecutive loss. It was the second game in a row in which Kempe scored the winning overtime goal.
Darcy Kuemper made 29 saves, and former Stars Corey Perry and Cody Ceci also scored as the Kings won in regulation for the first time this season.
Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson scored power-play goals for the Stars, and Johnston also had an assist. Jake Oettinger stopped 22 shots.
Kempe scored from the slot on a pass from Quinton Byfield on the Kings’ only rush of overtime. It was Byfield’s second assist of the game.
The Stars have dropped four straight before New Year’s for the first time since Oct. 25-Nov. 2, 2021.
The 40-year-old Perry, who played for Dallas in 2019-20, knocked home a rebound at the crease for the game’s first goal late in the first period 22 seconds into a 35-second five-on-three power play.
Only 1:29 after Robertson tied the score 1-1 early in the second period, Ceci put the Kings back ahead with a slap shot redirected off the stick of Dallas’ Mavrik Bourque. Ceci was acquired by Dallas last February from San Jose and left for L.A. in free agency last summer.
Johnston’s team-high fifth goal of the season tied the score 2-2 early in the third period.
The Kings had a deflection goal by Alex Laferriere midway through the second disallowed after a video review determined his stick was too high.
Chris Kreider scored his second power-play goal in his home debut with 1:27 to play, and the Ducks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 on Tuesday night for its 10th consecutive victory in home openers.
Cutter Gauthier and Drew Helleson also scored and Lukas Dostal made 23 saves for the Ducks, who matched Boston and Toronto for the NHL’s longest active victory streak in home openers.
Kreider, who also had an assist, is off to an outstanding start with four goals in three games for the Ducks after the Rangers traded their longtime left winger last June to create cap space.
Kreider scored the Ducks’ first goal off a slick pass from Leo Carlsson in the first period, and he won it for the Ducks just seven seconds after Parker Wotherspoon went to the penalty box for shooting the puck over the glass.
Justin Brazeau, Rickard Rakell and Anthony Mantha scored and Tristan Jarry stopped 17 shots as Pittsburgh opened a three-game California trip.
Sidney Crosby had two assists to pass Steve Yzerman, one of his boyhood idols, for the ninth-most in NHL history.
The Ducks had the largest crowd in franchise history for the home debut of coach Joel Quenneville, who got loud cheers when introduced. The second-winningest coach in NHL history opened his Ducks tenure with a loss and a win on the road last week.
Brazeau extended his impressive start to his Penguins tenure just 63 seconds after the opening faceoff, redirecting Ryan Shea’s point shot for his fourth goal in four games. Evgeni Malkin also got his sixth assist of the season.
Rakell redirected another shot by Shea for his first career goal against the Ducks, who drafted him in 2011. He spent parts of 10 NHL seasons in Anaheim.
Gauthier tied it late in the first with a one-timer set up by Pavel Mintyukov.
SAN JOSÉ — Leo Carlsson scored 46 seconds into overtime and the Ducks overcame a two-goal, third-period deficit for a 7-6 win over the San José Sharks on Saturday night.
After San José missed an empty-netter late in the third period, Kreider knocked in his second goal with 49.5 seconds remaining to force overtime.
The Sharks won the face off in the extra period, but Macklin Celebrini missed a high shot and the Ducks recovered to set up Carlsson’s winner from the left circle.
Tyler Toffoli, Ryan Reaves, Mario Ferraro, John Klingberg, Adam Gaudette and Jeff Skinner all had goals for San José. Yaroslav Askarov had 36 saves.
The Sharks led 2-0 midway through the first period on goals by Toffoli and Reaves. Both shots came in front of the Ducks’ net, with Reaves racing in from the left untouched before flipping the puck past Ducks goalie Petr Mrazek (17 saves).
The Ducks responded with Gauthier scoring 40 seconds after Reaves’ score before Sennecke tied it on power-play goal, his second in as many games.
After the two teams traded goals early in the second period, Klingberg scored in a five-on-three situation to give San José the lead.
Gauthier’s first goal of the night came on Alexander Wennberg’s pass from behind the net before Kreider’s first goal of the season with 31 seconds left in the second period trimmed the Sharks’ lead to 5-4.
Skinner scored after maneuvering around three defenders in front of the Ducks goal to put the Sharks ahead 6-4.
Up next for the Ducks: Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins in their home opener at Honda Center.
WINNIPEG, Canada — Mark Scheifele broke a tie with 8:13 left with his second goal of the game, Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Kings 3-2 on Saturday.
Scheifele picked Josh Morrissey’s pass out of the air and deflected it past goalie Darcy Kuemper to give Winnipeg the lead. Alex Iafallo had a power-play goal for the Jets in the first period to help the Jets rebound from a season-opening home loss to Dallas on Thursday night.
Scheifele tied it 2-2 with 1:03 left in the second. In the tail end of killing a penalty, Morgan Barron stole the puck and fed Scheifele, whose backhander deflected off Anderson past Kuemper.
The Kings took a 2-1 lead midway through the second. Kempe finished off a pretty three-way passing play with Anze Kopitar and Andrei Kuzmenko.
Anderson tied it 1-1 just 50 seconds into the second period. His screened shot from the point got by Hellebuyck.
The Phillies had scored three runs off Shohei Ohtani in the bottom of the second. Citizens Bank Park was shaking on the scale of a small earthquake. And the Dodgers’ offense was doing nothing against Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez.
In the opening contest of a heavyweight series, the defending champions were down.
But, in their typically resilient fashion, far from out.
In a come-from-behind, statement-sending 5-3 win, the Dodgers did again what carried them a championship last October.
They shrugged off the early adversity, with Ohtani conceding no further damage over a six-inning start, finishing his postseason pitching debut with nine strikeouts and four monumental scoreless innings.
Their lineup chipped away at the deficit, knocking Phillies ace and Cy Young Award candidate Sánchez out of the game on Kiké Hernández’s two-out, two-run double in the sixth.
Then, they landed the actual knockout blow, with Teoscar Hernández flipping the game — and the feel of this best-of-five series — with a two-out, three-run, stadium-silencing home run in the seventh.
Game 2 will be back here in South Philadelphia on Monday night. And the Dodgers will go into it with, given the way Saturday started, an unexpected 1-0 series lead.
It could not have started worse for the Dodgers.
