Bugaluu :: Sports

For the first time since 1991, the Puyallup High School boys basketball team is the West Central District champion.

The Vikings won the Class 4A District 3/4 championship on Saturday, beating Emerald Ridge 61-52. It was the fourth meeting this season between the two programs. Emerald Ridge won the two regular season meetings, but Puyallup took the league tournament championship game.

Add another postseason win for the purple and gold.

“It means a lot, but it means a lot beating that team we just played,” said senior guard Lawson Looker, a guard and also a star receiver on the football team last fall. “Beating that team feels good.”

Puyallup beat Kennedy Catholic in the opening round, Kentridge in the quarterfinals, hammered top-seeded Auburn in the semifinals and then beat Emerald Ridge in the final.

“It feels great,” said 6-foot-7 senior forward Will Nasinec,who scored 14 points. “Just redemption from last year, we lost in the semifinals. We made it past that, we wanted one more. It’s a team we’re familiar with, it’s always a close game with them, took care of business.”

The game went back and forth until late in the fourth quarter, when Puyallup pulled away. Sophomore guard Quamari Costello scored a team-high 18 points, Nasinec had 14, junior forward Mason Sonntag added 10 and Looker scored nine.

Emerald Ridge 6-foot-7 senior forward Jaaize McGriff piled up a game-high 24 points, but no one else for Emerald Ridge scored in double digits. Puyallup’s players figured McGriff would get his points, so limiting the Jaguars’ guard was the major focus.

“You’ve really gotta be on defense the whole time,” Looker said.

Puyallup (21-6) should land in the top eight once the seeding committee releases the state tournament seeds on Sunday, which will guarantee the Vikings a trip to the Tacoma Dome, one season after Puyallup played in the Class 4A state championship game. Puyallup hasn’t lost since falling to Emerald Ridge on Jan. 27, nearly a month ago.

“After Emerald Ridge beat us at home, it was just kind of a wake-up call there,” Puyallup coach Kevin Olson said. “It’s not gonna be easy. … We decided, ‘Hey, we’re a really good team, we’re a couple plays away from winning those games and we needed to execute in the fourth quarter to win.”

Credit Nasinec, a senior, with Puyallup’s confidence in the second half of the season.

“He’s definitely taken the lead of our team and knows that we need him to be really good and to score for us down the stretch,” Olson said. “That was the big challenge coming in, is who’s gonna take those shots at the end without Drew Jones? It took a while to get that worked out. But he’s done a great job, he’s taken ownership of that.”

Emerald Ridge also advances to the state tournament regional round. In total, the 4A SPSL sends four teams through to the state tournament regional round. Olympia beat Kentridge and Sumner beat Union in loser-out, winner-to-state games on Friday.

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/puyallup-outlasts-emerald-ridge-wins-134500814.html 

MILAN (AP) — It’s the final day of the Milan Cortina Olympics, and the Games will end with one of its most anticipated events: the United States and Canada face off for the gold medal in men’s hockey. There were also events in bobsled, curling and cross-country.

The day will end with the closing ceremony, which will celebrate Italian music and dance, both classic and contemporary, headlining internationally acclaimed ballet dancer Roberto Bolle along with popular Italian singer Achille Lauro and DJ Gaby Ponte.

US goes up 1-0 early

Matt Boldy put the U.S. ahead 1-0 exactly 6 minutes into the game.

He got the puck from Auston Matthews, batted it to himself off his stick blade to maneuver between Canadian defensemen Devon Toews and Cale Makar and slid a backhand past goalie Jordan Binnington.

It was the Americans’ first shot on goal of the game.

O Canada!

Based on the sheer volume of the “Let’s go, Canada!” chants just before the puck drop, the red-wearing Canadian fans sure seem to have the U.S. supporters outnumbered inside the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena for the much-anticipated men’s hockey final.

And the boos were loud when the Americans skated onto the ice.

More evidence: There were a lot more maple-leaf flags dotting the stands than Stars and Stripes.

Earlier, the cheers were thunderous when the Canadians made their way to playing surface for pregame warmups — and again when their lineup was announced over the loudspeakers.

Sweden gets curling gold

The Swedish women beat Switzerland for curling gold to conclude the sport’s competition at the Games.

It was Sweden’s sixth gold and 13th medal overall in Olympic curling, trailing only Canada in both categories.

Mike Eruzione is in the house

Mike Eruzione is at the arena for the U.S. vs. Canada game.

Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal for the “Miracle on Ice” American team when it stunned the Soviet Union along the way to the gold medal at the Lake Placid Winter Games in 1980.

That was the last time the United States won the Olympic title in men’s hockey.

Eruzione was 25 when he scored his famous goal against the heavily favored Soviets.

No Crosby for Canada

Injured Canadian captain Sidney Crosby will miss the men’s gold medal hockey game against the United States.

