Newcastle United's Alan Shearer challenges Andy O'Brien of Portsmouth during their English Premiership soccer match at St James' Park, Newcastle, England, on Feb. 4. (AFP Photo)

LONDON, Feb. 5--Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry scored milestone goals Saturday in the English Premier League. Shearer became Newcastle’s all-time leading scorer with his 201st goal in a 2-0 win over Portsmouth. The goal moved him past Jackie Milburn on the career list. Henry scored his 200th goal for Arsenal, helping the London team win at Birmingham 2-0, reported AP.
Shearer, also acting as assistant to temporary manager Glenn Roeder since Graeme Souness was fired, scored his team’s second goal in the 64th minute. Charles N’Zogbia had given the Magpies the lead in the 41st. Newcastle fired Souness on Thursday after getting only one tie in its last six league games.
Arsenal, which lost to visiting West Ham on Wednesday and has been struggling for much of the English season, was missing eight defenders but still dominated Birmingham.
Emmanuel Adebayor scored the first goal in the 21st minute and Henry added the other in the second half. Birmingham’s Emile Heskey was sent off near the end for two yellow cards.
Arsenal moved up to fifth place with the win, 23 points behind leader Chelsea, which hosts third-place Liverpool on Sunday. US forward Brian McBride scored for Fulham, but Manchester United still won 4-2. Cristiano Ronaldo scored two goals for United, and Park Ji-sung and Louis Saha added the other. Heidar Helguson also scored for Fulham. McBride is tied for eighth in the Premier League with nine goals this season and has 10 goals overall.

SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 5--Three Australian top order batsmen helped themselves to half-centuries as the home side amassed a daunting total of 344 for six in a limited-overs one-day triangular series match against South Africa on Sunday, said Reuters.
Adam Gilchrist smashed 88, Damien Martyn 79 and Ricky Ponting 72 as the world champions went on a batting rampage to register the highest score by any country against South Africa and the second-highest total by any team at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Australia’s total eclipsed Pakistan’s 335-6 against South Africa in 2002-03 and was just 15 runs short of Australia’s 359-5 against India in Sydney two summers ago.
It also left South Africa needing to break the world record for the highest successful run-chase in one-day international history to win the match.
If the Proteas lose, Tuesday’s match against Sri Lanka in Hobart will decide who joins Australia in the best of three finals series.
Australia made a flying start against South Africa on Sunday, racing past 50 inside the first six overs, with Gilchrist in full flow from the moment he took strike.
The aggressive left-hander smashed four boundaries off the third over from Johan van der Wath and raced to 24 before fellow opener Simon Katich was off the mark.
Katich made 11 off 17 balls but fell with the total on 65 when he edged Andrew Hall to Justin Kemp at slip as Gilchrist took control of the innings.
Gilchrist raised his half-century off 29 balls in 38 minutes when he drive Hall down the ground for his ninth boundary.
He cracked another five fours and looked to be on his way to a hundred when he skied a pull shot off super-sub Charl Langeveldt and wicketkeeper Mark Boucher took a running catch.
Gilchrist’s 88 came off just 66 balls in 90 minutes and featured 14 fours and a 73-run partnership with Ponting for the second wicket.

Anaheim Mighty Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere stops a shot against the San Jose Sharks in the second period of an NHL hockey game in San Jose, USA, on Saturday. (AP Photo)

SAN JOSE, USA, Feb. 5--Jean-Sebastien Giguere spent four games on the bench thinking about how he embarrassed himself and the rest of the Mighty Ducks. When the Anaheim goalie returned from his timeout, he personally made it up to his teammates. Giguere stopped 34 shots and Todd Fedoruk scored in the second period of the Mighty Ducks’ second shutout win in San Jose in 10 days, 2-0 over the Sharks on Saturday night, reported AP.
Giguere sat out the Ducks’ previous four games while Ilya Bryzgalov enjoyed another strong stretch in his rookie season, including a 2-0 victory for his first NHL shutout at the Shark Tank on Jan. 26.
There also was a disciplinary aspect to Giguere’s absence: He blew his top in his previous start against Edmonton, getting 16 minutes in penalties after becoming enraged by Ryan Smyth’s play in front of the net. Giguere twice chased down Smyth to attack him while also giving up five goals on 25 shots.
“I thought I owed one to my teammates after the way things went against Edmonton,“ said Giguere, who posted his second shutout of the season and the 21st of his career. “I was a little bit ashamed of myself (and felt) a bit childish about how I overreacted. My wife said I acted like a 2-year-old.“
But the 2003 NHL playoff MVP returned in outstanding form for the Ducks, making several big saves in the first period and remaining strong in the third during a pair of two-man advantages for the Sharks.
Teemu Selanne scored his team-leading 26th goal into an empty net with 32 seconds to play for the Ducks, who got their fourth victory in five games with another defensive gem against their Pacific Division rivals.
“Giguere had, simply, a great game,“ Sharks coach Ron Wilson said. “Five-on-3, he made some great plays. The guy was just dead bang on. He wasn’t giving up rebounds, and he’s catching things. He was the difference.“
Three days after San Jose posted a 6-4 victory in Anaheim with three power-play goals, the Sharks were 0-for-8 with the man-advantage in just their second shutout loss of the season.

