HOCKEY

Three people associated with the Maine Nordiques junior hockey program, including two staff members, have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Nordiques, based in Lewiston, told the Sun Journal that it would not comment about the outbreak, which was referenced by Shah during his press briefing on Thursday. The team has continued to play games despite recent revisions to Maine’s community sports guidelines that caused youth hockey programs and club sports teams to shut down until December.

On Thursday, the Nordiques lost to the Northeast Generals in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and the teams are scheduled to play again on Friday.

SOCCER

U.S. MEN: Gio Reyna followed his father and mother onto U.S. national soccer teams, showing an insightful passing ability similar to his dad’s, and the Americans tied Wales 0-0 in an exhibition at Swansea, Wales.

The match ended a 10-month layoff caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Reyna, who has gotten regular playing time at Borussia Dortmund, debuted a day before his 18th birthday and his distribution keyed the U.S. attack, much the way former U.S. captain Claudio Reyna did for many of his 112 appearances from 1994 to 2006.

Gio’s mother, the former Danielle Egan, played six matches for the American women in 1993.

Reyna was among six players who made their national team debuts, including starters Yunus Musah, a midfielder with Valencia who turns 18 on Nov. 19; and 19-year-old midfielder Konrad de la Fuente, who awaits his first Barcelona senior team appearance.

BRAZIL: Neymar has been ruled out of Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Uruguay next week because of a groin injury he sustained playing for Paris-Saint-Germain in a Champions League game.

BOLIVIA: Bolivian investigators arrested the interim president of the country’s soccer federation during a South American World Cup qualifying match.

Marcos Rodríguez is accused of corruption and was taken into custody at the Hernando Siles stadium in La Paz, where Bolivia lost 3-2 to Ecuador on Thursday. Local media broadcast a video showing Rodríguez being escorted by police during halftime.

EURO 2021 QUALIFYING: Scotland gave up a 90th-minute equalizer before winning a tense penalty shootout against Serbia to reach its first major tournament in 22 years.

Hungary, Slovakia and North Macedonia also qualified for next year’s tournament, which was pushed back a year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Hungary scored two late goals to beat Iceland 2-1, Slovakia advanced with an extra-time winner at Northern Ireland, and North Macedonia reached its first major tournament by winning 1-0 at Georgia.

FIFA: Greg Clarke resigned as a vice president of FIFA on Thursday after coming under pressure from the world governing body to relinquish the position for making discriminatory comments.

The Englishman planned to stay in the $250,000-a-year FIFA role for a few more months despite being forced to quit as English Football Association chairman on Tuesday within hours of making heavily criticized remarks on race, sexuality and gender during a British parliamentary hearing.

FIFA publicly urged Clarke to consider resigning from its ruling council on Wednesday. Clarke said he wanted to protect European voting interests by staying on until he could be replaced as Britain’s FIFA vice president in a vote by the UEFA Congress next year.

But Clarke realized he had to hasten his departure after speaking to European football leader Aleksander Ceferin, who is also a vice president of FIFA.

“Following a telephone call this morning between the UEFA president and Greg Clarke, they agreed with Greg Clarke’s proposal that he should step down with immediate effect from his position as a UEFA representative on the FIFA Council,” UEFA said in a statement.

Clarke can be temporarily replaced on the FIFA Council by a decision of the UEFA executive committee. But for his successor to assume the vacant FIFA vice presidency slot, there has to be a vote of all European football nations at a UEFA Congress with candidacies required three months in advance.

Only the presidents or vice presidents of the English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish associations are eligible for the role.

GERMANY: Hoffenheim says a sixth player has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Hoffenheim says defender Kevin Vogt was found to be positive in a test taken Wednesday after an earlier sample gave an inconclusive result.

The whole team was placed in isolation on Wednesday.

Five other Hoffenheim players and two staff members have tested positive for the virus in the last week. Two of those players were only found to be positive after they had joined up with their national teams.

Two more Hoffenheim players were withdrawn from their national teams as a precaution despite testing negative.

COLLEGES

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: Rhyne Howard is rewriting the record books at Kentucky and she is only a junior. Now the Wildcats star is the first player from the school to be honored as a preseason All-American by The Associated Press.

Howard was a unanimous choice by the 30-member national media panel. She was joined on the five-player team by sophomore Aliyah Boston of South Carolina, who was also a unanimous pick. Seniors Dana Evans of Louisville, Aari McDonald of Arizona and Michaela Onyenwere of UCLA round out the squad.

Howard averaged 23.4 points last season and became the first player in school history to score 25 or more points in five straight games.

As a freshman, Boston helped the Gamecocks win the SEC and earn their first No. 1 ranking in the final poll of the season. Expectations are high this year as well for South Carolina, which this week earned its first No. 1 preseason ranking in the AP Top 25.

Boston, who averaged 12.5 points and 9.4 rebounds last season, spent a lot of her time during the pandemic working on her shot.

MEN’S BASKETBALL: UConn Coach Dan Hurley is considering delaying the start of his team’s season after a player’s positive coronavirus test last week forced the program to suspend all activities for two weeks.

Hurley said he hopes the team will be able to get back to practice on Nov. 19 and play its first games on Nov. 25 and Nov. 27. But contracts for those games have not been signed and Hurley says ramping up practice after two weeks off will be difficult.

He says the team’s priority is being ready for Big East Conference play on Dec. 11.