Tebow told Murray to follow his heart
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Before picking football over baseball for his professional future, Kyler Murray got some advice from another famous twosport star — one Heisman Trophy winner to another. Tim Tebow said he told Murray to follow his heart when deciding between MLB’s Oakland Athletics and pursuing an NFL career. Murray, who won the Heisman last year in his lone season as the University of Oklahoma’s starting quarterback and led the Sooners to the College Football Playoff, announced Monday he was fully committing to football despite being selected ninth overall in the 2018 amateur baseball draft. After arriving Saturday at the New York Mets’ spring training camp, Tebow said he interviewed Murray a few months ago in his job as a college football television analyst and the two have gotten to know each other. Tebow, a former NFL quarterback, won the 2007 Heisman Trophy at the University of Florida. Now an outfielder in the Mets’ farm system, Tebow has made impressive strides as a baseball player since his NFL career ended in 2012 after stints with the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets. To the surprise of many, he became an All-Star at the Double-A level last season and is ticketed for Triple-A Syracuse in April to begin his third full season of pro baseball. Murray previously agreed to a minor league contract with Oakland that came with a $4.66 million signing bonus. The deal called for him to receive $1.5 million after approval last summer by Major League Baseball and $3.16 million on March 1. He must return six-sevenths of the money he received, or $1,285,714. Now Murray hopes to be a high pick in the NFL draft, which begins April 25 in Nashville.
TENNIS
› UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Reilly Opelka won his first ATP Tour title Sunday, beating qualifier Brayden Schnur 6-1, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (7) in the New York Open. The 6-foot-11 Opelka hit 43 aces for the second straight match, the final one to finally end things after an overturned call had helped him set up match point. A night after overcoming six match points to beat top-seeded John Isner in the semifinals, Opelka needed six of his own to finish off Schnur in the matchup for first-time finalists. Schnur, who had never won a tour-level match before arriving in New York and making it into the tournament through qualifying, nearly pulled off a remarkable comeback after getting blown off the court in less than 20 minutes in the first set. The 154th-ranked Canadian appeared to finally have a match point of his own, but Opelka challenged what initially looked like Schnur’s ace. The serve was ruled out, and Schnur double-faulted on his second serve. Opelka then wrapped it up with the last of his 156 aces in the tournament. The 21-year-old American had to win second-set tiebreaks to win both his first two matches on the black courts of the Nassau Memorial Veterans Coliseum, and again in the semifinals against Isner, when they combined for 81 aces, the most ever in a three-set match on tour.
HOCKEY
› LAS VEGAS — Max Pacioretty scored twice and Malcolm Subban made 29 saves in his first start since early January as the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Nashville Predators 5-1 late Saturday night to snap a threegame losing streak. Oscar Lindberg,
Brandon Pirri and Shea Theodore also scored for Vegas. For the Predators,
Kevin Fiala scored his 10th goal of the season and Juuse Saros made 45 saves. Nashville entered ranked fourth in the NHL in goals-against per game (2.57) and seventh in shots allowed per game (29.4). The Predators had allowed two or fewer goals in 31 games and one or fewer in 18 of their 60 games this season before allowing the handful to Vegas. ›
DETROIT — The inaugural Rivalry Series was created to give Canada and the United States another opportunity to put the world’s best female hockey teams on the ice together. It went so well, there likely will be a sequel. Brianne Jenner and Blayre Turnbull scored and Shannon Szabados made 38 saves as the Canadians beat the Americans 2-0 in front of 9,048 on Sunday to win the threegame series. The U.S. won the opener 1-0 on Tuesday in London, Ontario, and Canada evened the three-game series with a 4-3 victory Thursday in Toronto. The Canadians won this matchup nearly a year after the Americans won Olympic gold in a shootout thriller and a few months after the United States won the Four Nations Cup against them. They will meet again in April at the world championship in Finland, and more frequent meetings will be in order if the Rivalry Series becomes an annual event. Speaking Sunday, executives for both teams considered the inaugural series a success and a good fit for their programs.