Utah Valley is joining the Big West Conference for the 2026-27 athletic year, giving the league a presence in that state for the first time since Utah State ended a 27-year run in 2005.

The conference said Wednesday it remained open to the possibility of adding a 12th member but anticipated being an 11-school league when Utah Valley and California Baptist officially join July 1, 2026.

The Big West doesn’t have football, and Hawaii and UC Davis are leaving to join the Mountain West Conference in 2026-27. Hawaii has been a football-only member of the Mountain West since 2012. UC Davis has been a football-only member of the Big Sky Conference.

Utah Valley is leaving the Western Athletic Conference, and the Wolverines will compete in 13 Big West-sponsored sports, including men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball.

“Their addition expands our geographic footprint into a vibrant and strategically significant region, while elevating the level of competition across the board,” Big West Commissioner Dan Butterly said.

Utah Valley, located in Orem, will be the largest school in the Big West with an enrollment of 47,000. Barring further realignment, Utah Valley will replace Hawaii as the only school in the conference outside California.

SOCCER

Ally Sentnor and Lynn Biyendolo each scored two goals and the United States beat Jamaica 4-0 on Tuesday night in St. Louis after the team honored longtime defender Becky Sauerbrunn.

Sentnor scored in the 19th minute, then formed a heart with her hands in celebration. She scored her second off a deflection 10 minutes later. The 21-year-old 2024 U.S. Soccer Young Player of the Year now has four international goals.

Biyendolo scored in the 60th minute, three minutes after coming into the game as a substitute. She added a second in the 88th minute off a cross from Avery Patterson.

Phallon Tullis-Joyce made her second consecutive start in goal for the United States as coach Emma Hayes looks for a successor to longtime goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, who retired last year.

Before the game, the U.S.honored Sauerbrunn, who retired last year. The St. Louis native, whose international career spanned 16 years, is a two-time Women’s World Cup winner and an Olympic gold medalist.

SWIMMING

Katie Ledecky nearly broke the 800-meter freestyle world record for the second time this spring, swimming the third-fastest time in history to open the U.S. Championships. Ledecky was under her own world record pace through 650 meters. She ultimately clocked 8 minutes, 5.76 seconds, winning comfortably by 13.91 seconds in Indianapolis to qualify for the World Championships in Singapore in July and August.

The only faster times in history are Ledecky’s — 8:04.12 from May 3 and 8:04.79 from the 2016 Olympics. She owns the 11 best times in history globally and the top 29 times in American history, plus is unbeaten in the event for 15 years.

Ledecky, 28, is in line to become the first American to swim at a seventh World Championships, according to Olympic historian Bill Mallon of the OlyMADMen. She can become the first swimmer to win a seventh world title in the same event.

In other events, Torri Huske took the women’s 100 free in 52.43, the fastest time ever in an American pool and the world’s best time this year. Huske earned silver at the Olympics in 52.29, her personal best.

Olympic champion and world record holder Bobby Finke won the 1500 free by 9.18 seconds. Finke hasn’t lost to an American in this event since the start of 2020.

In the men’s 100 free, Jack Alexy swam the second-fastest time in American history and world’s best time for 2025 in the prelims (46.99), then won the final in 47.17.

Luca Urlando captured the men’s 200 butterfly in 1:53.42, a time bettered by only one man globally in 2025: Urlando. Back in April, Urlando swam 1:52.37 to become the second-fastest American all-time in the event behind Michael Phelps. He’s the world’s fastest man this year by 1.33 seconds.

Rising Stanford junior Caroline Bricker upset Olympic silver medalist Regan Smith in the women’s 200 fly, overtaking her 2:05.80 to 2:05.85. Bricker lowered her personal best by 3.32 seconds over the prelims and final to supplant 2000 Olympic gold medalist Misty Hyman as the fifth-fastest American in history.

The 2028 U.S. Olympic swimming trials will return to Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium after drawing record-breaking crowds last year in the first event held inside a football stadium.

MISCELLANY

The president of World Boxing has apologized after Olympic champion Imane Khelif was singled out in the governing body’s announcement to make sex testing mandatory. Algerian boxer Khelif, who won gold at the Paris Games last summer amid scrutiny over her eligibility, was specifically mentioned when World Boxing released its new policy last Friday.

On Monday, its president Boris van der Vorst contacted the Algerian Boxing Federation to acknowledge that was wrong.

“I am writing to you all personally to offer a formal and sincere apology for this and acknowledge that her privacy should have been protected,” he wrote in a letter seen by The Associated Press.

Khelif and fellow gold medalist Lin Yu-ting from Taiwan were in the spotlight in Paris because the previous governing body for Olympic boxing, the International Boxing Association, disqualified both fighters from its 2023 world championships, claiming they failed an unspecified eligibility test. However, the International Olympic Committee applied sex eligibility rules used in previous Olympics and cleared Khelif and Lin to compete.