Sports
UConn muscles through Illini, set for title shot at Final Four
Apr 4, 2026; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Connecticut Huskies guard Braylon Mullins (24) shoots against Illinois Fighting Illini forward David Mirkovic (0) in the first half during a semifinal of the Final Four of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images INDIANAPOLIS — UConn acted like the team that belonged and the Huskies are headed back to the national championship game after controlling Illinois start to finish in a 71-62 win Saturday at the Final Four.
Tarris Reed Jr. had 17 points and 11 rebounds and freshman Braylon Mullins had a huge first half and closing exclamation points to win a battle of touted freshmen with Fighting Illini second-team All-American Keaton Wagler.
The Huskies (34-5) defeated Illinois (28-9) for the second time this season and remained the only team to hold the Fighting Illini under 65 points in 2025-26.
Wagler finished with 20 points but was 2 of 10 from 3-point range, worn down by the Huskies challenging him for every inch and movement for the full 37 minutes he was on the court.
UConn came up with an offensive rebound on Alex Karaban’s missed 3 and Mullins knocked down a 3 for his first points of the second half with 52 seconds left.
Wagler had the answer. Facing a full-speed closeout from Silas Demary Jr., Wagler splashed a 3 from the left wing and Illinois spent its final timeout with 43.5 seconds remaining to make it a 66-62 game.
Demery made both free throws and Wagler’s long 3 banged hard off the front of the rim to help the Huskies leave Illinois disheartened and 1-5 all-time in the Final Four.
Earlier, Mullins missed a runner off the glass left of the lane and Reed’s follow didn’t fall for UConn coming out of a Huskies’ late-shot clock timeout. Wagler groud his way into the lane and cut the UConn lead to 63-59 with 1:38 to play.
Wagler missed a 26-foot 3 and a long rebound outlet to Ball put UConn up 61-53. With a chance to extend the lead or run precious ticks off the clock following another Wagler missed 3, the Huskies gave the ball back to Illinois. Ball missed in transition and Ben Humrichous made a 3 in front of the Illini bench to trim the deficit to 61-56 when the media timeout arrived with 2:46 remaining.
“You’ve just got to stay composed. Holding the lead, finding a good shot,” Mullins said. “That’s what we do.”
UConn is in the Final Four for the third time in four seasons and improved to 13-1 all-time on Saturday.
UConn had Illinois on the ropes quickly in the second half, building its lead to 11 with Karaban’s free throws when the Illini beat a double-team trap and found Mirkovic alone for a 3 from the left wing as the clock hit 17:08 to play. Ball got all 3 right back on a transition triple at the other end and a few minutes later made it 52-40 Huskies with a 3 that bounced off the rim twice before settling in the net.
Illinois’ dual-engine offense was slowed to running in fits and starts by UConn’s grinding defense, but the consolation prize paid dividends. The Fighting Illini made 18 of 23 free throws in the game.
They reached the double-bonus on the Huskies 10th foul of the second half with just under nine minutes to play. Kylan Boswell made two free throws and Tomislav Ivisic hit two with 8:03 on the clock, shrinking the UConn lead to 57-49 to awaken a partisan Illinois crowd. With UConn in the midst of a three-minute scoreless stretch, Ivisic got two more at the 7-minute mark, making it 57-51 Huskies.
UConn shrugged off Illinois’ token defensive pressure — the Huskies first turnover of the game was on their 40th possession — and went right at the tandem 7-foot Isivic Twins.
Illinois, which averaged 83.8 points per game, appeared to face challenges with the open shooting background at the south end of Lucas Oil Stadium and shot 34.5 percent in the first half with one assist on 10 field goals. Top free-throw shooter Andrej Stojakovic (82.3% entering Final Four) badly missed a pair in the first half.
The Illini missed their first six 3-point tries with UConn’s full-court press causing the offensive juggernaut to shift approach and attack the paint.
Wagler finally nailed a 3 with 10:30 left in the first half and broke the ice.
Ivisic hit a line-drive lefty 3 to give Illinois its first and only lead of the game, 22-21, in the midst of a nearly four-minute scoring drought for UConn. At that under-8 timeout in the first half, which came at the 6:25 mark, the teams were a combined 15 of 44 from the field.
–Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media
Sports
William Sawalich gets breakthrough victory at Rockingham
Mar 28, 2026; Martinsville, Virginia, USA; Joe Gibbs Racing driver William Sawalich (18) pit crew try to get their car back into the final laps of the race at Martinsville Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — Grabbing the lead and control of the race after a restart on Lap 172, William Sawalich pulled away over the final 79 laps to win Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 250 Presented by Black’s Tire at Rockingham Speedway.
The victory was the first in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for the 19-year-old Sawalich, the youngest driver to win at the 0.94-mile track in any of NASCAR’s top three series.
Sawalich, who led 80 laps, crossed the finish line 0.863 seconds ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Brandon Jones to end the five-race winning streak of JR Motorsports and preserve the series record of six straight victories for JGR.
“It means everything,” said Sawalich, who gained three positions to 11th in the series standings. “Honestly, it was a tough year last year and a tough start to the year this year. Gosh, it feels good to get it done here at Rockingham in front of an awesome crowd.
“Our Supra was on rails today, obviously. Good in Stage 1 (fifth), Stage 2 (second) and obviously amazing in clean air. Lapped traffic took me out last year (in a 25th-place finish), so that was running through my head a little bit, but, man, I just studied the race last year, calmed down–and everything’s fine.”
With the win, Sawalich earned eligibility for the first Dash 4 Cash race next Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway. The top four finishers at Rockingham–Sawalich, Jones and third- and fourth-place finishers Justin Allgaier and Rajah Caruth–will compete for a $100,000 bonus in that event, with the top finisher among them claiming the prize.
Caruth, in fact, made a spectacular three-wide pass of both Sheldon Creed and Carson Kvapil with nine laps left to grab the last Dash 4 Cash position. Kvapil finished fifth and Creed sixth, followed by Taylor Gray, Parker Retzlaff, Ryan Sieg and pole winner Corey Day.
For the first half of the race, Day appeared to have the dominant car. The 20-year-old led a race-high 118 of the 250 laps and swept the first two stages–the first stage wins of his career.
But Day lost five positions on a slow pit stop during the second stage break and never recovered. On Lap 174, he pitted out of sequence for a loose lug nut and charged from 24th over the final 70 laps to post his seventh straight top 10.
“We had a couple of bad pit stops,” Day said. “We got behind there, and it was hard to dig ourselves out of the hole.”
Jones was pleased with the progress his runner-up finish represents.
“I left Martinsville a little frustrated at myself last week (after finishing 18th),” Jones said. “We weren’t quite aggressive enough at times, so today, I was super adamant on being super aggressive. I am going to take all of the runs I can get. I’m going to put people in bad situations, if I can, and just move forward.
“I think we did a really good job of it. We kept fighting both sides of it with balance today. Sam (McAuley, crew chief) did a great job taking all of my feedback and making a car, I think, capable of winning. It was just a matter of trying to get some track position, and he (Sawalich) got such a big restart on that last restart (after the seventh caution on Lap 206) that it was hard to catch him.”
Allgaier had the consolation of leaving Rockingham with a lead of 126 points over second-place Jesse Love in the O’Reilly Auto Parts standings. Love hit the outside wall after a shove from Caruth, lost track position on a subsequent unscheduled pit stop on Lap 153 and finished 27th, two laps down.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Ramon Laureano leads Padres over Red Sox with 9th inning single
Apr 4, 2026; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; San Diego Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. (23) scores a run against Boston Red Sox catcher Carlos Narvaez (75) during the ninth inning at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images Ramon Laureano’s two-out RBI single in the top of the ninth inning propelled the visiting San Diego Padres to a 3-2 win over the Boston Red Sox in the second of a three-game series on Saturday.
The Padres found two-out magic against Boston closer Aroldis Chapman (0-1) to take the lead for good, as Fernando Tatis Jr. ripped a double over Ceddanne Rafaela’s head in center field to set the stage for Laureano’s heroic knock into left.
Miguel Andujar also had a big day for San Diego, going 3-for-5 with a double and a run scored.
