COLLEGES
Maryland Coach Brenda Frese agreed to a contract extension that could keep her at the school through 2027-28. Maryland Athletic Director Damon Evans announced the deal with The Associated Press women’s basketball coach of the year on Tuesday.
Frese’s contract now runs at least through the 2026-27 season. If she is still with the Terrapins in May 2023, an additional year would be added to the agreement.
Frese led Maryland to the 2006 NCAA championship and has been to the tournament in 17 of her 19 years as its coach. Maryland lost five starters from last year’s Big Ten championship team, but still went 26-3 and won the conference for the sixth time in its seven years in the league in 2021. The Terrapins reached the Sweet 16 at the NCAAs.
Frese is the winningest coach in Maryland women’s basketball history, surpassing 500 victories this season, and is 512-131 at the school, a .796 winning percentage. She is 569-161 overall as a college head coach, including previous stints at Minnesota and Ball State.
GOLF
LPGA: The LPGA Tour chose Mollie Marcoux Samaan, Princeton’s athletic director, as its commissioner Tuesday, the second woman to lead the tour since its formation in 1950.
Marcoux Samaan succeeds Mike Whan, who announced in January he was resigning and then took over as CEO of the U.S. Golf Association. She inherits a tour that made it through the COVID-19 pandemic and emerged with a 34-event schedule with record prize money approaching $80 million.
The LPGA said she would spend the coming months transitioning from Princeton to the LPGA.
“The LPGA Commissioner role is one of the best jobs in sports today and the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said in a statement. “My mission and the LPGA’s mission are fully aligned: providing women and girls the opportunity to achieve their dreams through golf.”
The first woman to lead the LPGA was Carolyn Bivens, hired in 2005 with a bullish marketing plan to promote the players. But she alienated sponsors and media at a time when the tour was struggling to get through the recession. She was ousted in 2009 when the LPGA’s schedule had 24 tournaments,10 of them held outside the U.S. Marcoux Samaan is the ninth commissioner of the LPGA Tour.
HOCKEY
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Los Angeles Kings goaltender Cal Petersen made 18 saves and the United States beat Kazakhstan 3-0 in Riga, Latvia, to improve to 2-1 at the IIHF world championship. Kings teammate Trevor Moore, defenseman Adam Clendening and forward Jack Drury scored for the U.S., which set a team world championship record for shots in a period with 25 in the first and finished with 52.
“We knew Kazakhstan would be a tight defensive team, and I’m proud of the way our guys were able to adjust our structure and come out with the win,” Coach Jack Capuano said. “This is a fun group to be around. A lot of them are playing their first time internationally and their pride and work ethic shows.”
Kazakhstan lost for the first time in the tournament after winning its first two group-play games in overtime. Goaltender Nikita Boyarkin finished with 49 saves.
Denmark needed an overtime goal from Markus Lauridsen to beat Great Britain 3-2 in overtime. Julian Jakobsen and Nicklas Jensen also scored for the Danes.
Kings forward Adrian Kempe and Buffalo Sabres forward Victor Olofsson were among Sweden’s goal scorers in a 7-0 blowout of Switzerland and Finland beat Norway 5-2.
SOCCER
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: With only four days to go before the Champions League final in Portugal, UEFA put 1,700 tickets on sale Tuesday for fans worldwide for the game between Manchester City and Chelsea. UEFA said the tickets, which cost between 70 and 600 euros ($78 and $670), were being sold on its website. Buyers are limited to two tickets.
The Estádio do Dragão in Porto will be one-third full with up to 16,500 spectators for Saturday’s game. It was moved from Istanbul because of current travel limits in Turkey amid the coronavirus pandemic. Man City and Chelsea each had an allocation of 6,000 seats to sell to their fans.
UEFA gave two options for spectators to get into the stadium – a negative PCR test dating no earlier than Wednesday or a negative antigen test result from Friday or Saturday. Border controls in Portugal will also apply to countries where fans have traveled from, UEFA said.
Portugal is hosting the final instead of Istanbul for the second straight year. Last August, Bayern Munich beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in Lisbon.
BASKETBALL
WNBA: Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi is expected to miss at least four weeks because of a small fracture to her sternum.
The team said in a statement that Taurasi suffered the chest injury in a May 16 game against Connecticut but played in the next two games. A scan revealed the fracture this week.
Taurasi is averaging 15.8 points, 3.8 assists and 3.5 rebounds through four games this season. She’s just six points shy of becoming the only player in WNBA history to hit 9,000 career points.
• Tina Charles scored 30 points, Myisha Hines-Allen had 15 points and 10 rebounds and the Washington Mystics beat the host Indiana Fever 85-69.
The 32-year-old Charles, who scored 34 in a win over the New York Liberty on Friday and 31 in a loss to the Fever on Sunday, has reached the 30-point plateau in three consecutive games for the first time in her illustrious career. The eight-time All-WNBA selection and 2012 WNBA MVP is averaging a league-high 26.2 points per game.
• Tiffany Hayes scored 26 points, Courtney Williams added 18 and the Atlanta Dream beat the host Chicago Sky, 90-83.
Aari McDonald scored eight points and assisted on a basket by Monique Billings in a 10-0 run that made it 18-8 with two minutes left in the first quarter and the Dream led the rest of the way.