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Arizona Democrats won the night on Tuesday. Gov. Katie Hobbs won a second term, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes won with her, Amish Shah ran away from Jay Feely in the congressional district that covers Scottsdale, and Democrats took control of both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate in Washington.

Hobbs defeated former Rep. Andy Biggs for governor, a race the networks called shortly after 8:30 p.m. With most of the vote counted, Hobbs led 968,666 to 669,599, about 58% to 40%. In Maricopa County, home to Scottsdale, she led 596,958 to 393,646. Four years ago Hobbs needed days to win this office by less than a point. This time it was over early.

In the 1st Congressional District — Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Cave Creek, Fountain Hills and north Phoenix — Shah led Feely 141,631 to 111,699 in the latest count, about 56% to 44% with roughly three-quarters of the vote in. The seat opened when Rep. David Schweikert gave it up to run for governor. The race had not been called, but Feely trailed by nearly 30,000 votes.  

Mayes won reelection over Senate President Warren Petersen, and the margin told her story. Four years ago Mayes won the attorney general’s office by 280 votes after a recount — one of the closest races in state history. This time she led comfortably all night, and at the Democratic celebration she was the first of the statewide winners to speak, opening the speeches for the night.

Fontes followed her, and his speech was about the voters themselves. He led state Rep. Alexander Kolodin for secretary of state, 946,485 to 680,202, about 57% to 41% — the Scottsdale-area lawmaker who built his career in the court fights over the 2020 election, beaten in the race for the office that runs Arizona’s elections.

“Let there be no doubt, ladies and gentlemen, about the power of the American voter,” Fontes said. “Let there be no doubt that no matter how dark or cruel one man or one warped ideology may seem — when we vote, we are more powerful than our own leaders.”

“America’s elections are the golden thread that bind all of our society together,” he said. “Whether you are in business or in law, whether you are in medicine or higher education, whether you are in technology, every single one of us depends on American elections and those who run them.” Some have tried to pull that thread out, he said, “but we’re not going to let that happen on our watch.”

He described the coalition behind him — “Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, rural Arizonans and urban dwellers, Native Americans from our sovereign tribal nations and newcomers from foreign lands like Peru, Pakistan and even Pennsylvania” — and he thanked his family: his mother, who was there, and of whom he said anyone who donated got a thank-you card from her; his children, who he said have put up with their dad being away; and “an amazing life partner, in this case my wife Nicole.”

At home in Scottsdale, the City Council race for the last two open seats stayed tight. Raoul Zubia led the three-way vote with 40,171, followed by Councilmember Barry Graham with 38,775 and former state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita with 38,426. The top two take the seats, and Ugenti-Rita sat just 349 votes behind Graham — too close to call, with more ballots still to count.

With Hobbs, Mayes and Fontes all winning, Democrats hold the state’s top offices. In Washington, the decision desks called both chambers for the Democrats — the House and the Senate both change hands in January.

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VANCOUVER — Cutter Gauthier scored a hat trick for the second game in a row, the first player in Anaheim Ducks history to do it, and the Anaheim Ducks (7-7-1) held off the Vancouver Canucks (3-13-1) for a 5-4 win on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.

Gauthier scored once in each period, twice on the power play, and finished the night with 10 goals on the season. He has eight goals in his last three games, six of them on the power play, and he leads the league with eight power-play goals. Beckett Sennecke set him up all night and finished with four assists. Mikael Granlund added a goal and two assists, and Leo Carlsson scored short-handed for the Ducks, who never trailed.

Granlund opened the scoring on the power play at 4:04 of the first period, putting a shot through Kevin Lankinen‘s pads from the slot on Anaheim‘s first shot of the game. Liam Ohgren tied it on a Vancouver power play at 6:04, finishing a scramble in front off a feed from Marco Rossi.

The turning point came late in the first. Ohgren picked the puck off Jackson LaCombe‘s stick and put it in for what looked like a 2-1 Vancouver lead, but the goal was waved off and Ohgren was sent off for hooking. Eight seconds into the power play, Gauthier one-timed a Sennecke pass from the left circle to put Anaheim ahead 2-1 at 17:07.

Carlsson made it 3-1 with a short-handed goal on a 2-on-1 rush at 2:58 of the second period. Linus Karlsson pulled Vancouver back within one at 8:17, waiting out Laurent Brossoit and scoring from a sharp angle, but Gauthier struck again on the power play at 18:25, another one-timer from the left circle, and the Ducks took a 4-2 lead into the third.

