Jul 28, 2018 4 min read

Pony baseball

Mon Valley advanced to the championship round of the Pony Host Area Satellite Tournament by defeating host Morgantown, W.Va., 5-3, Saturday.

Mon Valley will play Quad County North (Butler) in the championship round this morning and qualified for the Pony Host Area Tournament next week in McCandless.

Mon valley began play Saturday with an 11-0 five-inning loss to Quad County North but rebounded with the win over Morgantown.

Andrew Mackey was the winning pitcher for Mon Valley, throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings in relief of Nathan White.

Kody Kuhns had a double that drove in the go-ahead run in a three-run fifth inning and Ryan Hamer’s double started the big inning for Mon Valley. Jack Bryer and Martin Marion each had two hits in the game.

Mackey Bryer and Jack Sacco each had one hit in the loss to Quad County North.

Rangers sign Skjei

The Rangers avoided arbitration with Brady Skjei, agreeing with the defenseman on a $31.5 million, six-year contract.

New York general manager Jeff Gorton announced the deal with the 24-year-old restricted free agent Saturday, three days before Sjkei’s arbitration hearing was scheduled. The former University of Minnesota player was coming off his entry-level contract and will count $5.25 million against the salary cap through the 2023-24 season.

Skjei is a poster boy for the Rangers’ rebuild as a young, homegrown player counted on to take on an increased role. The 2012 first-round pick has already played 169 NHL games and is going into his third full season.

Playing all 82 games last season, Sjkei averaged a career-high 21 minutes a game and had four goals and 21 assists. He was 10th in Calder Trophy voting for rookie of the year in 2016-17 when he had 39 points.

In auto racing

Kyle Busch held off Erik Jones down the stretch to win the NASCAR Trucks race Saturday at Pocono Raceway and tie the record for most career wins in series.

Busch won for the 51st time in Trucks and matched NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Ron Hornaday Jr. on the list. Busch also won for the 191st time over the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series.

Busch, the 2015 NASCAR Cup champion, is not scheduled to race in Trucks for his Kyle Busch Motorsports team again this season. He battled side-by-side with Jones during the last 10 laps. But Busch shook off Jones and pulled away over the final laps and won for the second time in the series this season.

• Christopher Bell moved back out front in overtime to win the NASCAR Xfinity series race Saturday at Iowa Speedway, becoming the first series regular with three straight victories since Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 1999.

Coming off victories in Kentucky and New Hampshire, Bell led 94 of 257 laps. He broke a tie with Cup driver Kyle Larson for the series season victory lead with four.

Bell fell back to fourth in the first attempt at overtime before a red flag halted the race. He retook control in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 car, going low to beat Justin Allgaier.

Allgaier finished second, followed by Kyle Benjamin and Ross Chastain.

In the WNBA

Minnesota Lynx star Maya Moore won her third straight All-Star MVP award to lead Team Parker past Team Delle Donne 119-112 in the WNBA All-Star Game Saturday.

Moore scored 18 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and dished out six assists to win the MVP award on her home court. She joined Lisa Leslie as the only three-time MVP of the game and became the all-time scoring leader in All-Star history, passing Tamika Catchings’ mark of 108 points.

Allie Quigley of the Chicago Sky also scored 18 points and Skylar Diggins-Smith added 17 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists for Team Parker.

Team Delle Donne’s Kristi Tolliver of the Washington Mystics led all scorers with 23 points, including 7-for-11 shooting on 3-pointers. Rookie A’ja Wilson of the Los Vegas Aces added 18 points.