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Sports Briefs September 28, 2010

| September 28, 2010 9:00 PM

Football

George Blanda, the seemingly ageless Hall of Fame quarterback and kicker whose 26-year career was best remembered for a remarkable run of late-game theatrics with the Oakland Raiders, has died. He was 83.

The Raiders confirmed the death Monday and issued a statement saying "we are deeply saddened by the passing of the great George Blanda. George was a brave Raider and a close personal friend of Raiders owner Al Davis."

Blanda retired a month shy of his 49th birthday before the 1976 season, playing longer than anyone else in pro football history. He spent 10 seasons with the Chicago Bears, part of one with the Baltimore Colts, seven with the Houston Oilers and his final nine with the Raiders.

He scored 2,002 points in his career, a pro football record at the time of his retirement, kicking 335 field goals and 943 extra points, running for nine touchdowns and throwing for 236 more.

But it was a five-game stretch for Oakland in 1970 that is the lasting imprint from his career. As a 43-year-old, Blanda led the Raiders to four wins and one tie with late touchdown passes or field goals.

Later that season, he became the oldest quarterback to play in a championship game, throwing two touchdown passes and kicking a field goal in Oakland's 27-17 loss to Baltimore in the AFC title game.

• Carroll defensive end Travis Schmidt was naed Frontier Conference player of the week after posting four quarterback sacks in now second-ranked Carroll's 31-13 win over then-No. 21 Montana Tech on Saturday. The senior from Gillette, Wyo., also had three solo tackles, five assisted tackles and a tackle for a loss. Carroll's defense held Tech to 169 yards in total offense.

Carroll College linebacker Lynn Mallory was named the special teams player of the week. The junior from Hauser Lake had two unassisted tackles on kickoff coverage.

• Montana quarterback Justin Roper and Montana State defensive tackle Zach Minter are among the Big Sky Conference players of the week.

Roper earned offensive honors after passing for 189 yards and two touchdowns to help Montana rally to a 28-25 win over Sacramento State.

Minter returned an interception 53 yards for a touchdown to help Montana State snap a seven-game losing streak to Eastern Washington. It was the second week in a row that Minter has scored for the Bobcats.

• The Buffalo Bills have released quarterback Trent Edwards in a surprise move that came a week after he lost the starting job for a second straight season.

The team announced the move in a two-paragraph release, a day after Ryan Fitzpatrick provided the offense with a spark in a 38-30 loss at New England.

Edwards was in his fourth season after being selected by the team in the third round of the 2007 draft out of Stanford. He went 14-18 as a starter, including 0-2 this season.

He was benched the day after a 34-7 loss at Green Bay on Sept. 19. He was 11 of 18 for 102 yards and two interceptions.

Baseball

A jury convicted a drunken driver of murder in a Santa Ana, Calif., courtroom in the deaths of promising rookie Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two of his friends.

Andrew Gallo, 23, held white rosary beads and occasionally looked up at jurors as they returned convictions on three counts of second-degree murder and single counts of drunken driving, hit-and-run driving, and driving under the influence of alcohol and causing great bodily injury.

Basketball

Lindsay Whalen scored 16 points to lead the United States to a 87-46 win over Canada in the second round of the women's basketball world championship in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

- The Associated Press