Gauthier completed the hat trick at 4:11 of the third, beating Lankinen with a wrist shot from above the right hash marks off the rush to make it 5-2. Jake DeBrusk scored twice for Vancouver to make it close — a power-play goal at 5:30 with Gauthier in the box, and a deflection at 9:34 — but the Canucks pulled Lankinen late and could not find the tying goal.

Brossoit made 19 saves for Anaheim. Lankinen made 17 for Vancouver, which outshot the Ducks 23-22. The Ducks went 3-for-3 on the power play. Their 10 power-play goals over the last three games are an NHL record — they have scored on 10 of their last 12 power plays in that span; Vancouver went 2-for-5. Elias Pettersson had two assists for the Canucks, who have won once in their last 14 games.

It was payback for the Ducks. One week ago in Anaheim, Vancouver rallied from three goals down to beat them 6-5 in overtime. This time the Ducks built the lead and kept it, opening their three-game trip through Canada with a win.

Up next: the Anaheim Ducks continue the trip Friday at the Calgary Flames.  

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TORONTO — Nick Schmaltz scored on the power play with 6:48 left in regulation and the Utah Mammoth (10-6-0) beat the Toronto Maple Leafs (8-7-2) 3-2 on Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena.

Both Utah goals that decided this game came on the league’s top power play. Dylan Guenther opened the scoring with 12.4 seconds left in the first period, beating Sergei Bobrovsky through a screen, and after Toronto tied it twice, a cross-checking penalty on Darren Raddysh with 8:18 left put the Mammoth back on the man advantage — and Schmaltz buried a loose puck in the crease at 13:12 of the third, slamming home the rebound after Bobrovsky sprawled to stop Clayton Keller‘s shot from close range.

Guenther‘s goal was Utah‘s 19th power-play goal of the season and Schmaltz‘s winner its 20th. Keller assisted on both and finished with three assists; Mikhail Sergachev had two.

Jack Roslovic carried Toronto‘s offense, scoring both goals. He tied it 1-1 at 10:20 of the second, firing past Sebastian Cossa moments after defenseman Troy Stecher‘s stick  exploded on an odd-man rush. Andrew Peeke put Utah back ahead at 13:42, blasting one through traffic — a controversial goal the Maple Leafs looked at for goaltender interference and chose not to challenge. Roslovic tied it again at 9:05 of the third, taking an Auston Matthews feed in alone and roofing a backhand over Cossa for his second of the night. Matthews finished with two assists.

The game turned on the Raddysh penalty. “Bob kept us in it, and then the stupid penalty — let’s call it what it is — cost us,” Maple Leafs coach Jim Hiller said. On the decision not to challenge the Peeke goal, Hiller said the staff decided against it because Bobrovsky was in the white ice outside his crease when he was taken out on the play. 

Toronto nearly tied it a third time — with the extra attacker on in the closing seconds, Roslovic‘s shot hit the post. Cossa made 27 saves for Utah; Bobrovsky stopped 33 for Toronto, which was outshot 36-29. The Mammoth have won both meetings between the teams this season.

Up next: the Mammoth visit the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. The Maple Leafs continue their six-game homestand Saturday against Montreal, 5 p.m. MST.

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PITTSBURGH — Tomas Hertl scored two power-play goals, the second with 32 seconds left in regulation, and the Vegas Golden Knights (10-5-2) rallied past the Pittsburgh Penguins (5-8-2) 3-2 on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena.

Vegas, playing the second night of a back-to-back after Monday’s shootout loss at Boston, led 1-0 through two periods and then had to come from behind in the third. Pittsburgh scored twice in the first 10 minutes of the period to take a 2-1 lead, Trevor Connelly tied it on a breakaway, and after the Golden Knights killed a 5-on-3 Penguins power play that lasted 1:22 with the game tied, Tommy Novak tripped Mark Stone — and Hertl cashed in the power play that followed for the winner.

Hertl opened the scoring at 16:36 of the first period, backhanding in a rebound of a Mitch Marner shot from the slot with Hendrix Lapierre in the box for interference. Jack Eichel and Marner assisted — the first power-play goal Pittsburgh has allowed at home this season.

The second period was scoreless, and the game turned in the third. Novak tied it at 1:07, putting in a rebound of a Kaedan Korczak point shot for his fifth goal of the season. Rickard Rakell gave the Penguins their first lead at 9:58, lifting one past Adin Hill from the left side for his fifth goal and a goal in four straight games, with Novak and Korczak assisting.

Connelly answered at 11:19, taking a breakaway in alone and beating Arturs Silovs with a backhand-to-forehand move inside the left post. It was the rookie’s sixth goal of the season, tying him for the league lead among rookies. Jeremy Lauzon assisted.