Sánchez was carving them up with wicked sinkers and fall-off-the-table changeups. Ohtani, meanwhile, ran into early trouble in the bottom of the second.
The inning started with a walk to Alec Bohm, when Ohtani missed on a full-count fastball. That was followed by a single from Brandon Marsh, who got a down-the-middle fastball in a 2-and-2 count and shot a base hit to center.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani delivers during the third inning against the Phillies on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
As Ohtani tried to settle down, a chorus of taunting chants — Sho-Hei! Sho-Hei! — came raining down.
A crowd of 45,777 was ready to explode.
Then, J.T. Realmuto gave them the chance.
After missing with a first-pitch slider to Realmuto, Ohtani left a 100.2-mph heater in the dead heart of the zone. The location rendered the velocity irrelevant. Realmuto barreled it up, sent a line drive screaming into right-center, then chugged all the way to third after the ball got past Teoscar Hernández in the gap.
A fly ball two batters later — which worked for a sacrifice fly thanks to Hernández’s inability to cut the ball off — made it 3-0.
In the moment (and with the way Sánchez was pitching early), the lead felt almost insurmountable.
The Dodgers, however, didn’t wilt.
The turnaround began with Ohtani, who followed Realmuto’s triple by retiring the next 10 he faced. His only other trouble came in the fifth, when the bottom two hitters in the Phillies’ order reached base with one out. But even then, Ohtani buckled down, getting Trea Turner to line out and Kyle Schwarber to swing through a curveball that ended the inning.
Eventually, the Dodgers’ offense found life too.
With two outs in the sixth, and Sánchez having given up only two hits all night, Freddie Freeman sparked a rally with a five-pitch walk. Tommy Edman took a sinker the other way to put two aboard.
That brought up Kiké Hernández, who had already begun reprising his role of October hero with four hits in the team’s wild-card series sweep of the Cincinnati Reds.
On cue, Hernández came up clutch again, jumping on a slider from Sánchez that caught a little too much plate and roping it down the left-field line for a two-run double — the latter run coming when Edman ran through a stop sign at third base.
Just like that, Sánchez was knocked out of the game. What had been a raucous crowd earlier in the night suddenly grew tense.
That dread only grew in the next-half inning, when Ohtani completed his start with a 1-2-3 bottom of the sixth.
Then, in the seventh, the Dodgers made the comeback complete — getting the biggest swing of the night from another postseason savior, Teoscar Hernández.
Teoscar Hernández celebrates after hitting a three-run home run in the seventh inning for the Dodgers against the Phillies on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
After Andy Pages led off the inning with a single and Will Smith (who entered the game in the fifth inning for his first appearance of this postseason after missing the wild card round with a fractured hand) was hit by a pitch from David Robertson, the Phillies summoned top left-handed reliever Matt Strahm to face Ohtani.
As he did in his prior three at-bats, Ohtani struck out, taking a fastball down the middle, punching out in four-consecutive at-bats in a game for only the second time in his MLB career.
But by getting Strahm on the mound, the Dodgers had favorable right-on-left matchups behind him. Mookie Betts couldn’t take advantage, popping out to third for the second out of the inning. Hernández, on the other hand, didn’t miss.
On an elevated fastball in a 1-and-0 count, Hernández launched a towering fly ball to the right-center field gap. The Phillies outfield went back on it. But the ball kept carrying into the stands. The ballpark went silent. Hernández practically glided around the bases.
The drama didn’t end there.
Projected Game 4 starter Tyler Glasnow came on in relief in the seventh, when he retired the side on a double-play grounder, then returned for the eighth, when he loaded the bases on a single and two walks. That threat was extinguished by left-hander Alex Vesia, who induced a harmless fly ball from pinch-hitter Edmundo Sosa to quiet a stirring crowd once again.
The ninth inning then belonged to Roki Sasaki, the 23-year-old converted rookie starter who has ascended to closing duties less than two weeks after returning from a months-long shoulder injury. He picked up the save in straightforward fashion, retiring the side in order for his first career save.
LAS VEGAS — A’ja Wilson and Dana Evans each scored 21 points, and the Las Vegas Aces beat the Phoenix Mercury 89-86 in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Friday night.
Wilson scored 12 of her points over the final 14 minutes, and Phoenix’s Satou Sabally missed a long 3-pointer with 2 seconds left that would have tied it.
Game 2 is Sunday in Las Vegas.
Evans led an Aces bench that outscored the Mercury’s reserves 41-16. Reserve Jewell Loyd scored 18 points for second-seeded Las Vegas, and starter Jackie Young had 10. Wilson had 10 rebounds, and Chelsea Gray had 10 assists.
Kahleah Cooper scored 21 points for the fourth-seeded Mercury. Sabally added 19 points and Alyssa Thomas had 15 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists.
Copper scored 19 points in the first half, one off her playoff career high for a half. Her personal best also came against the Mercury, when she scored 20 points for Chicago in the first half of Game 3 of the 2021 Finals. Copper’s five 3-pointers in the first half topped her previous high of four for a game.
If this game was any indication, these Finals — a best-of-seven series for the first time — figure to be tight throughout. The largest lead was nine points, and there were 12 lead changes and nine ties.
The Mercury threatened to take control several times, only for the Aces to respond with a run. In the end, it was Las Vegas that nearly pulled away, only for Phoenix to keep it close.
With Phoenix Down a point with 24.6 seconds left, Thomas went to the free-throw line but missed both. Young was fouled on the other end with 13.5 seconds remaining and made both free throws for the final margin.
Fourth quarter or overtime. Rams trail or are tied. On comes Matthew Stafford.
The veteran quarterback is the master of comebacks.
And he appeared to be on the verge of doing it again on Thursday night against the rival San Francisco 49ers.
But the 49ers stopped running back Kyren Williams on a fourth-and-one play at the 49ers’ 11-yard line, sending the Rams to a 26-23 overtime defeat before 73,652 at SoFi Stadium.
After the game, Rams coach Sean McVay blamed himself for the failed fourth-down run, saying “it was a bad call by me.”
Stafford tossed two touchdown passes to Williams and another to Puka Nacua, but on a night when the Rams’ kicking woes continued, it was not enough to beat an injury-riddled opponent as the Rams fell to 3-2 and wasted an opportunity to take over first place in the NFC West.
