NEC votes to postpone fall sports, which includes Duquesne football
The Northeast Conference Council of Presidents voted to postpone all fall sports athletics competition and championships.
The postponement applies to NEC sponsored sports and impacts men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, football, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball, as well as all other NEC sports scheduled to engage in competition this fall.
The NEC, which includes Duquesne and Saint Francis in football, announced it will reevaluate its plans in October amid coronavirus concerns.
More colleges
Penn State had eight athletes test positive for COVID-19 as part of their return to campus protocol, with 66 test results pending. The tests results are through July 24, and Penn State said it has conducted 466 total tests since athletes started to return to campus in June. The athletic department stressed Wednesday the expectation that athletes continue to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
• The Big West Conference is postponing all fall sports through the end of the calendar year. The conference’s board of directors said that men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s volleyball will be postponed as well as the fall schedules for men’s and women’s golf along with men’s and women’s tennis.
• Oklahoma football coach Lincoln Riley will earn an average of more than $7.5 million a year under a contract extension through the 2025 season.
• Lou Henson, the plainspoken coach who took New Mexico State and Illinois to the Final Four during a 21-year career that included nearly 800 victories and a feud with fellow Big Ten coach Bob Knight, has died. He was 88.
• South Carolina’s top scorer and rebounder AJ Lawson is returning to school for his junior basketball season.
Tennis
Serena Williams, Coco Gauff, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were on Wednesday’s initial entry lists for the Western & Southern Open next month. The tournament is scheduled for Aug. 20-28 on the same hard courts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York that are slated to host the U.S. Open from Aug. 31 to Sept.
13.
• No. 1-ranked Ash Barty said she has withdrawn from the U.S. Open because she is not comfortable with traveling during the coronavirus pandemic.
Golf
A week before the PGA Championship begins without spectators, the U.S. Open announced it would not have fans Sept. 17-20 at Winged Foot in New York because of health concerns from the pandemic.
• Gaby Lopez of Mexico is the first LPGA Tour player to test positive for the coronavirus as the tour returns this week in Ohio for the first time in five months.
Basketball
Tiffany Mitchell scored 24 points, Candace Dupree added 23 and Teaira McCowan came off the bench to score 20 as the Indiana Fever defeated the Pheonix Mercury, 106-100, at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. … In the second WNBA game, Arike Ogunbowale scored 20 points to lead the Dallas Wings to a 93-80 win against the New York Liberty.