The 38-year-old center is the most decorated player on Canada’s team with two Olympic gold medals — including netting an overtime winner against the U.S. at the 2010 Vancouver Games — and three Stanley Cup rings.

Crosby left Canada’s quarterfinal Wednesday night with an apparent right knee injury and did not play against Finland in the semifinals on Friday.

Connor McDavid has been wearing the captain’s “C” in Crosby’s absence.

Germany wins 4-man gold and silver to cap bobsled at the Olympics

Germany got another gold and silver to cap the bobsled competition.

Johannes Lochner won gold and Francesco Friedrich won silver in the four-man event at the Milan Cortina Games on Sunday. But Switzerland’s Michael Vogt grabbed the bronze, overtaking Adam Ammour on the fourth run and denying Germany a medal sweep.

Lochner won in what he says is his final race before retirement. Friedrich got his sixth Olympic medal: two golds in 2018, two more golds in 2022 and two silvers this year.

Lochner became the seventh pilot to sweep both men’s bobsled events in an Olympics.

Dropped call?

New Zealand freeskier Mischa Thomas dropped her phone in the middle of the halfpipe on her second run Sunday. It had to be retrieved for her. After the competition, she reported the phone is doing “great. Never been better.”

Ever have that happen before?

“First time, actually,” said Thomas, who finished eighth in an event won by Eileen Gu. “I was joking about it the other day, ‘My phone never falls out of my pocket.’”

No cross-country medal for Jessica Diggins

The American was in the race for bronze until the last kilometer of the 50 km mass start when Switzerland’s Nadja Kaelin pulled away and finished in third place.

Sweden’s Ebba Andersson won the race more than 2 minutes ahead of Norway’s Heidi Weng. Diggins finished fifth.

It was the first time at the Olympics that the women raced 50 km, just like the men. Previously, the mass start was 30 km for the women.

Italian Olympic organizers taking a victory lap

Organizers of the Milano Cortina Olympics are taking a victory lap.

Italy’s most senior Olympic official, Giovanni Malagò, got a standing ovation from his fellow International Olympic Committee members at their games-closing meeting.

“We are so overjoyed that we cannot feel how tired we are,” Malagò said a later news conference for the organizing committee that he leads.

Milan Cortina faced doubts about getting venues ready on time, if enough fans would buy tickets and if athletes could enjoy being in venues more separated by distance than at previous Winter Games.

“These have been challenging, difficult years, you all know that,” Malagò tells reporters.

The first draft of Olympic history is judging these games a success.

Eileen Gu finally got her gold

The world’s best freeskier defended her title in the halfpipe to add this gold medal to the two silvers she’d won earlier at the Olympics in slopestyle and big air.

She has now won medals in all six events she’s entered over the last two Games — three gold and three silver.

Gu, born in America but competing for China, was part of a 1-2 Chinese finish with Li Fanghui taking silver.

Britain’s Zoe Atkin won bronze.

Jessica Diggins fights for a medal in her last Olympic race

The 34-year-old American skier, who is retiring after this season, already has two individual medals, a silver and bronze, from the 2022 Winter Olympics and a team sprint gold from the 2018 Games.

She is with a group of skiers in contention for the bronze with about 7 km to go in the mass start race.

The gold and silver appear out of reach though: Race leader Ebba Andersson of Sweden is more than 5 minutes ahead of Diggins.

Norway’s Heidi Weng is a minute behind Andersson.

Canadian Olympic Committee weighs in on the curling controversy

The CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee is comparing the double-touching scandal that plagued the country’s curling team to “a foot fault in tennis or traveling in basketball.”

David Shoemaker, who is also the committee’s secretary general, was asked by The Associated Press about the controversy a day after the Canadian men swept aside the cheating allegations to claim gold.

He said it “was not cheating.”

“For me it’s like a foot fault in tennis or traveling in basketball,” Shoemaker added. “If LeBron James takes four steps on the way to the hoop no one says LeBron James is a cheater.

“I understand the furor that’s erupted on social media, but that part is not fair and hopefully we will see that go away.”

The sport was sent into turmoil during the round-robin phase when Oskar Eriksson of Sweden accused Marc Kennedy, Canada’s vice skip, of touching the rock again after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice. Kennedy responded with an outburst full of expletives.

Drink up, hockey fans!

Fans back in parts of the U.S. and Canada are being allowed to get an early start on consuming alcohol this morning.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul both announced they’ll allow alcohol to be sold as early as 6 a.m.

That will let folks “watch the U.S. go for the gold together,” Hochul posted on social media.

Ford wrote on X: “Let’s all come together, support local businesses and cheer on Team Canada!

Where the Miracle happened, they’ll watch hockey

Exactly 46 years ago, the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, New York, was the site of the greatest moment in USA Hockey history — the 4-3 win over the Soviets in the men’s semifinals of the 1980 Games.