Rams kicker Joshua Karty, who last year beat the 49ers with a winning field goal at SoFi Stadium, missed a long field-goal attempt and had an extra-point attempt blocked, the second time that has happened this season. His kickoff in overtime did not reach the landing zone, giving the 49ers the ball at the 40-yard line.
The 49ers improved to 4-1, with victories over the Rams, Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals in the NFC West.
McVay this week good-naturedly blamed his late grandfather John McVay for creating so many 49ers fans by helping assemble 49ers teams that won five Super Bowls.
And McVay and 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, his former mentor, have squared off for some classic matchups, including the NFC championship game at SoFi Stadium in January 2022.
But these were not the same 49ers — at least on paper.
San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Alfred Collins (95) celebrates with teammates after forcing Rams running back Kyren Williams to fumble at the goal line late in the fourth quarter Thursday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
With quarterback Brock Purdy receiving a massive extension before the season, the 49ers let go of numerous high-profile stars that helped them make two Super Bowl appearances in the last six years.
Even quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is with the Rams.
Journeyman Mac Jones started in place of Purdy, who is nursing a toe injury. Tight end George Kittle, receivers Ricky Pearsall and Jauan Jennings and star defensive end Nick Bosa also did not play.
But the 49ers still prevailed.
Mac Jones completed 33 of 49 passes for 342 yards and two touchdowns.
Rams linebacker Jared Verse celebrates after making a tackle in the third quarter against the 49ers on Thursday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Christian McCaffrey caught eight passes for 82 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed for 57 yards in 22 carries.
The score was tied 23-23 at the end of regulation after the Rams blew a chance to win when Williams fumbled at the 49ers’ one-yard line — but then tied the score on Karty’s 48-yard field goal with two seconds left.
Piniero’s 41-yard field goal gave the 49ers the lead.
The Rams then drove from their 33 to the 49ers’ 11, where their hopes for a victory ended.
The top two returners from last year battled for three miles before Lily Alder of Timpview (Utah) passed La Jolla’s Chiara Dailey in the final yards to win the Bob Day Girls Sweepstakes race on Saturday night in the 44th Woodbridge Cross Country Classic at Great Park in Irvine.
Alder won by 1.6 seconds in 15:40 flat after placing third in 2024 in 15:28.9 — seven-tenths of a second behind runner-up Dailey. Jaelyn Williams of Chula Vista Eastlake was third in 15:52 and taking fourth individually in 15:54.1 was Irvine’s Summer Wilson.
“My coach told me I could go 15:39 and I know I’m a lot better than I performed today,” said Wilson, a senior committed to Duke. “I found myself leading in the first two miles but my strength is my kick, so in retrospect it would’ve been smarter to stay back.”
Wilson’s former school JSerra (she transferred before her junior year) won the team title with 196 points.
Corona Santiago’s Rylee Blade, now a freshman at Florida State, set the meet record of 15:20.3 last fall. Her former Sharks teammate, Arkansas-bound senior Braelyn Combe, who won the state 1,600-meter title in the spring was seventh Saturday in 16:11.1.
Herriman (Utah) senior Jackson Spencer won the Doug Speck Boys Sweepstakes in 13:42.1, well off the meet record of 13:30.3 set a year ago on the same course by Owen Powell of Mercer Island (Wash.). Spencer, who was sixth in last year’s sweepstakes race, led the Mustangs to their fourth straight team championship.
Oak Park (203) won the Gold Varsity A boys race. Canyon Country Canyon senior Owen Souther was second individually in 14:41.8. Norwalk senior Leo Diaz won the Gold Varsity B race in 14:50.3 and El Toro was second in the team standings with 228 points.
Joaquim Sandoval, a junior from Warren, was first in the Blue Varsity B boys race in 14:28.6. “I’m feeling pretty good,” he said afterward.
Oaks Christian senior Delaney Napierala ran a personal-best 17:01.6 to outlast Jenna Murray of Moorpark (17:03.8) and win the Gold Varsity A girls race. In the Gold Varsity B race, Westlake freshman Sabina Cruz edged Autumn Banks of Tahoe-Truckee by one second in 16:50.7 while pacing the Warriors to the team title.
TOKYO — When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone powered though the final curve of the 400-meter final at world championships, she glanced to her right and saw something that hadn’t been there in a while.
Another runner.
She had a race on her hands.
The best way to explain how McLaughlin-Levrone became the first woman in nearly 40 years to crack the all-but-unscalable 48-second mark in the 400 is that the opponent she beat Thursday night on a rain-glistened track in Tokyo, Marileidy Paulino, broke 48 seconds, too.
“You don’t run something like that without amazing women pushing you to it,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.
The final numbers in this one: McLaughlin-Levrone 47.78 seconds. Paulino 47.98.
They are the second and third fastest times in history, short only of the 47.60 by East Germany’s Marita Koch, set Oct. 6, 1985 — one of the last vestiges from an Eastern Bloc doping system that was exposed years after it ended, but too late for the records to be stripped from the books.
McLaughlin-Levrone, who stepped away from hurdles to see what she might be able to do in the 400 flat, said she was every bit as focused on winning the title in a new event as going after a record that had always been thought unapproachable.
American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone reacts after winning gold medal in the women’s 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Thursday.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
And Paulino, the reigning Olympic and world champion in this event, wasn’t just going to give it away.
This was an even race, the likes of which McLaughlin-Levrone hadn’t been part of in at least three years in the hurdles, as the runners rounded the stretch. McLaughlin-Levrone opened a gap of about four body lengths with 30 meters left, but Paulino was actually gaining ground when they both lunged into the finish line.
“At the end of the day, this wasn’t my title to hold onto, it was mine to gain,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “Bobby uses boxing terms all the time. He said, ’You’ve got to go out there and take the belt. It’s not yours. You’ve got to go earn it.’”
Bobby is Bobby Kersee, the wizardly coach who helped transform McLaughlin-Levrone into the greatest female hurdler ever and might be doing the same in the 400. Brutal training sessions with one-time UCLA quarter-miler Willington Wright were part of the regimen.
“I felt that somebody was going to have to run 47-something to win this,” Kersee told The Associated Press. “She trained for it. She took on the challenge, took on the risk. She’s just an amazing athlete that I can have no complaints about.”
As the times came up on the scoreboard, the crowd roared. The enormity of the moment wasn’t lost on anyone.
Nobody had come within a half-second of Koch’s mark until this race. Third-place finisher Salwa Eid Nasar clocked 48.19, a time that would have won the last two world championships.
