MLB:
It was the official start of the Major League Baseball season yesterday. The Kansas City Royals raised their championship flag and then topped the team they beat in the World Series. The Royals held off the National League champion Mets 4-3 in their opener at Kauffman Stadium. Meanwhile the season began in Pittsburgh when the Pirates beat the Cardinals 4-1. Toronto opened against Tampa Bay 5-3.
A dozen more major league openers are scheduled for today. Houston is in New York to take on the Yankees at 1 p.m. Boston is going up against Cleveland in an away game at 4:10 p.m.
NCAA:
North Carolina and Villanova are set for Monday night's NCAA men's championship. North Carolina has beaten Villanova five of six meetings in the NCAA tournament and 'Nova coach Jay Wright is winless in three games in his career against Roy Williams' team.
The Connecticut women's team rolled to its 74th straight victory, 80-51 against overmatched Oregon State as the Huskies are one victory away from an unprecedented fourth straight NCAA women's title. Morgan Tuck led UConn with 21 and Breanna Stewart added 16 points and eight rebounds.
Fourth seed Syracuse made 12 of 33 3-point shots and downed Washington 80-59 to reach Tuesday's women's final against UConn. Alexis Petterson had 18 points to lead the Orange. The women's victory took some of the sting out of the Syracuse men losing to North Carolina in their Final Four semifinal on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the NCAA honored the silver-medal winning 1976 women's Olympic basketball team between the third and fourth quarters of yesterday's national semifinal between Oregon State and UConn. The United States, which has won five straight Olympic gold medals in women's basketball, wasn't expected to do much 40 years ago in the program's Olympic debut.
NBA:
In the NBA, New Orleans topped Brooklyn 106-87, Indiana won against New York 92-87, Boston bested the Lakers 107-100, Golden State defeated Portland 136-111, Chicago beat Milwaukee 102-98, Utah topped Phoenix 101-86, Orlando beat Memphis 119-107, Dallas won against Minnesota 88-78, and it was Cleveland over Charlotte 112-103.
NHL:
In the NHL, Chicago beat Boston 6-4, Pittsburgh tripled up Philadelphia 6-2, Winnipeg beat Minnesota 5-1, St. Louis topped Colorado 5-1, and it was Anaheim over Dallas 3-1.
PGA:
Journeyman Jim Herman picked a good time to win his first PGA Tour event. The former University of Cincinnati standout won the Houston Open by one shot over Henrik Stenson. The victory gives Herman a ticket to this week's Masters starting Thursday.
Miguel Angel Jimenez closed strong to win the Champions Tour's Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic. He had a final round 8-under-64 to win the event by two strokes. Jimenez finished play at 14-under with Scott Dunlap in second. The win is Jimenez's third in 10 starts on the Champions Tour.
LPGA:
Lydia Ko took advantage of Ariya Jutanugarn's late collapse to win the ANA Inspiration for her second straight major victory and second LPGA Tour win a row. The top-ranked Ko closed with a 3-under 69 to finish at 12 under. Jutanugarn had a two-stroke lead at 13 under with three holes to play. But she bogeyed all three.
NASCAR:
Kyle Busch finished first in the Sprint Cup race in Martinsville, Virginia. He led 352 of the 500 laps in a commanding performance. He pulled away on a restart with 11 laps to go and outran AJ Allmendinger to the finish. The rest of the top five included Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski.
F1:
Another Formula One race is over and once again the winning driver was Nico Rosberg of Mercedes. He followed up his win in the Australian Grand Prix with a dominant flag-to-flag victory. Mercedes teammate and defending world champion Lewis Hamilton was third with Kimi Raikkonen second. In another big surprise, the new Haas racing team out of the U.S. scored in the points once again. After finishing sixth in Australia, Romain Grosjean scored a fifth-place finish in Bahrain. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel never really got going as his car suffered an engine failure.
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