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AMHERST — At the end of the day, effort is important. The scoreboard, however, is much more so. "I told the guys [Friday] night, there was a lot of adversity this year, with different things happening and a lot of tough losses. It was another one today," University of Massachusetts interim head coach Shane Montgomery said after the Minutemen dropped a 47-42 decision to Connecticut in the regular-season finale at McGuirk Alumni Stadium. "I was really, again, proud of our effort most of the day," Montgomery said. "We didn't do things perfect. We made too many mistakes at times in all three phases. I loved the fight. I told the guys I was proud of them for the way it looked like we were down and out a couple of times, and we'd drive down and score. "We had a chance at an onside kick with 36 seconds left." The Minutemen finish 2-10 and without a win over an FBS team for the second time in three years. UConn improves to 8-4, which makes the Huskies a very bowl-eligible team. It will be interesting to see if coach Jim Mora Jr. and his squad get a call as an independent to play in December. Up next for UMass will be the search for a coach to replace Montgomery, who was named interim coach after Don Brown was fired following the overtime loss to Liberty. It is possible that Montgomery could be a candidate for the permanent job. UMass held a 1-point lead at halftime, 28-27. And if someone wants to see where the the game turned, it was in the third quarter. UMass ended up with 15 net yards of offense in the third quarter, going three-and-out on three different occasions. The one that Montgomery, his staff and the UMass players will see in their nightmares came early in the quarter. The Huskies had won the toss and elected to defer, so after Jacob Lurie's second-half kickoff, UConn took over on its 24. Moving the ball to near midfield, UConn faced third-and-8 on its 47, but quarterback Joe Fagnano was under heavy pressure by the UMass defense and couldn't complete a pass to Skyler Bell. On fourth down, Mora thought he'd fool the Minutemen, throwing the ball out of punt formation. Connor Stutz's pass was intended for John Neider, who was wide open beyond the sticks, but UMass special teams player Ryan Barnes got his hands up in front of the receiver, deflecting the ball away. That gave UMass a golden opportunity on the Huskies' 47-yard line. Three running plays by Jalen John gained 7 yards, and he was stuffed at the line of scrimmage on third-and-3. Opportunity squandered. The next three drives compounded the felony. "I think we had four straight three-and-outs" in the third quarter and early in the fourth, the interim coach said. "We didn't have good field position. I think three of them were inside the [10]. When you get backed up like that, your playbook shrinks. You're trying to get that one first down and we missed on a couple." UConn took the lead for keeps on a 54-yard touchdown drive. The TD was scored when Fagnano found Jasaiah Gathings and Gathings beat defensive back Isaiah Rutherford for the 26-yard touchdown. The UConn 2-point conversion was a serious adventure. An incomplete pass was wiped out by an illegal substitution penalty against UMass. Trying again, Fagnano was stopped short of the goal line, and it was 33-28. The visitors went up two scores after a short punt and a 35-yard touchdown drive. Earlier in the season, UMass might not have recovered. Instead, backup quarterback Ahmad Haston engineered a 75-yard touchdown drive. He made the big play with a 32-yard run on third down. Two plays later, C.J. Hester scored on an 8-yard run. The PAT kick cut the lead to 40-35. Haston was running the show because starting quarterback A.J. Hairston, who finished 13 for 21 for 134 yards and 3 touchdowns, suffered an upper body injury on the final play of the third quarter. He went to the locker room and did not return. "Ahmad was hurt coming into the game. He got hurt a little bit last week and it really affected him throwing the football," said Montgomery. "The plan this week was use A.J. and use Amhad to possibly run the ball. Ahmad was very limited throwing the football." When UMass got the ball back with the score 47-35, things appeared bleak. Hairston was out and Haston couldn't throw, except for what Montgomery described as dinking and dunking. So freshman Will Perry, a preferred walk-on, got the call. The left-handed quarterback guided the Minutemen from their 25 into the end zone. He had a huge fourth-down pass to John for 11 yards and a first down on the UConn 7. On the next play, he lasered a throw to T.Y. Harding at the back of the end zone. Lurie's kick made it 47-42, but the Minutemen could not recover the onside kick. "When A.J. got hurt and he was out," Montgomery said, "I really didn't know what to do there