Toews finds twine in OT for series lead
NHL: Jonathan Toews scored on a breakaway at 7:36 of overtime Friday night, giving the visiting Chicago Blackhawks a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues and a 3-2 series lead.
Marian Hossa and Ben Smith also scored for the defending Stanley Cup champions, who have won three in a row and can wrap up the first-round series at home Sunday. Four of the first five games in the series have gone to overtime.
T.J. Oshie and Alex Pietrangelo scored for the Blues.
All three of the Blues’ home games went to overtime and St. Louis won the first two. Toews got behind the St. Louis defense on the winner and threw a couple of fakes at Ryan Miller before slipping the puck past the goalie.
• Flyers even series with Rangers: Steve Mason stopped 37 shots in his first start of the series, Matt Read and Jakub Voracek scored and the Philadelphia Flyers evened the first-round matchup with a 2-1 win over the visiting New York Rangers in Game 4.
Mason played perhaps his best game of the season, shutting down a Rangers team that pressured him with shots all game. He was a wall in the final tense minutes when the Rangers pulled goalie Henrik Lundqvist for the extra attacker.
• Getzlaf leads Ducks past Stars: Ryan Getzlaf had a goal and two assists in his return from injury, and the Anaheim Ducks scored four power-play goals in a 6-2 victory over the Dallas Stars in Anaheim, Calif., to take a 3-2 lead in their first-round series.
Corey Perry also had a goal and two assists for the top-seeded Ducks, who confidently moved to the brink of the second round after dropping the last two games in Dallas.
Jamie Benn and Shawn Horcoff scored for the Stars, who couldn’t score on seven power-play chances.
Rockets burn Blazers in overtime
NBA: Troy Daniels hit a 3-pointer with 11.9 seconds left and the Houston Rockets narrowed Portland’s first-round playoff advantage to 2-1 with a 121-116 overtime victory over the home team Trail Blazers.
James Harden broke out of a slump with a career playoff-best 37 points and Dwight Howard added 24 points and 14 rebounds for the Rockets.
LaMarcus Aldridge had more than 40 points in each of Portland’s victories in the first two games in Houston. But Omer Asik did a good job of shutting him down in Game 3, holding the All-Star forward to 23 points.
The Blazers were led by Damian Lillard with 30 points.
Portland trailed by as many as 11 points in the final quarter but Nicolas Batum hit a 3-pointer with 41 seconds left to tie the game at 110.
• Bulls fend off Wizards, trail series 2-1: Mike Dunleavy scored 35 points, one shy of his career high, Jimmy Butler hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 24 seconds remaining, and the visiting Chicago Bulls hung for a 100-97 win over the Washington Wizards, trimming the deficit to 2-1 in their Eastern Conference first-round series.
Dunleavy went 12 for 19 from the field, including a career-high eight 3-pointers on 10 attempts.
The Bulls are attempting to become only the fourth NBA team to win a seven-game series after losing the first two at home.
Bradley Beal scored 13 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter for the Wizards.
• Nets take 2-1 lead over Raptors : Joe Johnson scored 29 points, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett brought a charge to their first playoff game in Brooklyn, and the Nets held off the Toronto Raptors 102-98 for a 2-1 lead in their first-round series.
Johnson made the clinching free throws with 3.1 seconds left after the Nets blew almost all of a 15-point, fourth-quarter lead. Deron Williams added 22 points and eight assists for the sixth-seeded Nets, who host Game 4 on Sunday night.
Pierce had 18 points, and he and Garnett provided the game’s signature plays late in the second quarter, a reminder that the Nets brought the veterans here as much for their bravado as their basketball.
But all that experience almost didn’t matter after the Nets made a series of mistakes down the stretch.
Martin on track for course record
Miscellany: Ben Martin shot a 5-under 67 for a total of 129 to maintain a course-record pace at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, keeping him atop the leaderboard through two rounds of golf’s Zurich Classic.
After breaking the course record with a 62 on Thursday, Martin opened the second round with two birdies and an eagle on his first four holes. He shook off a bogey and double bogey on successive holes in the middle of the round and birdied four of his last nine to move to 15 under – the best 36-hole total at the course. No one has had a four-round score better than 20 under.
Andrew Svoboda shot a 68 to remain second at 12 under, but closed his round on the par-3 ninth with his first bogey of the tournament.
Robert Streb (66) and Sueng-Yul Noh (68) were 11 under, and two-time heart transplant recipient Erik Compton (68) and Peter Hanson (69) were another stroke back.
Ferris HS graduate Alex Prugh shot a 4-under 68 for a two-round total of 138 and made the cut.
• Lewis leads LPGA event: Stacy Lewis overcame rain and hail to take the second-round lead in the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, shooting her second straight 3-under 69 at Lake Merced in Daly City, Calif.
Winless since the Women’s British Open in August, the third-ranked Lewis had a one-stroke lead over 17-year-old playing partner Lydia Ko and first-round leader Karine Icher.
Ko had a 71, and Icher followed her opening 66 with a 73.
• Jones returns to podium at Drake Relays: Lolo Jones and teammates Bri Rollins, Queen Harrison and Vashti Thomas took the women’s shuttle hurdle relay in the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa.
It was the first meet victory for Jones – who went to high school mere miles from Drake Stadium – since she took the 100 hurdles in 2008.
Jones hardly ran a clean race in her return to the track just two months after her stint as a bobsledder for the U.S. in the Sochi Olympics. But it was clean enough to help beat a four-team field that saw one team fail to start and another fail to finish.
On the men’s side, LaShawn Merritt beat one of the best fields in the 105-year history of the Drake Relays by winning the 400 in 44.44.