News » eserve the award as long as Crawford beats Molina.Getting

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Courtney Vandersloot scored 21 points with 13 assists, Jessica Breland had 20 points and 16 rebounds, and the Chicago Sky beat the Atlanta Dream 108-98 on Sunday to advance to the semifinals of the WNBA playoffs.The Sky broke it open in the first five minutes of the third quarter. Tamera Young made fast-break layups on consecutive possessions during Chicagos 10-2 run to start the quarter for a 66-52 lead. Atlanta was outscored 31-20 in the quarter.Chicago cruised in the fourth -- setting a season-high for total points -- and will face Los Angeles in a best-of-five series.Reigning MVP Elena Delle Donne missed her sixth straight game with a thumb injury for Chicago but it didnt seem to faze the Sky on the offensive end. Chicago had 26 assists, made 55 percent of its shots, and Young and Cappie Pondexter each scored 16 points.Chicago set a WNBA record for the most points in the first quarter of a playoff game when the Sky built a 37-25 lead. But Angel McCoughtry kept the Dream within 56-50 at halftime after scoring 21 points, including 10 of Atlantas first 14 points.Tiffany Hayes, who didnt play in the first round due to a one-game suspension for accrued technical in the regular season, scored 30 points for Atlanta. McCoughtry finished with 27 points, six rebounds and nine assists.Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler was in attendance wearing a Cubs jersey. Air Max Plus 270 Sale . The catch: It needs a lot of money, and it needs it fast. Vapormax Plus Wholesale . 10 VCU 85-67 on Thursday night at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. The Seminoles (4-0) have scored at least 80 points in each of their games. http://www.airmaxplusstoresale.com/air-vapormax-plus-cheap/womens-discount.html . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. Air Max Plus Tn Sale . He says so-called TRT is only one problem and he wants to go even further than the ban. "Its about time," St-Pierre told reporters at a promotional event in Montreal on Friday. "I think its a good thing. Vapormax Plus Mens Sale . Jeff Green scored 13 points and Kris Humphries 12 for the Celtics, who nearly blew an 18-point, second-half lead. Sullingers 20-20 was the first by a Celtics player since Kevin Garnetts first game in Boston in 2007. Garnett was dealt -- along with Paul Pierce -- to Brooklyn during the off-season. Terence Crawford had a big year in 2014, so big in fact that he was named fighter of the year by ESPN.com and the Boxing Writers Association of America, among other outlets. That is a big box to check for any aspiring boxing star and potential future Hall of Famer.During 2014, Crawford traveled to Scotland and rolled to a decision victory to win a lightweight world title from Ricky Burns and then returned home to Omaha, Nebraska, for two impressive performances in title defenses, an exciting ninth-round knockout of former unified featherweight titleholder Yuriorkis Gamboa and a near-shutout decision against veteran contender Raymundo Beltran. Now fast-forward to 2016 and Crawford is on the verge of another 3-0 year against reputable opponents and another possible fighter of the year award.He will defend his unified junior welterweight world title belts against longtime contender John Molina Jr., a determined brawler with a punch as big as his heart, on Saturday (HBO, 9:35 p.m. ET/PT) at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha.In the scheduled 10-round co-feature, lightweight up-and-comer Mason Menard (32-1, 24 KOs), 28, of Rayne, Louisiana, who replaced injured former unified titleholder Juan Diaz, will take on his most notable opponent in Raymundo Beltran (31-7-1, 19 KOs), 35, a Mexico native based in Phoenix.The telecast will open with same-day taped coverage of the vacant heavyweight world title bout from Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, between Kiwi star Joseph Parker (21-0, 18 KOs), 24, and Andy Ruiz Jr. (29-0, 19 KOs), 27, of Imperial Valley, California, who is bidding to become the first fighter of Mexican descent to win a heavyweight title.The 29-year-old Crawford (29-0, 20 KOs), who has not done much talking in the lead-up to the fight, did manage to squeeze out a few quotes about his belief that he deserves another fighter of the year award should he polish off Molina, a heavy underdog, though he faces stiff competition from fighters such as featherweight titleholder Carl Frampton and junior lightweight titlist Vasyl Lomachenko.If I win Saturday night I should be considered fighter of the year, Crawford boasted.After Crawford defeated Beltran, he moved up to the junior welterweight division and won a world title. In February, he made his second defense and scored a fifth-round knockout of second-tier contender Hank Lundy.Crawfords next fight was the one that put him squarely in the conversation for the award. In July, he scored two knockdowns and cruised to a one-sided decision win against Viktor Postol to unify titles against the fighter considered by virtually everybody as either No. 1 or No. 2 in the weight class. It is, without question, the most significant victory of Crawfords eight-year professional career.Molina (29-6, 23 KOs), 33, of Covina, California, is coming off a strong performance in a decision win against former titlist Ruslan Provodnikov in June. Crawford is so confident of victory that he had no problem continuing to talk about the possible fighter of the year award.I did a number on Hank Lundy, the kind that nobody else was able to do, Crawford said, continuing to make his case. I unified the title against Postol, a guy everybody said was almost as good as I was.dddddddddddd I am an undefeated champion and was fighting a guy [Postol] coming off a knockout win against [Lucas] Matthysse and I totally dominated him.Now Im fighting another guy coming off an impressive win, a No. 1 contender, and a win over him should convince people that I am fighter of the year.Brian McIntyre, Crawfords career-long trainer and co-manager, is as outspoken as Crawford when it comes to the fighter of the year hardware. Hed also like get his hands on the trainer of the year trophy, which eluded him in 2014.Im not going to lie to you, we talk about it, McIntyre said of the awards. It is one of our goals to get fighter of the year and trainer of the year. Its not a priority, but it would be great to get it.McIntyre would especially like to win trainer honors and do it in the same year that his fighter gets top honors. He sounded wistful as he spoke about when then-super middleweight champion (and now unified light heavyweight titleholder) Andre Ward and longtime trainer Virgil Hunter collected the awards together in 2011.That was great for them because they did it together, McIntyre said. It would be great for us to do it as a team. It would be like getting the boxing Oscar award. Its like an actor and director getting the Oscar. It would be great for our city, great for our state and great for our gym.McIntyre agreed with Crawford that they deserve the award as long as Crawford beats Molina.Getting those awards is satisfying to a fighter or a coachs career, he said. You can only fight for so long, you can only train fighters for so long and there are not that many fighters and trainers who stick together for their whole careers. Weve been together since the beginning. Weve accomplished a lot together.We should get it this year. Theres nobody else. There are?some guys who accomplished good things out there, but [Crawford] knocked out a top fighter like Lundy, beat Postol easy after Postol came over here [from Russia] and knocked out Matthysse. Everybody had Postol first [at 140 pounds] before Terence. Those two wins were really good for us. This fight here against Molina should solidify fighter of the year and trainer of the year for us.As much as Crawford covets a second fighter of the year award in three years, he believes it is about time that McIntyre get his due from the media.Of course, he should be trainer of the year, Crawford said. How do you think I became fighter of the year? He has?been underrated for many years and he doesnt get enough credit. I think its because we fight out of a small market like Omaha.Then, in perhaps a dig at seven-time trainer of the year and International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, Crawford added, If we were based in Los Angeles, it would be a no-brainer that hed be trainer of the year, like when I was fighter of the year in 2014. Thats why its so important to fight in Omaha, because HBO shines a national spotlight on our town and shows that there are great boxers and trainers coming out of here also. ' ' '