BASEBALL

Bangor improved to 2-0 in the Little League 10-12 New England Regional, beating Middleboro Little League of Massachusetts 10-4 on Monday in Bristol, Connecticut.

Bangor advances to the championship round of the regional and will face the winner of Wednesday’s game between Concord, New Hampshire, and Middleboro.

Bangor’s Jacoby Harvey 2 for 2 with three RBI and two runs scored and Tyler Johnson added two hits and scored twice. Leadoff hitter Daxton Gifford also scored twice. Caden Karam pitched 5 1/3 innings for Bangor, allowing two runs on two hits and striking out 14.

COLLEGES

FOOTBALL: Alabama was voted No. 1 in the preseason USA Today coaches’ poll, with Ohio State second and defending national champion Georgia third.

The Associated Press preseason Top 25 will be released Aug. 15.

The Crimson Tide received 54 first-place votes from a panel of 66 major college football coaches. Alabama is coming off a loss in the College Football Playoff title game to Georgia.

The Buckeyes received five first-place votes and the Bulldogs got six. No. 18 Texas also received a first-place vote.

Clemson was No. 4 and Notre Dame was No. 5. Michigan, coming off its first CFP appearance, was sixth, followed by Texas A&M, Utah, Oklahoma and Baylor.

• A day after Oklahoma assistant head football coach Cale Gundy announced his resignation, the school said Gundy uttered a racially charged word multiple times during a film session last week.

Gundy, who had been with the program as an assistant since 1999, announced his resignation in a social media post late Sunday, and the school confirmed it with a statement shortly thereafter. Oklahoma sent out another statement on Monday giving more details about the incident.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: East Tennessee State hired Brenda Mock Brown as the new coach, one week after announcing Simon Harris was being fired over Title IX issues in his lone season.

Interim athletic director Richard Sander announced Brown’s new position at a news conference.

Brown is the 10th coach in the program’s history. She was head coach of the women’s basketball program at UNC Asheville between 2012 and 2020, leading the Bulldogs to four straight postseason berths between 2015 and 2019 and consecutive Big South Tournament titles.

She also was named the Big South Coach of the Year in the 2015-16 season overseeing the biggest turnaround season in Division I, going from 9-22 to 26-7.

Sander was named interim athletic director on Aug. 1 after AD Scott Carter resigned. ETSU also announced that Harris was suspended with pay until Aug. 15, when his firing becomes official. An investigation started after two former players alleged discrimination and unfair treatment this spring.

Brown has spent the past two years working at Global Sports and Events and worked as a consultant at Inkwell Sports Solutions.

She also was an assistant coach at Florida, Charlotte, Jacksonville and Georgia Tech. Brown played at Wake Forest and was a two-time captain.

TENNIS

NATIONAL BANK OPEN: Serena Williams earned her first win in more than a year, beating Nuria Parrizas-Diaz 6-3, 6-4 at Toronto.

It’s just the second tournament of the season for the 40-year-old Williams, who returned to competition at Wimbledon just over a month ago. The 23-time Grand Slam champion fell in the first round to Harmony Tan in three sets at the All England Club.

Before then, she last competed at the 2021 Wimbledon tournament, where she retired in the middle of her first match due to a torn hamstring suffered after slipping on the grass surface.

• Top-ranked and defending champion Daniil Medvedev wasn’t bothered by the frustrating delays due to rainat Montreal.

It’s one of the perks of his top ranking in men’s singles. Medvedev received a first-round bye as a top seed and likely won’t play his opening match until Wednesday.

While many of his ATP Tour peers were stuck waiting to see when the rain would let up, the confident Russian star was able to relax knowing he only had to tinker with his training schedule.

Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori defeated Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in a match that began four hours after its originally scheduled start time.

In other early matches, American Jenson Brooksby beat Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-3 and Russia’s Karen Khachanov topped Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo 7-6 (4), 5-7, 6-3. Alex Molcan of Slovakia defeated American Mackenzie McDonald 7-6 (1), 6-4.

OLYMPICS

SWIMMING: USA Swimming has added technology to its abuse-reporting systems that will allow better communication between those coordinating investigations and reporters who want to remain anonymous.

The organization announced a deal with RealResponse on international Safe Sport Day.

One feature in RealResponse’s technology is the ability to exchange information with anonymous reporters via text without the reporters having to identify themselves. Though organizations can often act more decisively when victims or witnesses attach their names to reports, anonymous reporting is crucial because often victims fear retribution if their names become public.

RealResponse has developed technology that allows reporters to file reports about abuse via text and for those who receive the reports to follow up while the name of the reporter remains concealed.

“Previously, we could receive an anonymous report, but we had no way to follow up with that individual if we had additional questions or didn’t have enough information, or wanted to let them know what we were doing to follow up,” said Abigail Howard, who oversees the director of USA Swimming’s safe sport program.

USA Swimming plans to make the technology available to its approximately 400,000 members.

HOCKEY

NHL: The Arizona Coyotes signed restricted free-agent forward Lawson Crouse to a five-year contract.

 The 6-foot-4, 215-pound forward signed hours before a scheduled arbitration hearing.

Crouse had career highs of 20 goals and 14 assists last season, his sixth with the Coyotes. The 24-year-old from Mt. Brydges, Ontario, led Arizona with 181 hits last season and has developed into a respected team leader since being traded from Florida in 2017.

Crouse has 56 goals and 54 assists in 346 career NHL games with the Coyotes. He was taken with the 11th overall pick of the NHL draft by the Panthers in 2015.

•  The Seattle Kraken added former Winnipeg interim coach Dave Lowry to the coaching staff for the upcoming season, the team announced.

Lowry spent most of last season as the interim head coach for the Jets. He took over on Dec. 17 and went 26-22-6 while in charge. Lowry had joined Winnipeg as an assistant coach before the start of the 2020 season.

Lowry has also worked as an assistant with Los Angeles and Calgary, along with stints as a head coach with three teams in the Western Hockey League.

Lowry spent 19 seasons as a player in the NHL with Vancouver, Calgary, St. Louis, Florida and San Jose.

BASKETBALL

WNBA: Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi will miss the remainder of the season with a quadriceps strain.

Taurasi missed the last two games with the injury and the team announced the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer will not be available as the Mercury fight for a 10th straight playoff appearance.

• Marina Mabrey scored a career-high 31 points, Teaira McCowan had 16 points and nine rebounds, and the Dallas Wings beat the visiting New York Liberty 86-77 to clinch a playoff berth.

NBA: Kevin Durant has again told Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai that he wants to be traded, reiterating a request he first made nearly six weeks ago, a person with knowledge of the matter confirmed.

Durant also told Tsai that he has concerns about the Nets’ direction under Coach Steve Nash and GM Sean Marks, said the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because neither the perennial All-Star nor the team confirmed details of the talks publicly.

“Our front office and coaching staff have my support,” Tsai tweeted. “We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets.”

This is the latest phase of a saga that began June 30, when Durant told the Nets he wanted a trade just as this summer’s free agent period was beginning.

Durant isn’t a free agent; he has four years and $198 million remaining on his contract with the Nets, who will undoubtedly demand a haul of players and draft picks in any trade agreement for the 12-time All-Star, four-time scoring champion, three-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time NBA champion.

Durant has spent three seasons with Brooklyn, not playing in the first of those years while he recovered from a torn Achilles. He averaged 29.9 points in 55 games last season, after leading the U.S. to Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games last summer.

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