Sports briefs 10/30
Women’s soccer
Washington & Jefferson closed out the regular season with a 2-0 win over Chatham on Wednesday to clinch the final spot in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinals.
Junior Madison Rose led the Presidents (5-5-1, 7-8-2) with a two-goal performance. Rose finished the regular season with eight goals, the most in a single season by a President since 2017.
W&J will enter the PAC tournament as the No. 6 seed and will play Saturday at Saint Vincent in the first round.
NHL
The Detroit Red Wings have suspended Dylan Larkin without pay and taken him off the roster after they said he told the team he will no longer play for the franchise, growing frustrated by its inability to move him months after he asked for a trade.
“We are disappointed by his decision, particularly given his obligations to the organization and his teammates,” interim general manager Shawn Horcoff said in a statement Thursday.
Larkin asked for a trade in the offseason after the franchise extended its postseason drought to a decade, but he started the season still on the team but stripped of the captaincy.
The 30-year-old center has two goals and six assists in 10 games.
June Jones dies at 73
June Jones, the cutting-edge coach who brought the run-and-shoot offense to Hawaii and led the Rainbow Warriors to their greatest era and an undefeated regular season that catapulted them all the way to the Sugar Bowl, died on Thursday. He was 73.
Hawaii’s football program in a statement did not list a cause of death for Jones, who coached the Atlanta Falcons for three seasons in the 1990s before his stint at Hawaii. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser cited a close family friend as saying Jones had entered hospice two weeks ago in his native Oregon.
“Coach Jones was a father figure, a mentor, and a visionary who revolutionized the game,” said Timmy Chang, the current Hawaii coach who set the NCAA record for career passing yards (since broken) under Jones. “He believed in a young kid from Hawaii and gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to run his offense.”
WNBA
Allisha Gray scored 23 points and Rhyne Howard had 21 as the hot-shooting Atlanta Dream held off Golden State’s late rally to take an 80-69 victory over the Valkyries in Game 6 on Thursday and pull even in the WNBA Finals.
The decisive Game 7 will be played at Golden State on Saturday night as each team seeks its first WNBA championship.
Baseball
Reliever Ryan Helsley intends to pick up his $14 million option with the Baltimore Orioles for 2027, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.
Helsley signed a deal with Baltimore last offseason that was worth $14 million in 2026 and included the player option. The right-hander was limited to 17 appearances this year because of elbow problems. He went 0-4 with a 4.11 ERA and eight saves for the Orioles.
College sports
The Big 12 Conference has fined UCF $100,000 for derogatory chants by football fans aimed at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a game Saturday against BYU.
It’s the latest fine against a Big 12 school over fan treatment of BYU, the flagship school for what’s widely known as the Mormon church. Video shared on social media showed UCF fans making the chants prior to kickoff. University security then removed some fans from the game.
Tennis
Top-ranked Elena Rybakina secured the year-end No. 1 ranking with a last-16 win at the Pan Pacific Open on Thursday, while Naomi Osaka lost in front of her home crowd.
Rybakina beat Yulia Putintseva 6-2, 6-3 to advance to the quarterfinals and will stay the world No. 1 at the conclusion of a year in which she won two Grand Slams – the Australian Open and the U.S. Open.