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Brown men's, women's hoops teams both lose

The Brown Bears men's basketball team lost a tough one at home tonight to Wagner, 64-63, with the winning points coming on two foul shots with seven seconds remaining. Brown (2-3) was led by Chris Skrelja, who scored 21 points and grabbed six rebounds. Wagner (4-2) got 23 points from Mark Porter, including the winning free throws. Click here to see the box score from projo Stats.

The Bears' next game is Saturday night at home against California-Davis.

Also tonight, the Brown women's hoops team lost, 63-50, at Army. Click here to see the box score from projo Stats. Annesley O'Neal led Brown, which fell to 0-7, with 13 points and 10 rebounds. The Bears' next game is Saturday afternoon at home against Howard.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 9:42 PM to College Sports | Permalink | Comments 0

URI pulls away from Northeastern

A powerful surge by URI in the final minutes turned a nail biter into a runaway. The final was Rhody 92-72 over Northeastern.

Jimmy Baron and Parfait Bitee each had 17 points for the Rams but the big lift in the second-half came from the bench. Joe Mbang had 16 points and Keith Cothran 15.

The Rams, who are 7-1, host New Hampshire on Saturday afternoon.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 9:23 PM to URI Basketball | Permalink | Comments 0

PC women rout Fordham

The Providence College Lady Friars beat Fordham tonight, 63-45, in New York. Providence, which got 26 points and 16 rebounds from Shantee Darrian, improved to 5-2 while Fordham dropped to 0-7. Click here to see the box score from projo Stats.

The Lady Friars' next game is Saturday at 3 at URI.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 9:21 PM to PC basketball | Permalink | Comments 0

URI women win

The University of Rhode Island women's basketball team picked up a road win tonight at Central Connecticut State, 74-57, outscoring the Lady Blue Devils (0-6) by 20 points in the second half. URI (4-3) was led by Amanda McGrew, with 15 points. Click here to see the box score from projo Stats.

URI's next game is Saturday afternoon against Providence.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 9:13 PM to URI Basketball | Permalink | Comments 0

Old Dominion Stuns Brown, 2-1,in Double Overtime

Old Dominion forward Ambane Emmanuel scored a breakaway goal with 3:15 left in the second overtime, and ODU upset sixth-seeded Brown, 2-1, in the second-round of the NCAA men's soccer tournament a cold but still night at Stevenson Field.

Emmanuel, who had been off-side several times in the game, got behind the Bears defense, caught up with a pass from Nane Joseph and bounced a shot by goalkeeper Paul Grandstrand.

Brown had dominated the first 10-minute overtime, but goalkeeper Evan Newton saved shots by David Walls, Nick Elenz-Martin and Chris Roland twice. Kevin Davies just missed to the right.

Davies had scored the equalizer at 48:07 when he lifted a shot from a scramble in front that cleared keeper Evan Newton's right shoulder.

ODU midfielder A.J. Kulp scored the first goal on a 45-yard free kick at 11:05 when Brown goalkeeper Paul Grandstrand hesitated momentarily as the ball bounced to his left just beyond Brown's defensive line. The ball caught the right side of the net.

Brown, the Ivy League champion, finished 15-2-1. ODU, the Colonial Athletic Association champ, improved to 14-6-3 and will play Virginia Tech this weekend.

Posted by Mike Szostak  at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Grzebien starts well at finals

Anna Grzebien is off to an excellent start in her bid to earn an LPGA Tour card.

The Point Judith star and Duke grad fired a 2-under 70 today in the first round of LPGA Qualifying School finals in Daytona Beach, Fla. That left her in a tie for 10th place. Jane Park leads at 65. Those tied with Grezebien include her former Duke teammate, Liz Janangelo of Connecticut.

The top 17 finishers in the five-round event earn full LPGA Tour cards and the next 35 are non-exempt status.

In PGA Tour Qualifying, which also began today in Florida, Cumberland’s Brad Adamonis recorded an even-par 72 to tie for 92nd. Adamonis got off to a good start and was 3-under through 11 holes. He struggled at the end, including a double-bogey six on his final hole.

Scores at Orange Country National were very low. Tour veterans Frank Lickliter and Brendon de Jonge tied for first at 62.

Posted by Paul Kenyon  at 5:42 PM to Paul Kenyon on Golf | Permalink | Comments 0

Sox' Lester wins Tony C. Award

Jon Lester, who returned to the Red Sox in 2007 after being cured from a form of anaplastic large cell lymphoma, has been named this year's winner of the annual Tony Conigliaro Award, sponsored by the Boston Red Sox.

The criteria for selection is “that major league player who has overcome adversity through attributes of spirit, determination and courage that were trademarks of Tony C.” A panel of media members and baseball executives voted on the award.

This year's nominees were Lester, Dmitri Young of the Washington Nationals, Al Reyes of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Joe Borowski of the Cleveland Indians, Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins, Andy Phillips of the New York Yankees, Josh Hamilton of the Cincinnati Reds and Doug Brocail of the San Diego Padres.

Previous winners include Jim Eisenreich, Dickie Thon, Jim Abbott, Bo Jackson, Mark Leiter, Scott Radinsky, Curtis Pride, Eric Davis, Bret Saberhagen, Mike Lowell, Kent Mercker and Tony Saunders (co-winners), Jason Johnson and Graeme Lloyd (co-winners), Jose Rijo, Jim Mecir, Dewon Brazelton, Aaron Cook and Freddy Sanchez.

