Sports Briefs March 8, 2010
Golf
Camilo Villegas shot a 2-under 68 on Sunday for a five-stroke victory in the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., his third PGA Tour victory.
He finished at 13-under 267, the lowest 72-hole score since the tournament moved to PGA National in 2007, four shots better than Y.E. Yang's winning total a year ago.
Anthony Kim (67) was second at 8 under, Justin Rose (64) was another stroke back, and Paul Casey (67) and Vijay Singh (72) followed at 6 under.
• Fred Couples won his second straight Champions Tour title, shooting a 6-under 65 for a four-stroke victory in the Toshiba Classic in Newport Beach, Calif.
Couples, making his third start on the 50-and-over tour, had an 18-under 195 total on the Newport Beach Country Club course. He earned $255,000 to push his tour-leading total to $691,000.
Ronnie Black (65) finished second. Tom Lehman (69) and Chien Soon Lu (69) tied for third at 12 under,
Baseball
The scheduled preseason game between the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres in Peoria, Ariz., was canceled due to rain.
Seattle will face Milwaukee today in Phoenix at noon PST.
Basketball
Oregon coach Ernie Kent would not comment about a report Saturday night that he has already been fired before his 13th season with the Ducks ended.
With 12 minutes remaining in the Ducks' 74-66 win over Washington State in the final Pacific-10 Conference game at McArthur Court, Eugene's KVAL-TV reported that Oregon athletic director Mike Bellotti told Kent he would not return as coach next season on Feb. 22.
Bellotti said he would make his decision on Kent's status "around the (Pac-10) tournament," which begins Wednesday in Los Angeles.
• Frank Martin said he had agreed to a contract extension with Kansas State that will boost his annual salary to more than $1.5 million. On the same day, he was also picked as The Associated Press Big 12 coach of the year.
The first man to win 20-plus games in each of his first three seasons at Kansas State, Martin had been one of the lowest-paid coaches in the Big 12 at around $750,000 annually.
• Jon Scheyer of Duke and Grevis Vasquez of Maryland, the front-runners for Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year, are among the six finalists for the Bob Cousy Award presented to the top point guard in college basketball.
The other finalists are freshman standout John Wall of Kentucky, seniors Sherron Collins of Kansas and Scottie Reynolds of Villanova, and Ohio State's Evan Turner, a 6-foot-7 junior who is considered one of the sport's most versatile players.
Tennis
The Davis Cup run for the United States is over in the first round.
Novak Djokovic withstood 24 aces and outlasted John Isner 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-4 in Belgrade, Serbia, giving Serbia a clinching 3-1 lead against an American team looking for its 33rd Davis Cup title. In the last rubber, Sam Querrey beat Viktor Troicki 7-5, 6-2 to make the final score 3-2.
Skiing
Erik Guay of Canada edged early leader Hannes Reichelt of Austria and won a super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway, for his second career World Cup victory.
• Dominique Gisin of Switzerland has won her first World Cup super-G race, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, denying Lindsey Vonn a second win in two days.
Swimming
Urged on by a vocal standing room only crowd, Michael Phelps closed out his weekend at the Maryland Swim Championships by setting the U.S. record in the 200-yard butterfly at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Competing as a member of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, located 30 miles from Annapolis, the 14-time Olympic gold medalist touched home in a time of 1 minute, 39.65 seconds.
His previous record time was 1:39.7, set March 3, 2006 at the South Texas American Short Course Championships in Austin.
- The Associated Press