All Sports News

After 60 years of racing and one of the founding teams of NASCAR Petty Enterprises will be closing its doors. A deal was signed between Petty and Gillett Evernham on Christmas Eve and is suppose to be announced early next week. When the 43 car rolls off the hauler at Daytona in February Reed Sorenson is expected to be behind the wheel. Bobby Labonte was let out of his contract in early December to look for another ride. The Gillett Evernham Petty team is supposedly going to be renamed under the Petty banner. Which I think is a good decision because it keeps Petty’s name up there as a owner even though its a lesser role. All of the 39 remaining employees at Petty are to finish up there on Wednesday. Robbie Loomis who was VP of racing operations is going to be kept with the merged teams. David Zucker who was in charge of the Gillett team is going to switch to being in charge of The Petty Driving Experience.

Coming into last nights game against Georgetown the UConn Huskies were keeping pace with the North Carolina Tarheels as both had undefeated records. A few hours later and only the Tarheels are unbeaten after the Huskies fell to the Georgetown Hoyas 74-63. The Hoyas started the game by going on a 18-3 run when they hit four of their first five 3 point attempts. They finished the game by hitting 18 straight free throws down the stretch to seal the victory. Dujuan Summers was top scorer with 18 points and Chris Wright and Greg Monroe both had 16 points for the Hoyas. Austin Freeman also added 13. For the Huskies A.J. Price had 16 points and Jeff Adrien added 13. The Huskies 7 foot 3 inch center Hasheem Thabeet scored only 4 points and wasn’t much of a factor. The Huskies cut a 12 points deficit to 3 on two separate occasions but couldnt get any closer. Georgetowns next game is Saturday against 3rd ranked Pitt. UConn’s next contest is Saturday when the play Rutgers.

Chad Pennington led the Miami Dolphins into the Jets home stadium and came away with a 24-17 win. The victory of winning the AFC East is sweet but what is even sweeter is that the Jets had kicked Pennington to the curb only a month before training camp started in favor of what they thought would be their savior Brett Favre.The Jets scored first on a 13 yard pass from Favre to Laveranues Coles. The extra point was missed so it made it 6-0. Miami then took the lead 14-6 by scoring 2 touchdowns in a span of 15 seconds. First Pennington hit Ted Ginn Jr. with a 27 yard touchdown pass with just over 2 minutes remaining in the half. On the Jets first play of their next possession Favre tossed a little pass towards Thomas Jones but Phillip Merling stepped in front of the ball and returned it for the touchdown. The Jets went ahead early in the third quarter on Leon Washington’s 10 yard touchdown run and a 2 point conversion. Miami took the lead back for good when Pennington hit Anthony Fasano with a 20 yard touchdown pass. Dan Carpenter also added a 48 yard field goal for Miami to finish off the scoring. Favre made plenty of mistakes and was 20 for 40 for 233 yards and 1 TD but also threw 3 interceptions.After every interception he threw you could see him flexing his arm on the sideline, so look for the retirement soap opera in the next few weeks. Pennington was 22 for 30 for 200 yards and threw 2 TD’S. Next up for the Dolphins they get the Baltimore Ravens next week in Miami to start the playoffs. The Ravens beat the Dolphins in week 7 27-13 but that was way back then. I look for the Dolphins to kick butt then on to the next round.

Looks like AJ Allmendinger’s 5 race audition he did last season in the 10 car for Gillett Evernham has paid off for him. He has been signed now to drive the 19 car that was previously driven by Eliott Sadler. So that leaves Sadler without a ride but speculation is he will land with the Earnhardt-Ganassi team or the Penske team maybe. The last 5 races in the 10 car Allmendinger had a average finish of 16th while Sadler had a average of 31st in the 19 car. I am guessing Ray Evernham is not pleased with the latest decision made because he cleared all of his personal stuff out of the race shop and that included the 2002 Brickyard trophy he won as a owner when Bill Elliott was driving the 9 car. Evernham sold majority ownership of his race team to George Gillett in August of 2007. Also the merger between Gillett-Evernham and Richard Petty is looking very much like it will happen and Reed Sorenson will drive the 43 car.

Now the Boston Celtics are on a new streak, one I am sure they would rather not start on. They lost their second straight game last night to the Golden State Warriors 99-89. Yes the same Warriors that are 9-22 this season. Stephen Jackson was back in the lineup after missing the last 4 games with a sprained left hand and scored 28 points. Marco Belinelli also scored 22 for the Warriors and Ronny Turiaf also had 14 points and 8 rebounds. The Celtics were led by Paul Pierce who had 21 points and 5 assists. Kevin Garnett had 14 points and Rajon Rondo led in rebounds 10 and assists with 9 and also scored 11 points. The Celtics led at one time by as many as 14 points but just couldn’t keep the lead. This is the first time they have lost two in row since March 22 and 24 of last season. The Celtics still have to play Sacramento on Sunday and Portland Tuesday before coming home from the West Coast.