“It’s just amazing what the 400 has become the last couple years,” said Britain’s Amber Anning, who finished fifth in 49.36. “I love it, it makes me want to step up my game. To see it done, it gives hope to us that anything’s possible in the 4.”
Paulino, meanwhile, was more focused on her unique place in history than not winning the race.
“I’m thankful for having the opportunity to break 48,” she said. “I still feel like a winner. I’ve spent five years every day training for this.”
McLaughlin-Levrone took up the 400 flat in 2023, but injuries derailed her run at a world championship that year. She focused on hurdles last year for her second Olympic gold medal in the event, then came back to the flat for 2025.
When she ran 48.29 in the semifinal, she broke a 19-year-old American record and said she still felt she had “something left in the tank.”
Then, with a push from Paulino, she let it loose.
“Today was a really great race for track and field, and I’m grateful to put myself in position to bring an exciting event to our sport,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.
It’s still an open question as to whether she will stick around in this race long enough to go after Koch’s record, or return to the hurdles, where the number “50” hangs out there much like “48” did in the race she won Thursday night.
Nobody had thought much about 50 seconds in hurdles until McLaughlin-Levrone started breaking the record in that event on a semi-regular basis. Four years ago at the Olympics, she lowered it to 51.46 in the empty stadium in Tokyo.
American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone crosses the finish line, winning the women’s 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Thursday.
(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
She broke it three more times and then, in Paris last year, took it down by another .28 seconds to 50.37.
Over time, those races became mere matters of McLaughlin-Levrone against the clock.
This time, something different — a bona fide showdown for the gold medal that knocked down a once-unthinkable barrier in racing.
Whatever McLaughlin-Levrone’s next move is, it’s bound to be fast.
“I think, now, 47 tells her that she can break 50,” Kersee said. “Knowing her, she’s probably going back to the hurdles and try to take what she learned now in the quarter(-mile) and try to execute a plan to run 49.99 or better.”
There were two questions the 77th Emmy Awards, held Sunday night at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, had to answer, other than who would win what. (It’s an honor just to be nominated.)
One was how the show, a glittery evening devoted to the most popular of popular arts, would play against a world gone mad. The other, not distinct from the first, was how first-time host Nate Bargatze would do.
The ceremony is hosted by a round robin of the major networks, and this year the honor fell to CBS, whose corporate overlord, Paramount, has come to represent capitulation to the Trump administration, settling a baseless lawsuit in what is widely viewed as a payoff to grease the wheels of its merger with Skydance and promising to eliminate its DEI protocols. Executive interference in the news department amid an apparent rightward turn has led to the resignations of “60 Minutes” producer Bill Owens and CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon. And there’s the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” the timing of which some have found suspicious.
But if your goal was to avoid insulted celebrities, social media outrage or petulant notes from the White House, you could have done no better than to hire Bargatze, a clean, calm, classical, noncontroversial, nonpolitical, very funny, very successful comedian. Bargatze, who has been in comedy since 2002, saw his career explode over the last few years; his appeal is not so much mainstream, which is to say soft-edged, as it is broad — something for everybody.
The show opened quite brilliantly — perhaps confusingly, if you had missed Bargatze’s “Washington’s Dream” sketches on “Saturday Night Live” on which the routine was closely modeled, including the presence of Mikey Day, Bowen Yang and James Austin Johnson — with the host as Philo T. Farnsworth, “the inventor of television,” foreseeing the medium’s less than sensible future. First presenter Stephen Colbert followed immediately to a standing ovation and chants of his name. “While I have your attention, is anyone hiring? I have 200 very qualified candidates with me tonight who will be available in June.”
Emmys host Nate Bargatze, right, and Bowen Yang appear in an opening sketch at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Then the host introduced his much publicized, one would say quintessentially Bargatzean, gimmick. To keep acceptance speeches short, he would donate $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America; $1,000 per second would be deducted for anyone going over the allotted 45 seconds. Money would be added to the pot for anyone running short. (J.B. Smoove, a former Boys Club member, was a sort of co-sponsor, in the audience with a young boy and girl.) This efficiency made professional sense, though it had the potential to put a lid on what is usually the most interesting, unruly, moving, unpredictable part of the show. (If anyone had thought for a second, it also spelled trouble: Try talking for what you imagine is 45 seconds. You will be wrong.)
As it happened, the state of the world was addressed, sidelong and directly. Presenter Julianne Nicholson said of living in a post-apocalyptic bunker in “Paradise,” “compared to headlines that’s positively feel-good TV.” Jeff Hiller, winning supporting actor in a comedy series for “Somebody Somewhere,” thanked the Duplass brothers “for writing a show of connection and love in this time when compassion is seen as a weakness.” “Last Week Tonight” senior writer Daniel O’Brien dedicated their second award to “all writers of political comedy while that is still a type of show that is allowed to exist.” And in a generational echo of their “Hacks” characters, fourth-time winner Jean Smart (who has won seven Emmys overall) ended her acceptance speech saying, “Let’s be good to each other, just be good to each other,” while co-star and first-time winner Hannah Einbinder, finished with, “I just want to say: Go Birds, f— ICE, and free Palestine.” Going way over the 45-second limit, she promised to pay the difference on the tote board.
Hannah Einbinder accepts the award for supporting actress in a comedy series for “Hacks” during the show at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
After Einbeinder, the most direct acknowledgment of current bad events came from Academy Chair and CEO Cris Abrego, speaking of the Governors Award given the week before to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting. In a highly quotable speech, he noted how “Congress had voted to defund it and silence yet another cultural institution.” He continued, “In a time when division dominates the headlines, storytelling still has the power to unite us … In times of cultural regression [it reminds] us what’s at stake and what can still be achieved,” and he rattled off a number of much loved shows that challenged the status quo. “In a moment like this, neutrality is not enough. … Culture does not come from the top down, it rises from the bottom up. … Let’s make sure that culture is not a platform for the privileged but a public good for all.” The stars in the audience nodded approvingly.
