LONG BEACH >> During the first full day of training for the 2016 Long Beach State women’s soccer season earlier this month, 13th-year coach Mauricio Ingrassia’s first comment conce ed a nonconference game four years ago. The game was a 1-0 upset of No. 11-ranked BYU at George Allen Field, the highes...

ANAHEIM >> Mike Trout — and the Angels — had their hopes dashed by a surprising slider and an electric fastball. The Angels superstar came to the plate twice in Wednesday night’s game against the Seattle Mariners with the potential tying runs on base, and both times he struck out. They represented t...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> They share a dream, these two Olympians do, and a passion and a focus. Of course, that can be said of pretty much all Olympians. The difference with this pair? They even share a bed. That’s right. A. Bed. “It’s big enough,” Helen Maroulis says. “We just said, ‘OK, you face that way...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> It was as close as a two-goal game in the third quarter Wednesday. But, eventually and somewhat inevitably, the U.S. women’s water polo team worked its way into position to go for a gold medal. “As you could tell, that was a battle today,” attacker Courtney Mathewson said. “I think...

LAS VEGAS — Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor really don’t like each other. Or apparently press conferences for that matter. Just five months after their press conference for UFC 196 broke into a wild melee, the pair and their camps hurled insults, profanities and drinks at each other Wednesday at the UF...

Rio Olympics 2016: U.S. men’s volleyball reaches the semis, tops Poland United States’ Kawika Shoji (7), celebrates with teammates Matthew Anderson (1), David Lee (4), and William Reid Priddy (8) after defeating Poland in a men’s quarterfinal volleyball match at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Ja...

The existence of dinosaurs and mermaids, the prospect of an injury caused by a remote-controlled robotic tackling dummy and the ridiculousness of allowing players to drive dune buggies on a college campus – you couldn’t see that accident coming? – could be the immaterial takeaway from Episode 2 of t...

The Los Angeles Rams preseason opener got off to a rousing start, but the game wasn’t exactly trouble-free. Several fights broke out at Saturday’s game, three people were arrested and seven were ejected from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Los Angeles Police Department said Monday evening. • ...

PHILADELPHIA >> It is definitely not always su y in Philadelphia with a Phillies team deep in rebuilding mode. But the clouds parted long enough for the sun to shine on one of this city’s favorite former heroes Tuesday. Chase Utley hit two home runs and drove in five runs as the Dodgers routed the P...

ANAHEIM >> In its moment of truth, the franchise record for the longest losing streak in Angels history would be determined by the long, lumbering legs of Jett Bandy. The 26-year-old catcher is not as fast as his name implies. Still, there he was Tuesday on first base with two outs in the eighth i i...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Before the Olympics began, Kerri Walsh Je ings said she welcomed the thought of playing one of host Brazil’s duos and facing a potential hostile environment. “In our minds,” the three-time Olympic champion joked, “since we don’t speak Portuguese, I think we’ll pretend that they’re ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> U.S. triple jumper Christian Taylor felt excited and uneasy at the same time when his opening leap in the Olympic Games final landed at 58-feet, 7 1/4 inches. “We’ve never opened up this big,” Taylor said. “Today was either going to be extremely crazy or that was all I had in the t...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> It was all so strikingly familiar, the Olympic Games women’s 1,500 meter final playing out almost step for step as Genzebe Dibaba’s world-record shattering triumph at last year’s World Championships in Beijing. And with two laps remaining the Ethiopian, as if following the same scr...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Christian Taylor and Will Claye have done it again, sweeping gold and silver in the triple jump for the United States at back-to-back Olympics. Taylor successfully defended the Olympic title he won in London in 2012, setting down the benchmark on Tuesday with a season-leading mark o...

RIO DE JANEIRO — The United States women’s field hockey team placed fifth at the Olympics, the program’s best finish in 20 years. The Americans lost their quarterfinal match to Germany on Monday. Their final ranking is based on their second-place finish in pool play. The Americans also placed fifth ...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Simone Biles and Aly Raisman of the U.S. finished one-two in the Olympic Games floor exercise final Tuesday afte oon. Biles’ 15.966 victory on the floor, the final women’s event of the Olympic women’s program, gave her a fourth gold medal, and fifth total, at the Rio Games. Raisman,...

Antoine Vermette doesn’t feel 34 is old – too old to stay relevant and productive in the NHL. Vermette found a new team Monday and it is the Ducks, who addressed one of the holes among their forward group by signing the free-agent center to a two-year contract worth $3.5 million. Providing that they...

Then again, another option, evidently, is the urine of two people. This is the case of Russian long jumper Darya Klishina, whose inclusion in these Games led Monday to a very respected reporter from the very respected New York Times asking a high-ranking Olympic official about pee. Specifically, she...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Minute after agonizing minute following the Olympic Games 400-meter final Sunday night, Allyson Felix of the U.S. and Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas continued to lie on the wet Olympic Stadium track seemingly not to notice the rain soaked surface, neither sure which one of them was ...

Spring training was over, and David Reid-Foley and Corey Copping were eager to pitch in some games that counted. Copping, 22, was entering his first full season of pro baseball after the Dodgers grabbed him in the 31st round of the 2015 draft. Reid-Foley, 25, was in the second act of his career. The...