D4 eZ sU the washington post.monday, february 24 , 2020
FROM NEWS SERVICES
AND STAFF REPORTSIn a game full of wild swings,
Indiana boxed out No. 9 Penn
State.
The Hoosiers let a 19-point
first-half lead completely disap-
pear, fell behind by six and then
rallied for a 68-60 victory Sunday
in Bloomington, Ind.
“We play the game in 10 four-
minute battles or rounds like a
fight,” I ndiana Coach Archie mill-
er said. “There is going to be
swings, and you have to fight
through it and find a way to
weather it.”
Al Durham scored 14 points,
and Trayce Jackson-Davis had
13 points and 10 rebounds to lead
the Hoosiers ( 18-9, 8-8 Big Te n).
“We got off to great start and
should have had a bigger lead
going into halftime, but we made
some dumb errors,” miller said.
“We took a huge punch in the
second half, and times this year
that punch h as hurt us a lot more.”
Lamar Stevens, who was
plagued by foul trouble all game,
led Penn State (20-7, 10-6) with
29 points on 11-for-27 shooting.
l CREiGHton 81, BUtlER
59: marcus Zegarowski made all
seven of his three-pointers and
finished with 25 points for the
No. 15 Bluejays (22-6, 11-4 Big
East) in omaha.
The No. 21 Bulldogs (19-9, 7-8)
lost their third straight, and lead-
ing scorer K amar Baldwin limped
off the court late in the first half
with an injury to his left foot.
l sEton Hall 81,
st. JoHn’s 65: myles Powell
scored 18 points as the No. 16
Pirates (20-7, 12-3 Big East)
cruised in Newark.
LJ figueroa led the red Storm
(14-13, 3-11) with 19 points.
l Boston UniVERsitY 64,
aMERiCan 60: max mahoney
had 15 points and 13 rebounds as
the host Te rriers (17-12, 11-5)
snapped a second-place tie with
the Eagles (14-13, 10-6) in the Pa-
triot League behind first-place
Colgate.
Sa’eed Nelson led American
with 21 points, a career-high eight
steals and three assists. At
2,055 p oints, he is two shy of pass-
ing russell “Boo” Bowers as the
program’s a ll-time leading scorer.
Gamecocks women take sEC
The top-ranked South Carolina
women held No. 14 Kentucky to
30 percent shooting and got 20
points from Zia Cooke in a 67-58
victory in Lexington, Ky., that ex-
tended their winning streak to
21 games.
The victory, coupled with mis-
sissippi State’s loss to Alabama,
earned the Gamecocks (27-1, 14-0)
the SEC regular season t itle.
rhyne Howard scored
24 p oints for Kentucky (20-6, 9-5).
l loUisVillE 79, Pitts-
BURGH 47: Kylee Shook scored
17 points to lead the No. 5 Cardi-
nals in a blowout of the host Pan-
thers.
Louisville ( 25-3, 14-2 A CC) used
a 50-17 margin over the middle
two periods to turn the game into
a rout. Pittsburgh (4-23, 1-15) has
lost seven s traight.
l WasHinGton 74 , UCla
68: Amber melgoza scored
20 points as the Huskies (13-14,
5-11 Pac-12) knocked off the No. 8
Bruins in Seattle.
The loss put a red mark on the
postseason r ésumé of UCLA (22-4,
12-4), which is fighting for a top
seed in both the Pac-12 and NCAA
tournaments.
l alaBaMa 66, MississiP-
Pi statE 64: megan Abrams’s
tip-in at the buzzer lifted the
Crimson Tide (16-11, 6-8 SEC) to
an upset of the No. 9 Bulldogs in
Starkville, miss.
Jessika Carter had 18 points
and 12 rebounds for mississippi
State (23-5, 1 0-3).
l ViRGinia 86, ViRGinia
tECH 76: Dominique To ussaint
and Jocelyn Willoughby scored
29 points apiece to propel the
Cavaliers past the Hokies in
Blacksburg, Va.
To ussaint added a game-high
seven assists and Willoughby had
a game-high 10 rebounds for Vir-
ginia (12-15, 7-9 ACC). Aisha Shep-
pard (St. John’s) had 32 points for
Virginia Te ch (20-7, 10-6).
l MaRQUEttE 76,
GEoRGEtoWn 56: Selena Lott
scored 18 points to help the Gold-
en Eagles (21-7, 12-5 Big East) beat
the Hoyas at mcDonough Arena.
Ta ylor Barnes had 15 points for
Georgetown (5-22, 2-14), which
lost for the 13th time in 14 g ames.