People will watch hockey there again Sunday.

A cafe at the arena is opening early so fans can watch the U.S. men play Canada in an effort to win their first hockey gold since 1980. And bars all over the Empire State will likely follow suit.

Israel sled out of 4-man bobsled race

Israel’s first Olympic four-man bobsled team didn’t make it to the last day of the Games.

The team piloted by AJ Edelman tried to change push athletes after Saturday’s first two runs. That’s only allowed under special circumstances.

Some Israeli media outlets reported the national Olympic committee had questions about the team’s motivation for making a lineup switch. Israeli officials did not respond to messages Sunday.

Edelman acknowledged the team tried to get a replacement athlete in the sled for Sunday’s resumption of the competition. “But the circumstances under which we made the substitution did not meet the bar that allows a team to make a lineup change,” he posted.

Edelman’s sled was 24th out of 24 finishers in the two runs held on Saturday.

Sweden’s Karlsson and Sundling missing from cross-country race

A big setback for Sweden, which has dominated the women’s cross-country competition in Milan Cortina: Top stars Frida Karlsson and Jonna Sundling aren’t competing in the 50-kilometer mass start race.

Swedish ski federation spokeswoman Ulrika Sterner told AP both of them have cold symptoms. Karlsson won two gold medals at the Games before she got sick: the skiathlon and the 10-kilometer interval start. Sundling placed second in the women’s sprint and won the team sprint for Sweden together with Maja Dahlqvist. Both were in the Swedish team that won silver in the women’s relay.

Pau Gasol unanimously voted on to IOC board

The International Olympic Committee just loves Pau Gasol.

The NBA great and three-time Olympic medalist with Spain got a vote of 80-0 from his IOC member colleagues Sunday to confirm joining its executive board through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Gasol will represent athletes on the influential 15-member board for the next 2 ½ years. It shapes as a challenging lead-in to the next Summer Games.

His IOC membership as an athlete-elected delegate expires after L.A., but the Olympic body finds ways to keep favored sons and daughters inside the family.

Gasol’s starting to have an aura of possible future president about him.

Sweden is taking on Switzerland for gold in women’s curling

Appropriately dressed Sweden fans are streaming into Cortina’s historic curling arena, which was built for the 1956 Cortina Games.

In bobsled, Germany is seeking a 4-man medal sweep

Germany is poised for another bobsled medal sweep.

Johannes Lochner, Francesco Friedrich and Adam Ammour hold the 1-2-3 spots with one run left in Sunday’s four-man race. Germany has the only two Olympic sweeps in bobsled history — the two-man races in 2022 and 2026.

If it sweeps four-man, Germany would finish these Games with nine bobsled medals. The U.S. won the other three.

This could be the third time only two nations have medaled in Olympic bobsled.

The U.S. (2 medals) and Germany (1) were the medal-winning nations in 1928, while East Germany (4) and Switzerland (2) were the only ones in 1980.

A record-setting Winter Olympics: 6 golds and 15 medals for the US in women’s events set marks

The U.S. women’s hockey team had just won Olympic gold, and veteran forward Kendall Coyne Schofield summed the moment up perfectly.

“We did it!” she exclaimed.

Plenty of American women — more than ever at a Winter Olympics — had the same sentiment at these Milan Cortina Games.

When it came to winning medals, they indeed did it. And in record numbers, too.

American women — not even counting mixed events — went into Saturday, the next-to-last day of these Olympics, with six golds and 15 medals overall. The previous U.S. winter women’s-only marks: five golds (done in 1992, 2002 and 2018) and 13 medals (done in 2014 and 2022).

“Our team is so strong,” Milan Cortina women’s slalom gold medalist and Alpine legend Mikaela Shiffrin said. “We have so many incredible athletes and teammates and friends, and everybody just showed up with so much courage and heart here. And I’m so proud to be part of this American team.”

What to watch on Day 16 at Milan Cortina Games: US-Canada hockey final and three other gold medals

The final day of the Milan Cortina Olympics ends with one of its most anticipated events, when the United States and Canada face off for the gold medal in men’s hockey.

There are also medals to be awarded in cross-country skiing, curling and bobsled before the closing ceremony Sunday night.

Here are some other things to watch for:

U.S. and Canada meet for men’s hockey gold. The last U.S. men’s team to win it all at the Olympics was the “Miracle on Ice” team in Lake Placid. New York, in 1980. The only other gold was 1960.

American cross-country skiing star Jessie Diggins will be hoping for a medal in what will be her last race in the Olympics. But she will have a tough battle against a stellar Swedish team.

After beating top-ranked Canada in the semifinals, Sweden will face Switzerland in the final of the women’s curling.

Germany’s Johannes Lochner is the leader midway through the four-man bobsled race and he’s well on his way to ending his career with double Olympic gold.

___AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/latest-us-canada-face-off-134047708.html