HOCKEY

Cameron Askew scored two goals Wednesday night as the Mainer Mariners ended a four-game losing streak with a 6-2 ECHL win over the Reading Royals at Cross Insurance Arena.

Askew scored in the second and third periods for Maine, which also got goals from Pascal Laberge, Nick Master, Mathew Santos and Tyler Hinam.

Callum Booth made 37 saves for the Mariners, who have two games left in the regular season – both at home – against first-place Newfoundland on Friday (7:15 p.m.) and Saturday (6 p.m.).

BASEBALL

Jecksson Flores and K.J. Harrison each drove in a run as the Harrisburg Senators used a three-run sixth inning to top the Portland Sea Dogs 3-2 in an Eastern League game Wednesday at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Jackson Cluff scored off a wild pitch in the sixth for Harrisburg. Alex Troop struck out six in 3 2/3 innings of relief for the win.

Nick Sogard had an RBI in the first and Christian Koss drove one in with a hit in the ninth for Portland. Dylan Spacke took the loss.

Jay Groome, Boston’s first-round pick in 2016, started and pitched five scoreless innings. He allowed one hit and struck out four. He left with a 1-0 lead.

TENNIS

MONTE CARLO MASTERS: Sebastian Korda beat Carlos Alcaraz 7-6 (2), 6-7 (5), 6-3 in windy conditions at Monaco to reach the third round of the clay-court season opener.

Korda will face Indian Wells champion Taylor Fritz, who beat Marin Cilic of Croatia 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Other second-round winners included fourth-seeded Casper Ruud of Norway, Hubert Hurkacz of Poland and Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain.

DAVIS CUP FINALS: The latter stages of the Davis Cup Finals will be played in the southern Spanish city of Malaga in November, organizers said.

The revamped tennis competition will remain in Spain after the first two editions were played in Madrid.

The group phase will be played from Sept. 14-18 in the Italian city of Bologna, the Scottish city of Glasgow, the German city of Hamburg and a fourth city yet to be announced. Innsbruck, Austria, and Turin, Italy, hosted group matches this year along with Madrid.

The quarterfinals, semifinals and final will all be in Malaga from Nov. 21-27 on indoor hard courts. The city will also host the final stages in 2023, the International Tennis Federation and organizing group Kosmos Tennis said.

SOCCER

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Liverpool didn’t need its best players to secure progress to the semifinals.

Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp opted to rest stars like Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, and saw his backups play out a wild 3-3 draw with Benfica in the second leg of the quarterfinals to wrap up a 6-4 aggregate win.

Villarreal awaits Liverpool in the last four.

• Manchester City held Atletico Madrid to a 0-0 draw to return to the semifinals and keep alive its hopes of winning Europe’s top club competition for the first time.

City advanced thanks to its 1-0 win in the first leg last week.

NORWAY: Norwegian soccer club Bodo/Glimt will be without its coach against Roma on Thursday after UEFA dismissed an appeal against a suspension while he and the Italian team’s goalkeeping coach are being investigated for fighting that broke out after the first leg.

UEFA said it declined to overturn the suspension of Kjetil Knutsen. He cannot have contact with his players at the Stadio Olimpico when Bodo/Glimt faces Roma in the Europa Conference League quarterfinals.

Fighting allegedly broke out in the tunnel after Bodo/Glimt won the first leg 2-1 with an 89th-minute goal in Norway.

Roma goalkeeping coach Nuno Santos and Knutsen were provisionally suspended for one game by UEFA’s disciplinary panel while it “decides on the merits of the case.”

Both Santos and Knutsen face longer bans from UEFA competitions if assault charges are proven.
Bodo/Glimt is having its best run in Europe and Roma is seeking its first title in a UEFA competition.

NORTHERN IRELAND: The coach of Northern Ireland’s women’s team apologized for saying girls and women are susceptible to conceding multiple goals in a short space of time because they are “more emotional than men.”

Kenny Shiels provoked criticism for the comments he made after his team’s 5-0 loss to England on Tuesday that ended Northern Ireland’s chances of qualifying for next year’s Women’s World Cup.

“In the women’s game, you’ll have noticed, I’m sure you will if you go through the patterns,” the 65-year-old Shiels said in the postmatch news conference, “when a team concedes a goal, they concede a second one within a very short period of time.

“Right through the whole spectrum of the women’s game, because girls and women are more emotional than men. So, they take a goal going in, they don’t take that very well.”

In a statement released Wednesday, Shiels said he was “sorry for the offense that (the comments) have caused.”

CHELSEA: The bid for Chelsea launched by Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca has added Canadian sports tycoon Larry Tanenbaum ahead of Thursday’s expected deadline for improved offers for the Premier League club.

Tanenbaum, who was announced as joining as co-managing partner of the bid, has ownership stakes in Toronto with the NBA’s Raptors, the NHL’s Maple Leafs and the city’s MLS team.

They face three rival bidders for Chelsea, which was put up for sale by sanctioned Russian oligarch owner Roman Abramovich after the war on Ukraine was launched by President Vladimir Putin.

There are also bids from Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, a consortium featuring Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, and another group fronted by former Liverpool and British Airways chairman Martin Broughton involving Josh Harris, who owns the Philadelphia 76ers and has a stake in Premier League club Crystal Palace.