College basketball
Hoosiers
take punch,
then topple
No. 9 Lions
indiana 68,
Penn State 60have a prominent role on this
year’s p itching staff as well.
The right-hander had a good
start to spring training, r etiring a ll
six Giants batters he faced. When
the oakland lineup was an-
nounced, he received loud cheers
from the Athletics’ side of the sta-
dium. The Giants’ side was a little
less enthusiastic but certainly not
hostile.
l RED soX: Boston placed
s econd baseman Dustin Pedroia
on the 60-day injured list, putting
in doubt whether t he 2008 A meri-
can L eague mVP w ill play again.
Pedroia, 36, h as played just nine
games over the past two seasons.
The four-time all-star has spent
the time trying to recover from an
injury he suffered when manny
machado, then with Baltimore,
slid spikes-high into his left knee
in may 2017. Pedroia has t wo y ears
and $25 million remaining on his
contract.
l MEts: Yoenis Céspedes ex-
pects to be ready to play by open-
ing Day, a nd h e said so h imself.
Six days after saying he didn’t
plan to speak to the media all
season, the New York slugger
broke his silence Sunday. out of
the lineup since July 2018 with
heel problems, Céspedes said he
planned to play in spring training
games by the middle of march. If
all goes w ell, he i ntends t o be in the
lineup march 26 when the mets
host the Nationals on opening
Day.
“If I continue progressing the
way that I am, yes,” he said
through an interpreter. “I feel
good. I’m happy with the progress.
Every day I’m still working to get
better and better. It’s not as fast as
I want it to be, but as the season
approaches, I’m feeling like I’m
really good r ight now.”ASSOCIATED PRESSformer Washington Nationals
second baseman Brian Dozier and
the San Diego Padres reached
agreement Sunday on a minor
league contract with an invitation
to major league spring training.
Dozier had 20 home runs and
50 rBI for the World Series cham-
pions last season, and he also ap-
peared in the fall Classic with the
Los Angeles D odgers in 2 018.
The 32-year-old was an all-star
with minnesota in 2015 and hit
42 home runs for the Twins the
next year. The Padres have several
players vying for time at second
base, including newcomer Jurick-
son Profar and Ty france.
l atHlEtiCs: oakland fan
K.C. Sandstrom s at d own the right
field line and watched his team
warm up while a rmed w ith a small
whiteboard, a marker and a state-
ment written in all caps: “mIKE
fIErS for PrESIDENT.”
It has been a tumultuous few
months for fiers, the current A’s
pitcher and former Houston play-
er who helped expose the Astros’
sign-stealing scandal that has
rocked major League Baseball.
But on a cool day in Arizona, the
34-year-old received a largely
warm reception during his first
spring training appearance in
mesa.
“oakland’s going to support us
no matter what,” fiers said after
throwing two perfect innings
against San francisco. “They’ve
always been there. It’s fun playing
in front of these fans and with
these guys. Just a great day of
baseball.”
fiers is coming off his best year
in the majors: He was 15-4 with a
3.90 E rA i n a career-high 184^2 / 3 in-
nings in 2019. He’s expected tospring training notesDozier lands with the Padres
on a minor league contract
rumble when the cheers picked up.
“There’s some part of me that just
comes to life whenever I get on-
stage,” Y ankel said. “It just feels good
to be able to interact with all the
people who a re there to watch us.”
The feeling is mutual. Standing
in line before the doors opened
Saturday, one oWL f an, Joey C aru-
sone, said Yankel and players like
him a dd “ a lot o f hype” t o matches
by reacting to the cheers or jeers
from the crowd. Carusone and his
high school friends flew in from
Dayton, ohio, and got in line two
hours early just to make it to their
first overwatch h omestand.
Washington will host five
homestands this season, tied for
the m ost in t he l eague. T he team is
betting big on the home events,
with three matches scheduled at
the Anthem and another two
across the Anacostia river at En-
tertainment and Sports Arena.
Washington’s principal owner,
mark Ein, said there’s always a lot
of pressure whenever live events
such as this are launched, adding
it’s a bit like “field o f Dreams.”
“Build it and you hope they will
come,” Ein said at a news confer-
ence Saturday afternoon. “It’s nev-
er been done before.... Until you
see i f it’s g oing to g et f illed, you just
don’t k now.”
So far, the bet appears to be
paying off. Blake Lindsey, another
fan, started playing overwatch
two weeks ago. Now he owns a
Washington Justice jersey. L indsey
said he’s “a D.C. nerd” and was at
the debut of the DC Defenders’
XfL game this month.