The turning point came late. With the game tied, Pittsburgh got 1:22 of 5-on-3 time and could not score — Vegas finished the night 6-for-6 on the penalty kill, and the Penguins‘ power play went 0-for-6. Then Novak, who had a goal and an assist in the period, was called for tripping Stone, and with 32 seconds left Stone fed Hertl across the crease and Hertl roofed it for his seventh goal of the season and team-leading fifth on the power play. Stone has now factored in on 71 game-winning goals, a Golden Knights franchise record, and Eichel‘s second assist gave him 22 points this season. Marner‘s first-period assist extended his point streak to 11 games. 

Hill made 23 saves for Vegas; Silovs stopped 20 for Pittsburgh. The Penguins outshot the Golden Knights 25-23. Pittsburgh has lost three straight and seven of its last nine. Vegas, which won in Pittsburgh for just the second time in franchise history, snapped a two-game losing streak and took three of four points on the back-to-back.

Up next: the Golden Knights continue the road trip Thursday at the Detroit Red Wings, 5 p.m. MST on Scripps Sports and KnightTime+. The Penguins host the Boston Bruins on Thursday.

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The Arizona State Sun Devils (1-0) opened the season Monday with an 84-41 win over the Jackson State Tigers at Desert Financial Arena, and the number coach Molly Miller kept coming back to was 26 assists on 12 turnovers.

It did not start clean. Jackson State led 11-2 early, and the nerves showed in the first quarter before the Sun Devils settled in, took the game over in the paint and led 34-21 at halftime.

“The nerves were there, and I think that’s where our lapse was,” Miller said. “But really proud — they never tucked their tails. Probably the proudest statistic here is 26 assists on 12 turnovers. That’s a bright spot for me. They’re sharing the basketball, they’re unselfish.”

Heloisa Carrera and McKinna Brackens did the work inside. Carrera finished with 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting and nine rebounds, and Brackens added 14 points and eight rebounds. “We had to lock in and do our job,” Carrera said. “Our main thing is to dominate in the paint, so me and McKinna being able to do that is going to help the team.” 

Freshman Averie Lower scored 15 points, all five of her field goals from three, after missing early. “Shooters are going to shoot,” Miller said. “She’s got that shooter’s next-shot mentality. I don’t care how many you miss in a row — if it’s three in a row, I think the fourth’s going in.”

Lower said the confidence comes from the work. “My mom, growing up, would shoot with me every single day,” she said. “I was on a club team that shot 24/7 — that’s where my shot comes from.”

Miller also got the defensive night she asked for, holding Jackson State to single-digit quarters over the final three periods. “Every 50/50 ball is 100% ours,” she said. “If there’s a ball bouncing on the ground, we’re going to go get it.”

The Sun Devils are home again Thursday against Northern Arizona at 6:30 p.m.    .

The Phoenix Suns (1-4) come home Wednesday to open a seven-game homestand against the Portland Trail Blazers (5-1), and the first note is at guard. Jordan Goodwin is day to day with a right calf injury after leaving Monday’s 116-113 loss to the Golden State Warriors. Mark Williams remains out with a shoulder injury.

Miles Bridges delivered one of his strongest all-around performances of the young season in the loss, finishing with 21 points (7-14 FG, 3-5 3Pt, 4-5 FT), six rebounds, three assists, one block and four steals over 35 minutes. Bridges finished second on Phoenix in scoring while leading the team with four steals, and he continues to handle a substantial workload in the Suns’ starting lineup.

Dillon Brooks finished with 18 points (5-8 FG, 2-2 3Pt, 6-7 FT), eight rebounds and four assists over 34 minutes. Brooks is off to a nice start for the new campaign, having produced at least 10 points in each of his first five appearances. The eight boards were a new season high for the veteran forward, who has also delivered at least 18 points in three consecutive games. 

At center, Oso Ighodaro chipped in 14 points (6-6 FG, 2-2 FT), two rebounds, two assists and one block over 24 minutes off the bench, perfect from the field. Khaman Maluach started at center but played sparingly, registering five points (2-3 FG, 1-2 FT), two rebounds, one block and one steal over 13 minutes. The rookie made the most of his limited offensive opportunities, but his playing time remains a significant obstacle to consistent production.

Luke Kennard notched six points (2-6 FG, 2-6 3Pt), two rebounds and one assist over 18 minutes, attempting all six of his shots from beyond the arc and connecting twice. The veteran sharpshooter has settled into a modest bench role for Phoenix, logging between 12 and 19 minutes in each of his four appearances this season.

The Suns led at Golden State and lost the game late, and coach Jordan Ott said the group has to finish what it starts. “We need to put a full 48 together,” Ott said after Monday’s game.