Lester will be honored at the annual Boston Baseball Writers’ Association dinner on January 17, 2007.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 3:53 PM to Red Sox | Permalink | Comments 0

URI Names Search Committee

It's official. The search committee charged with finding a new football coach at the University of Rhode Island includes Thorr Bjorn, director of athletics; Gregg Burke, deputy director of athletics; John Vanner, associate director of athletics; Barbara Luebke, journalism professor and NCAA faculty representative; Brittany Manseau, president of the URI Student Alumni Association; Michael Rollins, assistant strength coach, and Wes Lessard, president of the Fifth Quarter Club.

The committee will solicit, collect and review applications, invite several candidates to campus and offer a recommendation to President Robert L. Carothers. Bjorn has said he would like a new coach signed by the end of December.

Posted by Mike Szostak  at 3:18 PM to College Sports | Permalink | Comments 0

Packers-Cowboys: The big game that most won't see

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Dallas Cowboys host the Green Bay Packers tomorrow night in one of the National Football League's most anticipated games this season.

Chances are, you won't be able to watch it.

The NFL remains locked in a pricing dispute with some of the nation's largest cable providers, preventing about two- thirds of the 109.6 million television households in the U.S. from watching football's two most popular franchises.

The game will be broadcast on the NFL Network, which the league owns and wants carried as a basic channel by the cable companies. Cablevision Systems Corp., Time Warner Inc., Comcast Corp. and other cable companies say it belongs on a so-called sports tier, where only those who want it must pay an extra monthly charge.

"There's no right, there's no wrong, there's no good guy, there's no bad guy," said Rick Gentile, a former executive producer at CBS Sports. "There's just a victim, and the victim is the sports fan."

The Cowboys, known as "America's team," and the Packers, whose former coach Vince Lombardi is honored on the league's championship trophy, each have 10 wins and 1 loss. The winner might earn home-field advantage throughout the playoffs en route to the Super Bowl, which Dallas has won five times and Green Bay three.

Eight Games

Since last season, the NFL has withheld eight games each year from its $3.7 billion television package with Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN, General Electric Co.'s NBC and CBS Inc. The league broadcasts those games on its network and uses the fan interest to pressure the cable companies.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who heads the committee governing the NFL Network, said the league understood interest would be high for the Packers-Cowboys game, helping to demonstrate the network's value. The Cowboys and Packers are the most popular teams with fans living outside their home cities, according to study by Turnkey Sports and Entertainment, a Haddonfield, New Jersey-based marketing company.

"I had one of the significant cable companies dare me, `Show me just how much the interest is,"' Jones said in an interview earlier this month. "You start telling literally a couple hundred thousand people in Texas that they aren't going to get to see (Tony) Romo versus Brett Favre, and there's going to be letters to people that they're counting on."

The NFL is asking fans to drop cable subscriptions in favor of satellite or telecommunications companies that carry the network, such as DirecTV. It's also sought government help.

FCC Vote

The Federal Communications Commission delayed a vote yesterday on rules that might force Comcast and Time Warner to hold arbitration talks to resolve disputes with content suppliers such as the NFL.

"Ultimately, there has to be some sort of arbitration, but I don't think you go to the government and ask for relief," said Gentile, who now directs the Seton Hall University Sports Poll tracking public attitudes toward the business of professional sports. "They both have very valid cases, and they're both completely unreasonable."

Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable provider, moved the NFL Network last year from a basic subscriber package that reached 8 million homes to a sports tier, which has fewer than 1 million customers, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. That meant people wanting to watch the NFL Network had to pay an extra $5 to $8 per month.

`The Fairest Way'

Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said last week the switch was "the fairest way to provide the NFL's expensive programming to customers." Time Warner supported the move.
"Nobody should be fooled by the NFL's suggestion that it is such a weak player, or that its programming is so important that it requires government intervention to gain carriage on cable systems," Time Warner spokeswoman Maureen Huff said in a telephone interview. Cable operators also point to the NFL's five-year, $3.5 billion deal with DirecTV for its "Sunday Ticket" package of out-of-market games.

Tomorrow's game will be important to Cowboys and Packers fans, including former Green Bay offensive lineman Jerry Kramer. Nearly 40 years ago, he sprung Bart Starr with a block to score the winning touchdown in the closing seconds against Dallas in what is now known as the Ice Bowl, considered among the greatest games in league history.

"How the hell anybody could live without the NFL Network is beyond me," 70-year-old Kramer, who can watch the game at his Boise, Idaho, home, said in a telephone interview. "It's such a shame that it won't be widely seen, especially for a ball game like this."

Patriots

The NFL Network game that could draw even greater interest comes during the regular season's final week, when the New England Patriots (11-0) may seek to cap the league's first undefeated campaign since 1972 against the New York Giants. Goodell was asked at an owners' meeting last month which side of the squabble fans would take if they couldn't see the Patriots' run at history.

"The reality is, they'd probably be angry at all of us," he said.

Cowboys fan Claudius Bryant, a 38-year-old real estate broker who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, and grew up in Texas, will find a sports bar to catch tomorrow night's game, with disdain for both sides in the dispute.

"They're all pigs at the trough," Bryant said in a telephone interview.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 11:38 AM to Patriots | Permalink | Comments 0

Download today's sports cover

Today's sports cover is full of high school playoff football coverage. John Gilloolly writes about St. Raphael's backup quarterback getting thrust into the spotlight, Robert Lee writes about Hendricken's victory over La Salle, and Paul Kenyon covers Toll Gate's upset of Cranston East.

Download a copy of the page in PDF format

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments 0