There were also some pure delights among the bedrock of desultory scripted banter and unimpressive tributes to old shows (“Law & Order: SUV,” “The Golden Girls”). Reunited “Everybody Loves Raymond” co-stars Ray Romano and Brad Garrett, presenting the award for comedy series, recaptured the essence of their television brotherhood. Jennifer Coolidge, presenting the award for lead supporting actress in a comedy, sounded like she’d walked in from a Christopher Guest film. “Between us, I was actually hoping to be nominated for you tonight for my work on this season of ‘The Pitt.’ I played a horny grandmother having a colonoscopy during a power outage and I had to play a lot of levels. I even had to do my own prep.” She went on, after a while, to tell the nominees that winning “is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s really not… I thought I had gotten really close with my fellow nominees especially after I won but I’m pretty sure they removed me from the group chat.”
The inevitable losses incurred by Bargatze’s charity gimmick provided a sort of running joke at the host’s expense, which he managed quite well, while some winners made a game of trying to put money back on the board. But the longer it went on, the more pressure it put on the winners to be short. Eventually, the show found its natural level, as winners said what they needed to, or much of it, and the count dropped tens of thousands of dollars past zero. For everyone but the bean counters, the least important thing about an awards show is it running on time; in any case, it was only a few minutes over.
And, as one might have expected, Bargatze — who made it through the three hours in a way that served the event and his own down-home ethos — paid the originally promised $100,000 and added a $250,000 tip.
SANTA CLARA — Denis Bouanga finished with a hat trick after Son Heung-min scored in the first minute and LAFC beat the San José Earthquakes 4-2 on Saturday night at Levi Stadium.
Son gave LAFC (12-7-8) the lead when he used passes from rookie Artem Smolyakov and Mark Delgado to score 54 seconds into the match. It was Son’s second goal in five matches since transferring from Tottenham Hotspur. He ties for the third fastest goal in club history. Smolyakov’s assist was his first in his 19th appearance and Delgado’s was his career-high eighth.
Bouanga took over from there — scoring in the ninth, 12th and 87th minutes for his third career three-goal effort in regular-season play. Bouanga, who won the Golden Boot Award in 2023, has 18 goals on the season — three behind league leader Sam Surridge of Nashville SC.
Preston Judd scored in the 18th minute for the Earthquakes, whose final tally came on an own goal by LAFC defender Sergi Palencia in the 90th minute. Judd’s netter was his career-best seventh. Palencia had assists on two of Bouanga’s goals.
Hugo Lloris saved three shots for LAFC (12-7-8).
Daniel De Sousa Britto totaled two saves for the Earthquakes (9-13-8).
LAFC pulls one point behind the fourth-place Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference with the top four seeds earning home-field advantage in the best-of-three first round.
LAFC travels to play Real Salt Lake on Wednesday. The Earthquakes host St. Louis City on Saturday.
New York — It was a quiet, while not quite silent, morning for the“Table of Silence Project” Thursday, on the plaza of Lincoln Center and in front of David Geffen Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic. Commemorating the 24th anniversary of 9/11, white-robed members of the Buglisi Dance Theatre circled the plaza, a few with megaphones for chants, an occasional violin joining in, mellowing even the sounds of background traffic roaring down busy Broadway.
On this solemn but beautiful New York day and after more than two years in waiting, Gustavo Dudamel took charge, at least in practice, of the New York Philharmonic. Six decades ago, during the Leonard Bernstein era, America’s oldest and most celebrated orchestra had the city’s (and much of the nation’s) full attention in a way it hasn’t since. Could that happen again?
When Dudamelannounced in early February 2023 that he would leave the Los Angeles Philharmonic to become music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic in the fall of 2026, he became instant celebrity news here. A New York Philharmonic player gives Dudamel a cheesecake, and the New York Times writes a story.
This season Dudamel gains his first official title: music and artistic director designate. But the orchestra is basically his baby now. His photo is plastered on the orchestra’s posters and publicity. And on Thursday night, Dudamel, for the first time, opened the New York Philharmonic’s new season. After two weeks this month, he will have a sizable presence later winter and in spring, while also closing out his last L.A. Phil season with major programs.
Dudamel arrived in New York on Tuesday, having spent two weeks conducting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela, his homeland orchestra, to open Coldplay’s concerts at Glastonbury in England, just as the newly named U.S. Department of War immediately began to live up to its name by sending warships to Dudamel’s native Venezuela and threatening regime change.
But here in New York, Dudamel paid tribute to a new city in his life with Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2. In 1945, Bartók, having fled Nazi-invaded Hungary, wrote his final piano concerto in a New York apartment on 57th Street, a block west of Carnegie Hall. Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic premiere of Ives’ Second — the first great American symphony — at Carnegie, then the New York Philharmonic’s home, six years later.
Still, the first orchestral sounds that emanated from the Dudamel designated directorship turned out to be barely heard, while not silent, percussion stirrings. Following a season-opening tradition he began when he became music director of the L.A. Phil, Dudamel began the program with a world premiere.
For this, he directed New Yorkers’ attention westward. In “of light and stone,” Leilehua Lanzilotti sets the sonic stage for an evocation of Hawaii, where she resides, before statehood. She makes references to King Kalakaua, Queen Lili’uokalani and other Hawaiian nobility few in a mainland audience are likely to know. There are fragments of Hawaiian song, a dance of the wind.
Nothing settles in this four-part, 15-minute song of a land, a score that falls somewhere between history lesson and color-field sonic landscape. A whisp of a canorous clarinet or a rumbling rattle is all it takes for a kind of instant transport to a far-off time and place. New York Philharmonic audiences can be cool, but they’ve demonstratively taken to Dudamel at Geffen, and an ethereal performance appeared to open ears.
The young Korean pianist, Yunchan Lim, who became instantly hot after winning the Van Cliburn competition three years ago, was soloist in Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto. Lim will be a soloist with Dudamel and the L.A. Phil this season as well as give a solo recital in Walt Disney Concert Hall. He is an exceptional pianist. He too opens ears and can transport a listener to a distant land. And Lim’s case is far more distant or far less knowable than Hawaii.
Lim’s Bartók exists in a world of the pianist’s own. Every phrase is for him an oddity, as if he had found some weird object in an imaginary world and was figuring out what he might do with it. His tools were rhythm, accents and dynamics, each a quirky new toy. The New York Philharmonic produced beauty and excitement, but Lim went his own way that wasn’t quite imaginative enough to improve on Bartók. Here we go again with an exceptional young soloist being pushed into the limelight too soon.
