LIVERPOOL CAN’T DEFEND ITS FA CUP
Liverpool’s FA Cup title defense is over.
On a dramatic day of late goals, Liverpool became the latest high-profile club to exit the FA Cup as the defending champion conceded a goal in the second minute of stoppage time to lose 2-1 at Brighton in the fourth round.
It’s only January but Liverpool is already out of the FA Cup and League Cup, languishing in ninth place in the Premier League and its only realistic chance of silverware this season is in the Champions League — where a last-16 matchup against Real Madrid awaits next month.
“I feel sorry for the fans. We let them down again,” Liverpool defender Andy Robertson said.
Japan winger Kaoru Mitoma produced a brilliant piece of skill for Brighton’s winner against Liverpool by feigning a shot to deceive two defenders and then driving a close-range finish into the roof of the net.
More soccer
Real Madrid lost ground to Barcelona at the top of the Spanish league after a 0-0 home draw with third-place Real Sociedad. Madrid failed to score for the first time this season despite more than 20 attempts against Sociedad. The result leaves defending champion Madrid five points behind Barcelona.
Locally
Christian Gutierrez and Brandon Escoto both scored in the fourth period to break a tie and give the San Diego Sockers a 6-4 MASL victory over the Chihuahua Savage at Pechanga Arena.
• On the final day of competition at the Princeton Winter Tournament, the 15th-ranked UC San Diego women’s water polo team (3-5) split a pair of matches, defeating Bucknell 18-5 before losing against No. 22 Long Island University 14-11.
• Josh Schellinger put down 11 kills but the UC San Diego men’s volleyball team
(4-6) was swept by a hot, ninth-ranked Grand Canyon team (6-0) at GCU Arena.
Winter sports
Mikaela Shiffrin will have to wait for at least five more weeks before tying the World Cup record for most career wins with 86. The American skier finished second in a slalom and remained one victory short of
Ingemar Stenmark’s total on the all-time overall winners list. Shiffrin held a commanding first-run lead over
Lena Durr but was ultimately edged by 0.06 by the German skier.
• Swiss skier Marco Odermatt overcome a tricky course setting to win a men’s World Cup super-G for his second victory in two days. Odermatt extended his lead in both the overall and super-G standings. Dominik Paris was 0.76 seconds behind in second. Daniel Hemetsberger trailed by 1.03 in third.
• Germany captured the first two bobsled gold medals of this year’s world championships, with Laura Nolte driving to the win in women’s monobob and Johannes
Lochner winning the twoman championship. Kaillie Humphries of the U.S. was second in monobob, the lone U.S. medal so far at the championships that continue in St. Moritz next weekend.
Golf
Rory McIlroy delivered an exhibition of short iron play to shoot 7-under 65 in his third round and build a three-stroke lead at the Dubai Desert Classic. McIlroy was on 15 under overall, with English players Callum Shinkwin and No. 484-ranked Dan Bradbury tied for second place.
Motorsports
Acura dominated the debut of hybrid engines in North American sports car racing with a 1-2 finish at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Helio Castroneves and the automaker won the prestigious endurance race for a third consecutive year. Castroneves won the Rolex in 2021 in an Acura with Wayne Taylor Racing and won with Meyer Shank Racing the last two seasons. He was overcome with emotion after Tom Blomqvist closed out
the victory by holding off Filipe Albuquerque in an Acura for Taylor/Andretti on a restart. Despite being the reigning champions, MSR and Acura were a bit of an unknown ahead of Daytona. The twice-round-the-clock endurance race this year marked the launch of a new hybrid era of racing.
Also
Olympic freestyle skiing champion Eileen Gu crashed during practice for the Winter X Games and said she suffered a bad ligament strain in her knee that forced her to miss the contest.
• Free agent infielder Josh Harrison and the Philadelphia Phillies reached agreement on a one-year contract. The 35-year-old Harrison batted .272 with seven home runs and 27 RBIs in 119 games for the White Sox last season.
• Havnameltdown ($4) notched his second consecutive graded stakes win as he powered off the turn for home en route to an impressive 1½-length score in the Grade II, $200,000 San Vicente for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita.