San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Burton’s Xfinity win frustrates Gragson
Harrison Burton stormed past Noah Gragson in the final turn Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway in FortWorth to win the Xfinity Series race and deny Gragson a spot in the championship round. Gragson was one turn away from earning an automatic berth in the titledeciding finale but instead settled for second place. He entered the race last in the playoff rankings, 33 points below the cutline and needing a victory to advance.
Burton won for the third time this season in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing but was eliminated from title contention in the first round.
Chase Briscoe is the only driver locked into the finale at Phoenix next month. The remaining slots will be decided in next week’s elimination race at Martinsville ( Va.) Speedway.
Brandon Jones, Ross Chastain, Gragson and Ryan Sieg could be eliminated at Martinsville.
ELSEWHERE
Quakes lose lead on road
Tosaint Ricketts’ goal in the 57th minute gave the VancouverWhitecaps a 21 win over the visiting San Jose Earthquakes.
Carlos Fierro’s rightfooted shot from the center of the box to the bottomright corner gave San Jose a 10 lead in the 24th minute. Cristian Espinoza’s cross assisted. Ali Adnan’s goal in the 51st minute tied it.
The loss dropped San Jose into a tie for fifth place with Minnesota and Dallas, which tied Real Salt Lake 00 in Utah as Jimmy Maurer posted his fifth shutout in his 13th start of the season.
Aaron Schoenfeld scored his first goal of the season in the 92nd minute to send Minnesota United to a 10 win at Cincinnati. In other MLS games, Sergio Santos scored three times and the Philadelphia Union beat visiting Toronto FC 50 to move into a firstplace tie with Toronto. Philadelphia ( 1235) also improved to 700 at home this season. It was the first defeat in 10 games for Toronto ( 1235). Santos entered with four goals on the season. ... Alan Pulido scored in his first game back from international duty, Andreu Fontas scored his first career MLS goal, and host Sporting Kansas City beat the Colorado Rapids 40. ... NYCFC ( 983) snapped a threegame winless streak with a 31 over the visiting Montreal Impact. The Manchester rivals are rolling the clock back six years in a way neither desires. A pair of draws left the teams with their lowest English Premier League points tallies after five games since 2014. City is at eight points after being held to a 11 tie at West Ham. United is a point worse off after a goalless encounter with visiting Chelsea and is without a win at Old Trafford in its opening three matches for the first time in 48 years. Liverpool’s title defense is back on the winning path. After being humiliated 72 by Aston Villa and drawing with Everton, the champion came from behind to beat Sheffield United 21 to move to second place behind Merseyside rival Everton. Defender Sergio Ramos created and scored the winning goal in leading Real Madrid to a 31 win at Barcelona. Madrid leads the Spanish league with 13 points. Barcelona has seven points. Elsewhere, former Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku scored his seventh goal in six matches in Inter Milan’s 20 win at Genoa. Inter moved within two points of AC Milan, which leads Serie A by one point. ... Robert Lewandowski scored a hat trick to help Bayern Munich to a 50 rout of Eintracht Frankfurt, while Marcel Sabitzer’s late penalty was enough for Leipzig to stay atop the Bundesliga with a 21 win over Hertha Berlin. ... Ajax Amsterdam routed VVVVenlo 130 for the biggest victory in Dutch league history.
Figure skating: American superstar Nathan Chen landed five quadruple jumps over two programs in his first competition in nine months, easily outdistancing San Jose native Vincent Zhou to win his recordtying fourth straight Skate America title in Las Vegas. It kept intact a streak of victories for Chen that dates to his fifthplace finish at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. Chen’s title at one of the only Grand Prix events held in the pandemic, matched a record shared by Michelle Kwan, Todd Eldredge and ice dancers Meryl Davis and CharlieWhite.
In the women’s event, Mariah Bell edged 2018 national champion Bradie Tennell to win arguably the biggest title of her career. The 24yearold fell on a triple lutz to finish her program, and her score of 136.25 was only the fourthbest of the free skates. But her sterling short program gave her 212.73 points total — just 1.66 points ahead of Tennell.