San Diego had recorded just two hits between the fourth and seventh innings, allowing the Boston offense to scratch a tying run. Adrian Morejon (1-0) earned the win despite blowing a potential save, which Mason Miller wound up earning after striking out the side in the ninth.
Rafaela and Roman Anthony each had two hits for the Red Sox; Anthony hit a triple in the fifth.
In the eighth, Rafaela and Anthony started the Red Sox with back-to-back singles before pinch hitter Andruw Monasterio put together a nine-pitch at-bat and earned an RBI fielder’s choice. The Padres looked to turn an inning-ending 1-4-3 double play, but Jake Cronenworth fumbled Morejon’s throw to second.
After Boston starter Connelly Early worked out of a two-on, two-out jam to start the game, San Diego took a 1-0 lead on Bryce Johnson’s RBI grounder in the second. Freddy Fermin scored after drawing a leadoff walk and moved first-to-third on Ty France’s wall-ball single.
The bottom of the inning saw the hosts respond with a game-tying run, as Willson Contreras knocked a leadoff single to left and scored on Marcelo Mayer’s sacrifice fly.
A pair of doubles in the third helped the Padres take a 2-1 lead. Andujar knocked one into the left-field corner with one out to spark the inning, and Manny Machado kept the line moving with a walk. Two batters later, Fermin flipped the score again with a two-out liner past the dive of Boston third baseman Caleb Durbin.
Both teams’ bats were quieted for several innings thereafter, though the Red Sox had opportunities to re-tie the game with four hits across the fourth and fifth.
San Diego starter Randy Vasquez worked around three singles in the first of those frames, striking out Mayer with two on to end the threat. An inning later, Anthony’s two-out triple to deep right went by the board.
Vasquez completed six innings of one-run ball with three strikeouts.
Early threw 88 pitches in just four innings, allowing two runs on three hits and four walks while fanning four.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Astros rack up 18 hits while trouncing Athletics
Apr 4, 2026; West Sacramento, California, USA; Houston Astros first baseman Christian Walker (8) celebrates with Houston Astros third base coach Tony Perezchica (12) after hitting a solo home run against the Athletics during the third inning at Sutter Health Park. Mandatory Credit: Scott Marshall-Imagn Images Christian Walker and Cam Smith hit homers and the Houston Astros recorded 18 hits as they blasted the Athletics 11-0 on Saturday afternoon in West Sacramento, Calif.
Tatsuya Imai (1-0) threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings with nine strikeouts to earn his first career major league win. The 27-year-old right-hander from Japan signed a three-year deal with Houston this offseason.
Imai left two runners on base as he exited in the sixth inning protecting a 10-0 lead, but Kai-Wei Teng came in to get the third out and keep the shutout intact.
After 2 1/3 innings from Teng, Steven Okert worked the ninth and preserved the Astros pitching staff’s first shutout this season.
Walker, Joey Loperfido and Yainer Diaz and Christian Vazquez led the way for Houston with three hits and two RBIs each.
A’s starter Luis Morales (0-2) was under siege from the opening pitch, as as four of the first five Astros to the plate reached base and Houston took an early 2-0 lead with RBI singles by Jose Altuve and Walker.
Walker then hit the first pitch of the third over the left field fence for his first home run of 2026.
Later in the frame, the Athletics’ defense let Morales down when Tyler Soderstrom lost a fly ball in the sun in left field and it dropped in for an unconventional RBI double for Vazquez.
Morales gave up five runs in three-plus innings, allowing eight hits and six walks. Changing pitchers did not reverse the A’s fortunes, as Houston added three runs off reliever Elvis Alvarado with an RBI double for Loperfido and a two-run single by Diaz.
Loperfido and Vazquez got their second RBIs of the afternoon with base hits in the sixth, before Yordan Alvarez – who drew a walk in each of his first four plate appearances – added on with an RBI single.
Smith capped off the Astros’ offensive outburst with a pinch-hit solo shot in the eighth.
Max Muncy had two of the Athletics’ four hits. That is his second multi-hit game in as many days.
–Field Level Media
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William Sawalich gets breakthrough victory at Rockingham