at the end because we had to throw the ball and Ahmad couldn't do it, not what we needed. Will Perry was the only quarterback I had left who could throw the ball "I always tell him you've got to be ready. He went in there and did a great job and the guys really rallied around him." Perry finished 7 for 11 for 72 yards. The game started inauspiciously for the Minutemen, who went three-and-out and, on UConn's first play from scrimmage, gave up a 55-yard touchdown pass to tight end Lou Harmon. The Minutemen had six first-half possessions before they elected to take a knee in the last 17 seconds. They scored touchdowns on four of them. Connecticut had the last say in the first half, as kicker Chris Freeman boomed a 53-yard field goal with 22 seconds until halftime, making the score 28-27 at the break. It was a career best for Freeman. That set up what was a second half that was even wilder than the first half was. Despite the heroics, when the clock hit 0:00, it was another loss for the Minutemen. Despite what the interim coach said about the effort, the result is what stings. "There has been a handful of guys who have been here for a long time which, in today's world of sports is different. There's not many guys that stay four and five years. I feel bad for them because they really worked hard to try to get this program to the next level. It just didn't work out wins and loss wise," Montgomery said. "We made some strides and we had a lot of close games. "You ultimately get judged by wins and losses, and it wasn't where we wanted [to be] this year." ———
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s opposition-controlled National Assembly voted Friday to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo despite vehement protests by governing party lawmakers, further deepening the country’s political crisis set off by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment . Han’s impeachment means he will be stripped of the powers and duties of the president until the Constitutional Court decides whether to dismiss or reinstate him. The court is already reviewing whether to uphold Yoon's earlier impeachment . The impeachments of the country’s top two officials has worsened its political turmoil, deepened economic uncertainties and hurting its international image. The single-chamber National Assembly passed Han’s impeachment motion with a 192-0 vote . Lawmakers with the governing People Power Party boycotted the vote and surrounded the podium where assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik was seated, shouting that the vote was invalid and demanding Woo's resignation. No violence or injuries were reported. The PPP lawmakers protested after Woo called for a vote on Han’s impeachment motion after announcing its passage required a simple majority in the 300-member assembly, not a two-thirds majority as claimed by the PPP. Most South Korean officials can be impeached by the National Assembly with a simple majority vote, but a president’s impeachment needs the support of two-thirds. There are no specific laws on the impeachment of an acting president. In a statement, Han said his impeachment was regrettable but added that he respects the assembly's decision and will suspend his duties to “not add to additional confusion and uncertainty.” He said he will wait for “a swift, wise decision” by the Constitutional Court. Han’s powers were officially suspended after copies of his impeachment document were delivered to him and the Constitutional Court. The deputy prime minister and finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, took over. Later Friday, Choi's office said he instructed the military to boost its readiness to help prevent North Korea from miscalculating the situation and launching provocations. He also told the foreign ministry to inform the United States, Japan and other major partners that South Korea's foreign policies remain unchanged. Han, who was appointed prime minister by Yoon, became acting president after Yoon , a conservative, was impeached by the National Assembly about two weeks ago over his short-lived Dec. 3 imposition of martial law . Han quickly clashed with the main liberal opposition Democratic Party as he pushed back against opposition-led efforts to fill three vacant seats on the Constitutional Court, establish an independent investigation into Yoon’s martial law decree and legislate pro-farmer bills. At the heart of the fighting is the Democratic Party’s demand that Han approve the assembly's nominations of three new Constitutional Court justices to restore its full nine-member bench ahead of its ruling on Yoon’s impeachment. That’s a politically sensitive issue because a court decision to dismiss Yoon as president needs support from at least six justices, and adding more justices will likely increase the