Kyle Busch wins Nationwide race at Bristol

Kyle Busch won the Nationwide Series race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for his ninth series win of the season.

Busch started from the pole Friday night and led 228 of the 250 laps en route to the 60th series win of his career. It made him 2 for 2 so far this week at Bristol, where he won Wednesday night’s Truck Series race.

Brad Keselowski finished second and was followed by Austin Dillon and Justin Allgaier.

A wild one in Little League World Series

After a crushing extra-inning loss in the Little League World Series at South Williamsport, Pa., Connecticut Manager Tim Rogers expected his New England champions to rebound.

Boy, did they ever.

Chad Knight lined a run-scoring single to left field in the bottom of the seventh inning, and Westport, Conn., beat Northwest champion Sammamish, Wash., 14-13, in a wild game Friday to earn a spot in the U.S. championship game at the Little League World Series.

Knight also hit a solo homer to tie it in the fifth.

Connecticut beat Sammamish for the second time in a week to advance to play Chula Vista, Calif., on Saturday for a berth in the title game. Tijuana, Mexico, will face Tokyo for the international title. The World Series championship is Sunday.

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Gael Monfils and Jurgen Melzer beat upset higher-ranked players Friday to advance to Winston-Salem Open final in North Carolina.

Monfils, the Frenchman ranked No. 43 in the world, overcame early struggles to beat 38th-ranked Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine, 7-6 (11), 6-3, in the first semifinal at the Wake Forest Tennis Center.

The 32nd-ranked Melzer, from Austria, then pulled off the biggest upset in the night match, beating American Sam Querrey — at No. 29, the highest ranked player in the semifinals, and the crowd favorite — 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.

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In Connecticut, Simona Halep beat Caroline Wozniacki, 6-2, 7-5, on Friday night to reach the New Haven Open final.

The 21-year-old Romanian will be seeking her fourth title after winning three times on the WTA Tour since June. She broke Wozniacki six times, three times in each set.

Halep will play defending champion Petra Kvitova.

The Czech star beat countrywoman Klara Zakopalova, 6-0, 6-1, for her eighth consecutive match victory in New Haven.

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New USC basketball Coach Andy Enfield spoke Friday afternoon about the Trojans’ newest player, D.J. Haley, who played three seasons at Virginia Commonwealth.

Enfield said Haley, who graduated in three years and is immediately eligible, plans to enter USC’s engineering graduate school.

Haley, a 7-footer from Palmdale who averaged 1.9 points and 1.9 rebounds last season, fills a need for a backup big man on a USC team that lost forward Eric Wise, who exhausted his eligibility, and center Dewayne Dedmon, who entered the NBA draft but wasn’t taken.

— Diane Pucin

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Dean Meminger, the former Marquette guard who played a reserve role on the New York Knicks’ 1973 NBA championship team that beat the Lakers in the Finals, was found dead Friday in a New York hotel room. He was 65.