The New York Philharmonic owns Ives’ Second. Written in the first decade of the 20th century, the symphony offered a whole new way of thinking about American and European music and it sat dormant for some four decades before Bernstein premiered it. But that 1951 performance had a huge effect on how to transform folk music, popular music, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and what-not, twisted, transformed and tacked together. Bernstein later recorded it twice with the New York Philharmonic. The first time full of beans that revived it for good. The second time in 1987 as a glorious spiritual exercise. Hearing that performance live left me in a state of rapture.
Dudamel has made a specialty of the symphony himself, conducting it with the Vienna Philharmonic, recording it with the L.A. Phil and now going to the source. His performance Thursday night did not try to follow in Bernstein’s footsteps or necessarily Dudamel’s own. The performance flowed with exquisite lyricism and mustered a thrilling finale.
In Vienna, Dudamel was more robust. At Disney, Dudamel found exceptional expression in every little detail. That was the Dudamel that we last saw at the Hollywood Bowl this summer when he conducted Mahler’s First more vividly than ever.
That is not, quite yet, the Dudamel for New York. Here his Ives seemed to be laying the groundwork, letting his new orchestra show him what it can do before he begins, as he surely will, digging deeper.
It took a once controversial effort for Bernstein to transform an uptight virtuosic New York Philharmonic into a tight but electric one. Now it’s Dudamel’s turn for transmogrification, and he’s made a promising beginning.
Ryan Salcedo scored his fifth touchdown of the night on a 79-yard run up the right sideline with 1:07 to play, lifting visiting Bishop Amat to a 42-38 victory in a wild shootout with Valencia, spoiling a night in which the Vikings got a 50-yard field goal from Matteo Petroski.
Valencia had a final chance to win the game, driving inside the Bishop Amat 15-yard line with nine seconds to play. But Viking quarterback Brady Bretthauer overthrew a wide-open Hudson Sanders in the end zone then had his third-down pass batted down as time expired.
Salcedo scored on an eight-run carry in the first half but went wild in the second, rushing for more than 170 yards and scoring on carries of 48, 11, 3 and 79 yards. Each touchdown either tied the score or put the Bishop Amat (2-1) ahead.
Bishop Amat’s only other touchdown came on Kanan Khansarinia’s 95-yard kickoff return just before halftime. But Khansarinia sustained an injury early in the third quarter and left the stadium on a crutches, a brace on his knee left.
Bretthauer passed for more than 300 yards and three touchdowns for Valencia (2-1), hitting Caleb Larson and Brian Bonner on touchdown strikes of 21 and 85 yards in the first half and Anthony Vernon on a 23-yard score with 67 seconds to play, giving the Vikings their final lead of the night. Bonner and Bretthauer also had rushing touchdowns,
On defense Elias Holloway had a big night with a fumble recovery and an interception for Valencia.
Each team attempted just one punt with Bishop Amat’s Mac Naughtin blocking Valencia’s try with less than four minutes to play, setting up the Lancers’ penultimate touchdown.
The San Diego Padres’ performance on Saturday could probably be put in a tutorial video.
Suggested title: How NOT to play a baseball game.
On a night the surging Padres were trying to bounce back from the Dodgers’ opening win in this weekend’s pivotal three-game series, one that tied the two Southern California rivals atop the National League West standings, the club instead put on an exhibition of poor, sloppy and outright comical execution.
While the once-slumping Dodgers have raised their level of play the last two nights, the Padres have made mistakes even Little League coaches would be reprimanding.
Except in their case, even the coaching appeared to be part of the problem.
In the Dodgers’ 6-0 win — a victory that restored their solo lead in the division, and clinched their head-to-head season series against the Padres in case of a tiebreaker at the end of the year — San Diego did all it could to give the game away from the start.
In the top of the first, three of the Padres’ first four batters recorded a hit against Blake Snell, the ex-Padre left-hander making his first start against the team since leaving in free agency at the end of 2023. But twice, Dodgers catcher Will Smith caught a runner trying to steal second, gunning down Fernando Tatis Jr. after his leadoff single before getting Manny Machado on the back end of an attempted double-steal to retire the side.
“We had a plan,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “And they made some plays.”
Lo and behold, the plan backfired again in the second, with Smith throwing out yet another runner, Xander Bogaerts, with yet another strike to second.
“Through two innings,” Snell joked, “he had three outs and I had three outs.”
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell delivers against the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
It was the Dodgers’ first game with three caught stealings since 2021, and it made Smith the first Dodgers catcher with three individually since Russell Martin in 2010.
“Obviously we feel that Will is the best catcher in baseball in totality,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Tonight, he showed it with his arm.”
And, just as importantly, Roberts quickly added: “Essentially, they played 24 outs.”
Somehow, the Padres’ pitching and defense found a way to be even worse.
Starting pitcher Dylan Cease began his outing with three-straight walks in the bottom of the first, spraying the ball around the plate while visibly frustrated.
After a one-out sacrifice fly from Teoscar Hernández, Cease reloaded the bases with another free pass to Andy Pages, and followed that with a hanging curveball to Michael Conforto in a 3-and-0 count that had run full. Conforto was ready for it, ripping a two-run single into right. Seven batters in, the Dodgers had a 3-0 lead.
“Definitely you don’t want to help him out in that situation,” Conforto said. “But he fell behind 3-0, and came back into the zone, and showed that he was going to throw strikes. He wasn’t going to put me on. So, being ready to hit 3-1, and then being ready to hit 3-2, was obviously the plan.”
Dodgers second base Miguel Rojas tags out San Diego Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts on a stolen-base attempt in the second inning. Catcher Will Smith threw out three Padres baserunners Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Walks continued to abound in the second, with Cease putting Shohei Ohtani and Smith aboard to create more traffic. This time, the right-hander had appeared to work his way out of it, after Freddie Freeman hit a deep fly ball that died at the warning track in right-center. But on this night, even routine outs were no sure thing.
Sensing Tatis converging from right field, center fielder Jackson Merrill briefly hesitated while pursuing the drive, before awkwardly reaching for it with an underhanded attempt. Predictably, he couldn’t hold on, the ball hitting the heel of his mitt before falling to the ground for a two-run error.
The Dodgers, who went on to get six shutout innings from Snell and a second home run in as many nights from Hernández, would never be threatened again.