Portland beat the Suns by 41 points in the season opener in Portland. The Trail Blazers come to the Mortgage Matchup Center on Wednesday at 7 p.m. without Ja Morant

(hamstring) and Shaedon Sharpe (meniscus).

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Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders went to bat Tuesday for the coach he faces Saturday night, defending Arizona State Sun Devils coach Kenny Dillingham against the voices questioning him one season after Dillingham was the Big 12 Coach of the Year.

“He’s my guy,” Sanders said. “We came in the same class. I read some stuff every once in a while that they’re questioning his ability — like, did he forget to coach since ’24? He was the Coach of the Year. He’s a phenomenal mind.”

Sanders said the two almost worked together once, and that he is glad it played out the way it did. He praised Dillingham’s coaching style, his delivery, his voice to his players, and his voice in the community raising money for his program.

Arizona State (4-4, 2-3 Big 12) hosts Colorado on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN2. The Sun Devils lost 27-20 at BYU on Saturday, and Dillingham said Tuesday after practice that the football has been better for a month even as the losses have come.

“I think this is the fourth week in a row we’ve played pretty good, pretty consistent,” Dillingham said. He said the team was tired for a while and lost confidence, and that changes to practice have let the Sun Devils practice faster. He pointed to the composure of his two young backs in the backfield at BYU and said his players are getting more confident in what they are doing.

“Everybody’s upset — it’s not fun to lose a football game, that’s never the goal,” Dillingham said. “But I do think we’re playing better football.”

Sanders also ran through the rest of the Colorado week: cross country won the Big 12 championship and the women finished fourth, one point out of third; Tad Boyle’s men opened the basketball season Monday night against Abilene Christian; JR Payne’s women play Morgan State on Wednesday at the Events Center; and soccer holds senior day Thursday night against Oklahoma State at 7.

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Here’s what’s inside this reel — and Wildcat fans, there’s plenty of ours in it, even in a loss..

UCLA came out flying, we were down 43-29 at the half, and it felt like the opener might get away from us before it really started.

Then the second half happened. Ivan Kharchenkov put the whole team on his back — 38 points, 10 rebounds — and we kept chipping and chipping until it was 71-70 with three minutes left. T-Mobile Arena was loud. One stop, one bucket, and that’s our game.

It didn’t break our way at the end. UCLA Bruins 84, your Arizona Wildcats 75.

But look at what we found out on night one: Kharchenkov is a problem for everybody. Motiejus Krivas swatted six shots. Derek Dixon gave us 18. And Caleb Holt‘s first college game is out of the way — 7 points, 7 rebounds, and a lot more coming.

We gave the ball away too much — 10 turnovers to their 5 — and that’s the part that stings, because the comeback was right there.

Shake it off. The Arizona Wildcats (0-1) are home Thursday night at McKale Center against Cal Poly, and that’s when the real fun starts.

Bear Down.

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© Old Town News Scottsdale — oldtownnews.us

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© Old Town News Scottsdale — oldtownnews.us

TEMPE — Randy Bennett admitted it before anybody asked him twice: he was nervous.

Not about the opponent, exactly. About all the new. A new school, a new team, a first night when you don’t know how long anything is going to take or how your guys are going to play. “Just a little anxiety, because it’s new,” Bennett said at his postgame media availability after Arizona State’s 75-65 win over East Tennessee State. “More so than usual. But all good — great experience, great atmosphere.”

The nerves make the trust easier to see. Paulius Murauskas did not start well Monday night. Bennett never wavered on him, and Murauskas finished with 21 points and nine rebounds, going 11-for-12 from the free-throw line.

“Paulius knows I’m going to roll with him,” Bennett said. “I trust him because I know he’ll play — big games, little games, he’ll show up. He didn’t start out great, but eventually he came.”

Point guard Joel Foxwell explained how the staff freed him up. East Tennessee State was hard-showing with its big man on ball screens, so the Sun Devils went to more of them — the Buccaneers didn’t know whether to come out high and leave Murauskas open for threes or let him play the other side.

“Free him up and he’s going to make plays for others,” Foxwell said. “And at the end of the day, he still put the ball in the hoop. Our spacing in the second half was much better than the first half, and we weren’t as sped up.”

What Bennett and his point guard agreed on: the win was not the standard. Foxwell called the first half poor and the second-half offense stuck — the Buccaneers closed

TEMPE — Randy Bennett admitted it before anybody asked him twice: he was nervous.