“It’s been great fun for me,”
Lindsey said. “It took a little time
just to know some of the basics,
but... I ’ve been able to follow i t.”
[email protected]Washington’s main player on at-
tack, Corey “Corey” Nigra,
switched t o To rbjorn, a hero r arely
seen in competitive p lay.
Ethan “Stratus” Yankel, the s ec-
ond on attack for the Justice, said
after the match that the team is
going to play a lot more aggres-
sively. I t knows t he Torbjorn move,
which threw Paris off, worked.
Yankel named it t he “ Corebjorn.”
“You can expect to see a little
more dumber stuff from us,” Yan-
kel said. “I think that’s going to be
the p lay.”
on Sunday, the Justice lost its
second match of the weekend to
the L ondon S pitfire, 3 -2.
At the start of the weekend se-
ries Saturday, t he P hiladelphia f u-
sion beat the New York Excelsior,
3-1, with Sumin “Sado” Kim lead-
ing the charge and JaeHyeok
“Carpe” Lee r acking u p 70 elimina-
tions. And then in the longest
overwatch L eague match e ver, the
Houston outlaws almost came
back in a reverse sweep across
seven maps. The Boston Uprising
shut it down with a 3-2 win. In
Sunday’s other matches, New York
beat Houston, 3-0, and Philadel-
phia beat t he To ronto D efiant, 3-2.
rob flanagan, a die-hard fu-
sion fan, drove down from Phila-
delphia, bringing with him a
homemade “fusion” Gritty cos-
tume — in honor of the crazed,
furry Philadelphia flyers mascot.
flanagan said he has tickets to go
to every homestand match for the
Philadelphia f usion, a nd he m ight
go t o more along the East C oast.
Players already are comment-
ing after matches about the home-
field advantage emerging in Sea-
son 3. Yankel said i t felt a mazing to
play in front of a home crowd,
adding he could feel the AnthemBY TEDDY AMENABARThe Washington Justice went
all out at the Anthem on Saturday
night, introducing i tself to the Dis-
trict as the first esports franchise
to host its home competitions in
the c ity.
Before the Justice played its in-
augural home match, a pair of
aerialists swung in midair, smoke
billowed from the rafters, and the
Washington Capitals’ mascot,
Slapshot, waved the team flag to
welcome i t home.
Washington is hosting six
matches for a homestand weekend
in Activision Blizzard’s overwatch
League, a 20-team, city-based es-
ports league built around the
team-based shooter. Two teams of
six play a series of different modes
of the game overwatch, with the
first team to win three rounds de-
clared the winner. This is the first
time Justice fans have been able to
cheer on their team at home, and
for the league, it’s the first home-
stand this season in a city that has
never had a live overwatch event.
Despite the f anfare o f the d ebut,
Washington fell to the Paris Eter-
nal, 3-1. Paris h ad k ey p erformanc-
es from Jung “Xzi” Ki-hyo and
Brice “fDGod” monsçavoir.
In a news conference after the
match, Nicolas “NiCogdh” moret
of the Eternal said the team won
because it kept t he t empo through
the series. The only surprise was
during the second map, whenOverwatch League arrives in District
Washington falls to Paris
in front of raucous crowd
Saturday at the Anthemmedial collateral ligament in his
right knee in August, September
and october. He s uffered the injury
at the end of the summer, made
nine appearances in September —
including saving both legs of a
doubleheader — and threw 9^2 / 3 in-
nings in the postseason. He
couldn’t receive cortisone because
team doctors were worried about
further damaging the mCL. By the
fall, before he threw the final pitch
of the World Series, he was running
on nothing but adrenaline and an-
ti-inflammatory pills.
Some days Hudson would start
warming up in the outfield and
consider shutting down. The pain
became close to unbearable more
than once, but he pushed to the
end. The Nationals trusted six to-
tal pitchers for the entire playoffs.
Hudson was one of them. But he
knew, once winter arrived, that he
needed to reset. He took Novem-
ber off. He went to physical thera-
py three times a week near his
offseason home i n Phoenix.
He t hen signed with the Nation-
als in mid-January, on a two-year
deal worth $11 million. There was
hesitancy because of Hudson’s in-
jury history, including back-to-
back To mmy John surgeries that
forced him to miss most of three
years. But his arm recovered well,
his knee did, too, and his mechan-
ics h ardly slipped.