“It’s certainly good to be on the other side of things,” Roberts said, after his club had for so long had been the one shooting itself in the foot. “We’ve caught some breaks … but for us to take advantage of them is huge.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani scores on a sacrifice fly in the first inning Saturday against the Padres.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
To recap the first two innings one more time:
The Dodgers (70-53) had just one hit, and saw their starting pitcher retire only one of the first five batters he faced — but drew six walks, were gifted a dropped ball and somehow led 5-0.
The Padres (69-54) had four hits — but apparently forgot how to throw up a stop sign, committed the costliest of imaginable errors defensively, and watched their starting pitcher throw 31 balls to only 27 strikes.
That, kids, is decidedly not how it’s done.
“It just got out of hand a little early,” Bogaerts said. “Obviously a little, couple of mistakes.”
Not that the Dodgers seemed all too much to mind.
Over the last couple months, as Roberts eluded to, they had been the team on the wrong end of sloppy fundamentals. What was once a nine-game division lead evaporated in the space of six weeks, thanks to un-clutch offense, unreliable relief pitching and one maddening close loss after another.
But in Friday’s series opener, they had finally played clean baseball, and even more importantly, grinded out a one-run win.
“If you win the close games, that’s how you build,” Freeman theorized last week. “Then you’ll score nine, 10 runs. Then you’ll start putting some things together. But just need to find a way to win those close ones.”
So far in this series, that prediction has come true.
Not that he, or anyone else with the Dodgers, could have expected the Padres to offer so much self-destructive help.
“I’m just happy that we’re playing better baseball,” Roberts said. “We’re playing clean baseball. We’re minimizing the walks, taking walks. Not making outs on the bases, and converting outs when we need to. When you have the talent that we do, you just gotta kind of play good baseball. … So this is a good time to go for the jugular [with a potential series sweep Sunday].”
Less than 10 days ago, the Seattle Storm and the Sparks battled deep into a second overtime — the first of the 2025 WNBA season — wringing every drop of drama out of Climate Pledge Arena. On Sunday night, the same stakes were at play as the teams tried to strengthen their playoff chances.
The intensity didn’t let up till the final horn. With 5.6 seconds left, Dearica Hamby roared into the paint and scored on a driving layup to put the Sparks ahead for good. After the Storm missed their final chance to win, pandemonium spilled onto the floor — Sparks players leaping into one another’s arms, fans hollering over the hardwood, chanting “Hamby” in celebration of the Sparks’ 94-91 victory.
In addition to Hamby’s last-minute heroics, Kelsey Plum proved vital to helping the Sparks win for the ninth time in 11 games. She finished with 20 points, seven assists and six rebounds.
Sparks coach Lynne Roberts has painted Plum as a shape-shifter — able to twist her game into whatever the game demands.
“That’s what your best players should do — get everybody else involved and make sure we’re flowing,” Roberts said before the game, “and then when they need you, you step up. She’s done a tremendous job.”
Trailing the Storm (16-16) by 17 in the first quarter, Plum, who still hadn’t scored yet, tore into a one-on-five fast break, freezing the defense with a hesitation at the arc and a glide into the basket for an and-1.
Seconds later, Plum created another opportunity off an extended right elbow, drilling a three-pointer in Erica Wheeler’s face.
Sparks guard Kelsey Plum, right, drives against Seattle guard Brittney Sykes in the fourth quarter Sunday.
(Luke Hales / Getty Images)
It was the spurt of momentum the Sparks (15-16) needed to overcome a sputtering start.
Playing the entire first half, Plum went from the table-setter to shot-maker in the second quarter — springing Rae Burrell for a corner three before splashing a triple to tie the score 29-29 early in the second quarter.
Azurá Stevens and Cameron Brink were strong in the key early, but the Sparks clanked jumpers, dribbled into traffic and watched offensive possessions die on the rim in addition to committing eight first-quarter turnovers. So Roberts rolled the dice on a smaller look — swapping her paint patrol of Stevens and Brink for guards Julie Vanloo and Burrell.
Plum and Julie Allemand kept the smaller unit in constant motion, whipping passes from wing to wing and slicing open lanes for Burrell and Rickea Jackson, while Vanloo, Allemand and Plum cashed in from beyond the arc. Roberts rode that group into the second quarter, and they eventually whittled the deficit.
When the final buzzer faded, players were still grinning through hugs, and the crowd’s enthusiasm continued — excitement for a Sparks team that had yanked itself out of the fire.
BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. — Denis Bouanga scored on a penalty kick in the 81st minute to rally LAFC to a 2-2 draw with the Chicago Fire at SeatGeek Stadium on Saturday night.
Bouanga notched his 14th goal of the season for LAFC (10-6-7) after subbing in for Mathieu Choinière in the 61st minute. The PK was awarded after Son Heung-min — in his debut with the club — was fouled by defender Carlos Terán.
Chicago (10-9-6) grabbed a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute on Terán’s first goal this season. Philip Zinckernagel collected an assist on the score. Terán has one goal in five straight seasons.
LAFC pulled even in the 19th minute on a goal by defender Ryan Hollingshead — his second. Nineteen-year-old midfielder David Martínez picked up his first assist this season after notching two in 17 appearances last year.
The Fire took a 2-1 lead in the 70th minute on a goal by Jonathan Bamba — his fourth in his first season in the league. Zinckernagel snagged another assist — his 13th — and Brian Gutiérrez earned his second.
It was the first of three straight home matches in Bridgeview for the Fire whose home these days is Soldier Field. Chicago is 102-55-72 in regular-season play at SeatGeek.
Chris Brady saved four shots for Chicago.
Hugo Lloris totaled one save for LAFC.
Chicago began the day in possession of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference as it tries to make the postseason for the first time since 2017.
LAFC entered the day sixth in the Western Conference, but the club has at least two matches in hand on all five teams above it.
EUGENE, Ore. — Track turned into a contact sport Sunday when Kenny Bednarek shoved Noah Lyles after Lyles beat him to the finish line in the 200-meter final at U.S. championships.
Lyles reeled in Bednarek in the homestretch to win in 19.63 seconds.
As he was crossing the finish line, Lyles turned to Bednarek in the lane next to him and started jawing at him. A few steps after they crossed, Bednarek reached out and gave Lyles a two-handed shove.
Lyles turned around, backpedaled and reached his arms out, then kept jawing at Bednarek. Their argument continued into the start of the NBC interview.
“I tell ya, if you’ve got a problem, I expect a call,” Bednarek said.
