COLLEGES
Cam Seymour had five doubles and three RBI as the University of Southern Maine baseball team swept a doubleheader with Plymouth State, 8-3 and 11-0, on Monday in Gorham.
Seymour had three doubles in the opener, including one in the eighth inning that scored a run to cap a five-run rally. Andrew Olszak and Brogan Searle-Belanger each had a sacrifice fly and Tom Vesosky hit a two-run single in the rally.
In the second game, Seymour and Olszak each hit a two-run double and Vesosky also had two RBI for the Huskies, who broke it open with a six-run sixth.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: WNBA coach Nicki Collen has been hired as the new Baylor women’s coach, taking over a program that has won three national championships and the last 11 Big 12 regular season titles.
BOXING
FIGHTER CHARGED IN GIRLFRIEND’S DEATH: A federal judge in Puerto Rico on Monday ordered boxer Félix Verdejo held without bail after he was charged in the death of his 27-year-old pregnant lover whose body was found in a lagoon. Verdejo is charged with kidnapping and carjacking resulting in the death of Keishla Rodríguez and with intentionally killing an unborn child. He did not make any comments during Monday’s virtual hearing in which he relied on a translator.
“This is a death penalty-eligible case,” said Judge Camille Vélez.
A criminal complaint filed by the FBI accuses Verdejo of punching Rodríguez in the face and injecting her with a syringe filled with an unidentified substance bought at a public housing complex. It alleges he then bound her arms and feet with wire, tied a heavy block to her before throwing her off a bridge at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and then shot at her body. The complaint says a witness it did not identify helped Verdejo kidnap and kill Rodríguez.
Rodríguez’s family said she was pregnant with Verdejo’s child. Keila Ortiz, the victim’s mother, told reporters that her daughter called on Thursday and told her Verdejo was going to her house to see the results of a pregnancy test.
Verdejo is married and has a young daughter but had known Rodríguez since middle school and maintained a relationship with her, her parents said.
Verdejo (27-2, 17 knockouts) represented Puerto Rico at the 2012 Olympics and became a professional boxer that year, competing in the lightweight division. His career was temporarily sidetracked after he was hospitalized following a 2016 motorcycle accident. The case has outraged many in Puerto Rico, where another woman was recently found burned to death after she filed a domestic violence complaint that a judge dismissed. A Superior Court judge has announced an investigation into that decision.
SOCCER
PREMIER LEAGUE: Michail Antonio returned from injury to revive West Ham’s push for European qualification with both of the team’s goals in a 2-1 win at Burnley in the English Premier League on Monday.
Playing his first game in a month after a hamstring problem, Antonio scored in the 21st and 29th minutes as West Ham hit back following Chris Wood’s 19th-minute penalty for Burnley.
West Ham’s 17th league win of the season – a club record in the Premier League era – moved David Moyes’ team to within three points of the top four as it recovered from back-to-back losses against Newcastle and Chelsea. West Ham’s players made the trip north having lost four of their last eight in the league – as many as they had lost in the previous 23 – and at risk of seeing a promising season unravel.
• West Bromwich Albion was on the brink of relegation from the English Premier League after only drawing with Wolverhampton 1-1 on Monday.
The result left next-to-last West Brom 10 points from safety with four games remaining and needing a “miracle” to avoid an immediate return to the Championship, manager Sam Allardyce said.
The central English team’s fate could even be sealed before its next game, which is at Arsenal on Sunday, if results don’t go its way in the intervening days.
SERIE A: Parma was relegated from Serie A on Monday after losing 1-0 at Torino, which boosted its own hopes of survival.
Torino right back Mërgim Vojvoda scored to condemn Parma to the second division. Parma’s fifth successive defeat left it 12 points below Cagliari in the last position of safety with four matches remaining. Cagliari has the better head-to-head record which is the tiebreaker in Serie A.
Torino moved three points above the relegation zone, with a game in hand.
FIFA BANS OFFICIAL: A soccer official in Haiti was banned for 10 years on Monday for her part in the systematic sexual abuse of women’s national team players.
FIFA ethics judges ruled Nella Joseph, former supervisor of the Haiti Under-20 women’s team, was guilty of “actively coercing and threatening (players) into engaging in sexual relationships” with the then-president of the Haitian Football Association. FIFA expelled the longtime former Haitian FA president, Yves Jean-Bart, from soccer for life last year.
A FIFA judgment in Jean-Bart’s case said he raped girls as young as 14 and took “habitual mistresses” among players starting in 2014. Joseph “failed to protect the physical and mental integrity of various female players who were under her authority and responsibility” at the national training center in Haiti, FIFA said in a statement.
She was also fined $22,000.
TRIATHLON
COMPETITOR DIES: A person has died while competing in the first part of the Ironman 70.3 North American Championship St. George over the weekend in Utah, officials said.
The Ironman Group confirmed the death on Saturday around 6:20 p.m., an hour after the race ended, saying an athlete was showing signs of distress during the 1.2-mile swimming portion of the race at Sand Hallow State Park in Hallow. The group said swim safety personnel provided immediate medical attention.
The person’s identity has not yet been released and further details were not immediately available.
The triathlon course started with the swim. The water was expected to be between 60 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit (15 and 18 Celsius) on average, according to the course description. The race then proceeded into a 56-mile bike race through Washington County into the climb through Snow Canyon State Park followed by a 13.1-mile run.
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