Not about the opponent, exactly. About all the new. A new school, a new team, a first night when you don’t know how long anything is going to take or how your guys are going to play. “Just a little anxiety, because it’s new,” Bennett said at his postgame media availability after Arizona State’s 75-65 win over East Tennessee State. “More so than usual. But all good — great experience, great atmosphere.”

The nerves make the trust easier to see. Paulius Murauskas did not start well Monday night. Bennett never wavered on him, and Murauskas finished with 21 points and nine rebounds, going 11-for-12 from the free-throw line.

“Paulius knows I’m going to roll with him,” Bennett said. “I trust him because I know he’ll play — big games, little games, he’ll show up. He didn’t start out great, but eventually he came.”

Point guard Joel Foxwell explained how the staff freed him up. East Tennessee State was hard-showing with its big man on ball screens, so the Sun Devils went to more of them — the Buccaneers didn’t know whether to come out high and leave Murauskas open for threes or let him play the other side.

“Free him up and he’s going to make plays for others,” Foxwell said. “And at the end of the day, he still put the ball in the hoop. Our spacing in the second half was much better than the first half, and we weren’t as sped up.”

What Bennett and his point guard agreed on: the win was not the standard. Foxwell called the first half poor and the second-half offense stuck — the Buccaneers closed the paint and pushed the Sun Devils out of their offense. Bennett went straight at the rebounding, the one thing this team is built to do well.

“I thought our rebounding has been bad, and we’re inconsistent,” Bennett said. “We’re usually a very good rebounding team — we should be, we have good size — but we’re just not there yet. Our habits aren’t where they need to be defensively. We didn’t defend the three well. We just make errors that we shouldn’t make.”

Foxwell pointed at the 50/50 balls, the thing this group talks about every day: “There’s been a want to win those 50/50 balls, to get on the ground and scrap. We had a few times tonight where we didn’t get those, and that’s what we pride ourselves on. The want wasn’t at our expectations.”

Foxwell had his own first-night nerves — “coming to a bigger school than what I was at prior, more fans, more media, more spotlight” — and finished with 15 points and five assists in 40 minutes. Where both men landed was the last six minutes: the Sun Devils controlled the game, put it on their terms, and closed a scrappy conference champion out.

“That’s a good team,” Bennett said of the Buccaneers, who won their league and their conference tournament last season. “They’re scrappy. But we need to be able to handle them on the boards and do a better job on them defensively.”

Arizona State (1-0) hosts Northern Colorado on Friday at Desert Financial Arena, with tip at 7 p.m.

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SAN FRANCISCO — The game story is the third quarter and the comeback that fell short. The sidebar is what Jordan Ott kept coming back to at his postgame media availability: the possessions the Suns gave away late, and the free throws.

Phoenix led 57-51 at the half and lost 116-113 to Golden State. Down the stretch, against a Warriors defense Ott credited for its activity and physicality, the Suns’ execution broke down.

“It’s probably a little bit of both,” Ott said, asked whether the turnovers were carelessness or Golden State’s speed speeding the Suns up. “It’s a newer group. It feels like the first time it was that tight down the stretch. Those are some good reps to get. But we’ll probably look back and have a couple of those possessions we wish we could redo.”

The other half of his frustration was the whistle. Golden State went 31-for-37 from the free-throw line; Phoenix went 22-for-30, and Devin Booker fouled out. Ott talked about the difference between the contact allowed on a bump on a cross screen and the contact called when a player drives the ball downhill — this from a Suns team that lives on drives — and said the Suns also have to clean up fouling jump shooters.

“Some of those foul calls we wish we could get back, some of those foul calls we’re going to question,” Ott said. “But that’s what it is on the road.”

Through the Draymond Green altercation in the first half — Green throwing Khaman Maluach down, the scuffle with Dillon Brooks, the ejection — Ott thought his team kept its poise. What it did not do was finish.

“We talked about staying in it for 48 minutes — having the mental resilience to stay in 48 minutes,” he said. “We need to put a full 48 together. There’s probably a couple minutes there in the second that we lost it a little bit, and then in the fourth, you gotta find a way to win the game.”

The part he liked: Booker, who in Ott’s view was in his best rhythm from start to finish, and Jalen Green’s passing against a defense that kept putting two men on the ball on Booker — hit the roller or hit the man behind it, and the offense flowed. Green finished with eight assists.

“It’s amazing,” Ott said. “When you enjoy and feel the energy from defense, how easily offense flows.”

The defense, he said, is what they will keep trying to figure out — and on this night, it was the free throws.

The Suns open a seven-game homestand Wednesday against the Portland Trail Blazers at Mortgage Matchup Center, with tip at 7 p.m.

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Phoenix vs Golden State boxscore