Asked by the network’s Lewis Johnson what happened, Bednarek said: “I’m not going to say it out here, but we got something to do and talk about.”
The next chapter figures to play out Sept. 19 in Japan, where they’ll be among the favorites in the 200-meter final. Lyles is trying to match Usain Bolt with four straight world titles in his best race.
Lyles had a slow start to a season that has featured Bednarek opening as the dominant sprinter of 2025. Bednarek won the 100 meters Friday and also beat Lyles at the Olympics last year, finishing second in a race in which Lyles won bronze while suffering with COVID-19.
“It was a pretty difficult championship,” Lyles said. “I’ve been tired. It’s been rough. Coming out here when you’re not 100% and being able to say, ‘I still got to give my all no matter what happens.’ That’s tough. That’s tough.”
Noah Lyles, second left, wins the men’s 200-meter final at the U.S. championships on Sunday.
(Abbie Parr / Associated Press)
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden won the 200 in a personal-best time of 21.84 seconds, while Olympic champion Gabby Thomas had to wait a few anxious moments to see if she earned a spot on the world team. She did as her named popped up in third place.
It was a winning weekend for Jefferson-Wooden, who also captured the 100 on Friday. She will be joined in the 100 at worlds by Sha’Carri Richardson, who has an automatic spot as the defending champion. Richardson didn’t advance to the final in the 200.
The women’s 400 hurdles was wide open with Olympic champion and world-record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone electing to focus on the open 400 (she won the event Saturday ). Dalilah Muhammad, 35, took control and cruised to the win.
One of the afternoon’s most exciting finishes was in the men’s 800 meters, where 2019 world champion Donavan Brazier used a strong kick to hold off 16-year-old Cooper Lutkenhaus and Bryce Hoppel.
INDIANAPOLIS — Bubba Wallace became the first Black driver to win a major race on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval, surviving a late rain delay, two overtimes, concerns over running out of fuel and a hard-charging Kyle Larson on Sunday in the Brickyard 400.
The third NASCAR Cup victory of Wallace’s career was also his most significant — his first win at one of the series’ four crown jewel races.
It snapped a 100-race winless streak that dated to 2022 at Kansas. He also won at Talladega in 2021, but this milestone victory also gave him a playoff spot. No Black driver has won the Indianapolis 500, and Formula 1 raced on the track’s road course.
“Unbelievable,” Wallace shouted on his radio after crossing the yard of bricks.
And while the final gap was 0.222 seconds, he didn’t reach victory lane without some consternation.
Larson trailed by 5.057 seconds with 14 laps to go but the gap was down to about three seconds with six remaining when the yellow flag came out because of rain. The cars rolled to a stop on pit lane with four to go, giving Wallace about 20 additional minutes to think and rethink his restart strategy.
But after beating Larson through the second turn, a crash behind the leaders forced a second overtime, extending the race even more laps as Wallace’s team thought he might run out of gas.
Bubba Wallace celebrates after winning the Brickyard 400 on Sunday.
(Darron Cummings / Associated Press)
Wallace risked everything by staying on the track then beat the defending race winner off the restart again to prevent Larson from becoming the fourth back-to-back winner of the Brickyard.
It also alleviated the frustration Wallace felt Saturday when he spent most of the qualifying session on the provisional pole only to see Chase Briscoe surpass with one of the last runs in the session.
He made sure there was no repeat Sunday, giving an added boost to the 23XI Racing co-owned by basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and last week’s race winner, Denny Hamlin, as it continues to battle NASCAR in court over its charter status.
The race inside the race — the In-Season Challenge — went to Ty Gibbs, who had a better car than Ty Dillon in qualifying and on race day. Gibbs finished 21st to win the inaugural March Madness-like single-elimination tournament and collect the $1 million prize.
Dillon, a surprise championship round entrant after making the field as the 32nd and final driver, finished 28th.
Three-time series champ Joey Logano appeared to have the edge with 26 laps to go until his right rear tire went flat. Though he was able to drive it into pit lane for a tire change, he lost power and struggled to get back on the track, knocking him out of contention.
Ryan Blaney held off Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin to win the second stage, giving Blaney his fifth stage win of the year. Pole winner Chase Briscoe won the first stage, finishing ahead of Bubba Wallace and William Byron. It was Briscoe’s second stage win of the season, his first since Pocono.
Bubba Wallace kisses the Brickyard 400 trophy after winning Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
NEW YORK — Rickea Jackson‘s layup at the buzzer lifted the Sparks to a 101-99 win over the New York Liberty on Saturday night.
The Liberty also lost star Breanna Stewart to a lower leg injury three minutes into the game. Stewart had three points and a rebound before she left and went to the locker room. New York was playing the second game on back-to-back nights. The Liberty rallied to beat Phoenix on Friday night.
Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 30 points, tied the score at 99 with an elbow jumper with 23.1 seconds left. Los Angeles worked the clock down before Stephanie Talbot fouled Kelsey Plum with 5.9 seconds left. The Liberty still had a foul to give, so the Sparks got the ball on the side.
After a timeout, Jackson got the ball in the post and threw a shot up over her head just before time expired. She finished with 24 points and Plum added 20 for the Sparks, who have won five straight.
The Liberty (17-7), who had a five-game winning streak stopped, were down 15 points early in the third quarter before rallying. Ionescu’s three-point play with 2:18 left in the game tied it at 95. After the teams exchanged baskets, Azurá Stevens hit a layup with 1:03 left to give the Sparks a 99-97 advantage.
Los Angeles (11-14) led by 15 early in the third quarter before New York rallied. The Liberty got to 65-61 and then Ionescu hit a three-pointer that was waved off because off an illegal screen on Jonquel Jones. Ionescu vehemently disagreed with the call, telling the official to “tech me.” The referee obliged, giving the star guard a technical foul.
Sparks forward Azurá Stevens drives down the lane past Liberty forward Leonie Fiebich during their game Saturday.
(Catalina Fragoso / NBAE via Getty Images)
New York trailed 74-69 heading into the fourth quarter before coming back behind Natasha Cloud and Ionescu. Cloud had 10 of her 22 points in the final 10 minutes.
Los Angeles came out hot, making 13 of its 19 shots in the first quarter, including seven three-pointers. Jackson had 17 points in the opening quarter as the Sparks led 35-20. The team kept it going in the second quarter and was up 58-45 at the half, making 10 of its 18 shots from behind the arc.