DELRAY BEACH, USA, Feb. 5--A lengthy rain delay didn’t put Tommy Haas off his stride here Saturday, the fourth-seeded German reaching the final of this ATP hardcourt tournament with a straight-set win over Vincent Spadea, reported AFP.
The clash was delayed for some seven hours, but once it got on court Haas wasted no time in cruising to a 6-3, 6-2 victory over the eighth-seeded American.
The win moved Haas to 10-2 in 2006, a run which included a semifinal finish in Doha and a fourth-round appearance at the Australian Open. Both of Haas’s defeats this year have come to world number one Roger Federer.
In the first set, Spadea broke Haas to take a 3-2 lead but Haas broke back and went on to win four games in a row to win the set. Spadea never had a lead again as Haas won five games in a row in the second set.
“The conditions were tough but there were some really good rallies,“ Haas said. “I served well when I needed to. It was an important match to get back into a final.“
Haas will meet third-seeded Belgian Xavier Malisse, the defending champion, in Sunday’s final. Malisse, who is hoping to become just the third player to successfully defend his title here, posted a 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 victory over upset-minded Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
The unseeded Garcia-Lopez was coming off a stunning 6-4, 6-2 victory over top-seeded Andre Agassi on Friday, but the 22-year-old was unable to pull off another upset against Malisse.
After a hard-fought first set, Malisse denied Garcia-Lopez his first ATP Tour final by breaking the Spaniard three times in the second set.
“It was tough conditions tonight, but it was the same for the both of us,“ said Malisse, who will be playing his second final of the year after reaching the final in Adelaide last month.

DETROIT, USA, Feb. 5--Veteran Thomas Hearns took another stuttering step towards an eighth world title with a labored 10th round stoppage of Shannon Landberg on Saturday, on a night when his son lit up the bill with a crushing Victory, reported Reuters.
Two fights into his comeback, the 47-year-old Hearns landed plenty of blows during the scheduled 10-round light-heavyweight bout, but none with the lethal power that made him one of the most feared fighters of his era during the 1980s.
Although both boxers were clearly exhausted, ’The Hitman’ was well ahead on all three judges scorecards when referee Dale Grable stopped the bout 1:35 into the final round, improving his record to 61-5-1 (48 KOs).
Earlier, 27-year-old middleweight Ronald Hearns knocked out Kirk Douglas with a thundering right at 2:12 of the second round to improve his undefeated record to 8-0, including six inside the distance.
“I can’t be hard on myself,“ the elder Hearns told reporters after the bout.
“I’d say my performance, out of 10, was a seven or eight. “I didn’t pull the trigger like I was suppose to. The times when I had him out, I let him off and that’s not me.“ Hearns noted that his ring-rustiness was also a factor in the stuttering display.
“I’ve been out the ring for a while, it’s going to take time,“ he said.
“I had the strength, the energy, the will power to do what I had to do but he was determined not to be knocked out by Thomas Hearns.
“It almost happened but it didn’t happen.“ If nothing else, Hearns proved he remains a big draw in his home town.
Even with Super Bowl fever gripping Detroit and a blizzard whipping across the city, Hearns still attracted a crowd of 15,121 to the Palace of Auburn Hills.
As with any comeback, Hearns’s opponent was carefully handpicked with the idea of providing more entertainment than a stern test.
While Landberg (58-11-3, 26 KOs) had won eight of his previous nine fights, more eye-catching to the Hearns camp was the fact the 40-year-old had not been in the ring for nearly three years.

SCOTTSDALE, USA, Feb. 5--JB Holmes fired a six-under-par 65 here Saturay to seize the third-round lead at the 5.2 million-dollar FBR Open, reported AFP.
Holmes’s effort put him at 16-under 197, one stroke ahead of Ryan Palmer, who along with South African Rory Sabbatini carded a 64. Nine golfers were within six shots of the lead, including Justin Leonard and David Toms, major championship winners who were tied for fourth on 13-under, three shots off the pace.
The proximity of experienced champions didn’t seem to faze, Holmes, who was the medalist at last year’s PGA Tour Qualifying School. “It was probably a lot more pressure there,“ Holmes said of Q-School versus having the final round lead in this event. “If I play bad (here) I’m still on the tour. Q-School if I don’t play well, there is no tomorrow.“
Palmer climbed into a tie for second with JJ Henry, who had led by four going into the round but lost ground with a one-under 70. Holmes made three birdies in four holes on the par 71 TPC of Scottsdale course, tying Henry for the lead after nine holes. Holmes took possession of the lead on the 10th, where he sank a six-footer for birdie.
He never gave the lead back, though Palmer made a charge with birdies on four of his last five holes. With only a one-stroke lead, Holmes said he would have to continue to be aggressive.

OAKLAND, USA,
Feb. 5--Jason Richardson couldn’t sit on the bench and watch the Warriors struggle for another moment, said AP.
It was a good thing he came back for Golden State because Baron Davis went down.
Richardson had 23 points and seven rebounds in his return after missing four games with a sore back, and the Warriors beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 109-77 on Saturday night.
Davis, Golden State’s point guard and second-leading scorer behind Richardson, tweaked his left ankle at the shootaround earlier in the day and Mike Dunleavy got the start in his place after being scheduled to come off the bench for the first time all season.
Davis still played 20 minutes and had six assists, five rebounds and two points, but he’s uncertain whether he will ready for Monday’s home game against Denver.
“Not good at all, man,“ Davis said of the ankle, which he hurt when he came down on a coach’s foot after a layin. “It’s nothing severe, though. It’s something where I’ve got to get therapy and treatment and get that strength back.“
Troy Murphy added 20 points, eight rebounds and four assists in three quarters and Dunleavy had 14 points, six rebounds and four assists for Golden State, which had lost its last two to Minnesota at home. Minnesota had won five of the previous seven meetings between the clubs on the Warriors’ home floor.
“I think we were desperate,“ Warriors coach Mike Montgomery said. “That’s the way we’ve got to play every night. We don’t have much margin for error.“