“There were times when I start-
ed to feel my arm overcompensat-
ing for my knee being sore since it
was m y back l eg a nd I was t rying to
generate force and velocity,” Hud-
son said. “But it never got to the
point where m y elbow or shoulder
was in jeopardy. If it did, I
wouldn’t have b een pitching. I was
able to m ake it through.”
Doolittle’s knee issues go back a
decade, to when he underwent sur-
geries in 2009 and 2010. The first
procedure reattached a patellarnationals from D1tendon that had badly frayed. The
second was a debridement, with
doctors cutting a sliver off a tendon
and shaving down his kneecap.
They derailed his career as an out-
fielder and ultimately led him to
pitch for the oakland Athletics; he
was traded to Washington in 2017.
That snowball effect is the
good part. The bad side is the
lingering tendinitis that flared up
this past spring. That’s what led
Doolittle to the IL i n mid-August,
even if it seemed like a bout with
arm fatigue. He had t o shoulder a
heavy w orkload in t he spring and
summer — with 39 first-half ap-
pearances — and has not pitched
a full season without injury since- Then his knee pain created
bad habits in his delivery, which
created arm soreness, which cre-
ated the need to sit him down for
two weeks during a pennant race.
But in that stretch, Doolittle
developed routines he will carry
into the coming year. He focused
less on heavy lifting. He did more
agility work and retrained his
body to complete movement pat-
terns that had become strenuous.
He u sed a muscle-stimulation m a-
chine twice a day — once when he
got to the park and again in the
early innings of each game — to
activate his knee by fighting
through contractions.
The result was a 1.96 ErA in
181 / 3 innings across September and
october. Doolittle then rented the
same machine this winter and
maintained the same upkeep.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be out of
the woods with my knee, but I feel
like we’ve learned a lot with how I
can manage it,” Doolittle said. “I
don’t t hink there will ever be a day
where I can just show up at the
field without doing the activation
and my m aintenance program.”
The Nationals needed 14 pitch-
ers to take the mound Sunday.
Eight faced the Houston Astros in
a 2-1 win in West Palm Beach. The
rest appeared in a 5-2 loss to the
miami marlins in Jupiter. But
Doolittle a nd Hudson threw in the
morning, on the back fields of
Washington’s facility, against bat-
ters i n a controlled setting.
It w as their latest round of baby
steps and will lead right into an-
other.
[email protected]Nats need relievers’ knees to hold upJohn McDonnell/the Washington Post
nationals reliever sean Doolittle developed routines to alleviate his
knee problems last year, and he plans to continue them t his season.be back. He will be a champion
again. But the king has returned.”
fury bulked up to 273 pounds
for the rematch, vowing to change
tactics and become the big punch-
er. He was true to his word, domi-
nating early with a jab that
stopped Wilder in his tracks and
then landing combinations to the
head and body.
fury (30-0-1, 21 Kos) came into
the ring carried aloft on a throne
with a crown on his head. Then he
showed he was really the Gypsy
King as he made it an easy night
against a fighter who had gone
12 years without losing as a pro.
for Wilder, it was a stunning
end to an unbeaten mark that had
seen him knock o ut 41 of his previ-
ous 43 opponents. But his devas-
tating right hand was never a
factor, and fury seemed to walk
through it. That was unlike the
first fight 14 months ago, when
Wilder knocked fury down twice
on his way to a draw.
— Associated PressWilder briefly protested the
stoppage as a pro-fury crowd of
15,816 at the mGm Grand hotel
roared in delight. The fight drew a
heavyweight record $16.9 million
gate, and promoters believe it sold
well on pay-per-view, t oo.
“I wish my corner would have
let me go o ut on my s hield,’’ Wilder
said. “He did what he did. There’s
no excuses.’’
Wilder, who at 6-foot-7 and
231 pounds was the smaller man
in the ring to the 6-9 British giant,
was backpedaling the entire fight,
trying to catch fury coming in
with a right hand. But he was
never able to throw it effectively,
and he was unable to deal with
fury’s jab, either.
Two judges had fury winning
every round, while the third gave
Wilder one round. fury had a
point deducted for grabbing and
pushing in the fifth round.
“He manned up, and he really
did show the heart of a champion,’’
fury said. “He’s a warrior. He will44 fights, and it came in the 11th
defense of the title he won in 2015.
“Even the greatest have lost and
come back,’’ Wilder said. “I make
no excuses. This is what big-time
boxing is all about.’’
