Missouri’s Kreklows retire
Missouri volleyball coaches Wayne and Susan Kreklow are retiring from the program they ran for 19 seasons.
The university announced Thursday that assistant coach Joshua Taylor will be interim coach for the upcoming season.
Last year, Missouri went 24-8 and lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Susan Kreklow was head coach from 2000-’04. Her husband moved from assistant to head coach in 2005, and Susan remained one of his top assistants.
Together they had 413 wins and led Missouri to 15 NCAA Tournaments, reaching the second round 10 times, the Sweet 16 four times and the Elite Eight once.
Wayne Kreklow was a star on Neenah’s 1975 state championship basketball team. He went on to play at Drake and played 25 games for the Boston Celtics during the 1980-’81 season.
CYCLING
Inspired by his yellow jersey, Julian Alaphilippe held off defending champion Geraint Thomas to win the only individual time trial stage of this Tour de France on Friday, a shock victory to raise French hopes that he could go all the way in yellow to Paris next week.
Cheered on by boisterous crowds hammering on roadside barriers, Alaphilippe sprang a surprise in his margin of victory on the tricky, hilly, turn-filled loop south of Pau, with spectacular views of the Pyrenees.
Having previously predicted that he’d lose time to Thomas, an expert in the race against the clock, Alaphilippe stunned even himself by emphatically relegating the Welshman into second place, 14 seconds slower.
AUTO RACING
Brad Keselowski topped qualifying for Sunday’s Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 in Loudon, New Hampshire.
Keselowski turned in a fast lap of 136.384 mph in his Ford to edge Kyle Busch.
Busch qualified second at 136.311 mph, just ahead of older brother, Kurt.
IndyCar: Simon Pagenaud will start first in Saturday’s Iowa 300 after winning the pole for the second week in a row.
Pagenaud, who won in Toronto last weekend starting from the front row, posted an average speed of 180.073 mph to capture his third pole of 2019 and his 13th overall. It was also Team Penske’s fifth straight qualifying win in Newton.
Will Power qualified second, followed by series leader Josef Newgarden and Takuma Sato.
NBA
Kyle Lowry had surgery to repair damaged ligaments in his left thumb, an injury he played through during the last two rounds of Toronto’s run to the NBA championship.
The all-star point guard was hurt May 12 during Game 7 of a victory over Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference semifinals. He continued to play and helped Toronto win its first title when he finished with 26 points and 10 assists in Game 6 of the NBA Finals at Golden State.