The fighters a re under contract
for a third fight, though Wilder
could opt out of it as the loser. If
the fight happens, fury would get
the better part of a 60-40 purse
bid.
fury stalked Wilder almost
from the opening bell, using his
jab to control the early rounds. He
won every round on the scorecard
of the Associated Press and was in
total command of the fight when
it ended.
ringside punch stats demon-
strated fury’s dominance, show-
ing him out-landing Wilder 82-34
in total punches. fury landed
58 power punches in less than
seven rounds of the rematch after
landing just 38 in the first fight.
Wilder landed just 34 punches all
fight and just 18 power shots.“The king has returned to his
throne,’’ proclaimed fury, who
fought to a draw with Wilder in
their f irst fight.
fury dropped Wilder in the
third round with a right hand that
seemed to take the legs out of the
champion. He put him down
again in the fifth round, this time
with a left h and to the body.
He also bloodied Wilder’s ear
and seemed to lick the blood off
his shoulder in a bizarre scene in
the sixth round. If that wasn’t
enough fun for the night, he tried
to lead the crowd in a singalong of
“A merican Pie” after the fight.
fury k new all the words.
The end came at 1:39 of the
seventh round when referee Ken-
ny Bayless stopped the fight after
Wilder’s corner threw in the towel
as he was getting pummeled in a
neutral corner. Blood was pouring
out of Wilder’s ear for several
rounds before fury w ent in for the
shoulder l ick.
It w as the first loss f or Wilder inBY TIM DAHLBERGLAS VEGAS — Tyson fury rein-
vented himself, and he again is a
heavyweight champion.
The Gypsy King dropped Deon-
tay Wilder twice Saturday n ight in
their heavyweight title rematch,
turning from boxer to puncher to
win the title when Wilder’s c orner
threw in the towel as he was tak-
ing a beating in the seventh
round.
It was a stunning turnaround
for a fighter who came back from
drug and alcohol abuse to win the
title for a second time, made even
more surprising because Wilder
was the devastating puncher in
their f irst fight 14 m onths ago.After defeating W ilder, Fury declares, ‘The king has returned’
Heavyweight champion’s
decision to put on weight
for title rematch pays offASSOCIATED PRESSPatrick reed made it hard for
anyone to question his moxie.
A week that began with
Brooks Koepka saying he
thought reed cheated when he
was penalized for swiping sand
in the Bahamas ended with reed
delivering clutch moments down
the stretch Sunday to win the
mexico Championship in mexico
City.
Then again, reed always
seems to be at his best when he
feels as if the world is against
him.
Two shots behind with four
holes to play, reed ran off three
straight birdies to overtake Bry-
son DeChambeau, closing with a
4-under-par 67 for his second
World Golf Championships title.
reed made it interesting in
the end with a wild tee shot into
the trees on the 18th hole at
Chapultepec Golf Club, forcing
him to chip back to the fairway.
He had to two-putt from 35 feet
for the eighth victory of his PGA
To ur career.
“To come back and win my
second World Golf Champion-
ship, especially with how I had t o
finish from basically 15 onwards.... [The] last hole was ugly, but it
was what I needed just to get the
job done,” reed said.
He finished at 18-under 266
and moved to No. 8 in the world.
In a wild final round in which
five players had a share of the
lead, DeChambeau appeared to
seize control with five birdies in
a six-hole stretch starting at
No. 9.
Everyone around him faltered
— Justin Thomas, rory mcIlroy,
Jon rahm, Erik van rooyen. But
reed played bogey-free until he
only needed a bogey to win.
DeChambeau failed to birdie
the par-5 15th, missed the green
on the 16th with a pin in a bowl
that made birdies accessible and
then three-putted from long
range on the 17 th. He shot a 65.
reed never flinched with so
much going on around him, on
and off the golf course.
He has yet to shake whispers
on the tour and heckling from
the gallery over the Hero World
Challenge in December, when
video caught him twice swiping
away sand behind his ball in a
waste area in the Bahamas.
reed accepted the two-shot
penalty and said a different cam-
era angle would have shown his
club wasn’t as close to the ball as
it looked....
Viktor Hovland won the Puer-
to rico open to become the first
Norwegian winner in PGA To ur
history, chipping in for eagle on
the par-5 15th and racing in a
30-footer for birdie on the par-5
18th for a one-stroke victory over
Josh Te ater.
Hovland overcame a muddy
triple bogey on the par-3 11th
with the late surge at windy Coco
Beach in rio Grande, Puerto
rico.
The 22-year-old former okla-
homa State star shot a 2-under
70 to finish at 20-under 268.golF roUnDUpReed answers his critics
with a victory in Mexico