prospects for Yoon’s ouster. Yoon’s political allies in the governing party oppose the appointment of the three justices, saying Han shouldn’t exercise the presidential authority to make the appointments while Yoon has yet to be formally removed from office. On Thursday, Han said he wouldn’t appoint the justices without bipartisan consent. Later in the day, the Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the assembly, submitted an impeachment motion against Han and passed bills calling for the appointment of three justices. South Korean investigative agencies are probing whether Yoon committed rebellion and abuse of power with his marital law decree . Yoon has repeatedly ignored requests by authorities to appear for face-to-face questioning, His defense minister, police chief and several other senior military commanders have already been arrested over the deployment of troops and police officers to the National Assembly, which prompted a dramatic standoff that ended when lawmakers managed to enter the chamber and voted unanimously to overrule Yoon’s decree. South Korean media reported that prosecutors indicted former Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun for allegedly playing a key role in Yoon's rebellion plot and committing abuse of power and obstruction. The reports said Kim, a close associate of Yoon, became the first person to be formally charged over the martial law decree. Calls to a Seoul prosecutors' office were unanswered. Han's impeachment motion accuses him of collaborating and abetting Yoon's declaration of martial law. It also accuses Han of attempting to obstruct the restoration of the Constitutional Court's full membership and of delaying investigations into Yoon's alleged rebellion by not appointing independent counsels. The martial law enactment, the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea, lasted only six hours but it caused political turmoil, triggered alarms from the country's neighbors and rattled markets. Yoon has defended his decree as an act of governance, saying it was a warning to the Democratic Party which he said has been using its parliamentary majority to obstruct his agenda.Ukraine will block Russian gas supplies via its territory in several days, effectively halting its transit to Slovakia, Moldova and, to some extent, Hungary. Kyiv said it would not renew an agreement on Russian gas transit expiring on December 31 as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted last week Kyiv would not let Moscow “earn additional billions on our blood”. – Strong dependence – Russian gas accounted for less than 10 percent of the European Union’s gas imports in 2023. In 2021, a year before the invasion started, it made up over 40 percent. But eastern European EU members still depend largely on Russian gas for geographical and political reasons. EU and NATO members Hungary and Slovakia have maintained close ties with the Kremlin despite the invasion. Russia has been delivering gas to Europe by two routes since a series of underwater explosions in 2022 damaged the Nord Stream pipeline that carried gas to northern Germany via the Baltic Sea. The TurkStream pipeline under the Black Sea and its mainland extension Balkan Stream supply Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary. Supplies via Ukraine are based on a five-year contract signed by Ukraine’s Naftogaz and GTSOU pipeline operator with Russian giant Gazprom in 2019, which will now expire. Official data put gas volume transported by this route in 2023 at 14.65 billion cubic metres, slightly less than half of all Russian gas flowing into Europe. – Slovakia on the front line – Austria, which still bought 90 percent of its gas from Russia last summer, terminated its deal with Gazprom in December after six decades. “Austria has solved it by quasi cancelling the Russian contract, citing its past non-performance,” Andras Deak, an energy security expert at Ludovika University in Budapest, told AFP. Neighbouring Slovakia is “sticking to the long-term contract, which, if the Ukrainians cut off transit, will not be... fulfilled,” he added. Slovakia’s nationalist-leaning Prime Minister Robert Fico visited Moscow last weekend to discuss supplies, following a spat with Zelensky at an EU summit in Brussels. Zelensky then said Fico “wants to help Putin earn money to fund the war”. Besides geopolitical reasons, Bratislava prefers to import Russian gas “because it is cheaper”, said Alexander Duleba from the Slovak Foreign Policy Association. He said Gazprom paid for gas transit through Ukraine, but if Slovakia bought gas from other suppliers, it would have to pay for transit itself. SPP, a company supplying gas to 1.5 million Slovak households, said it could find other suppliers. But “any other alternative will be significantly more expensive”, its spokesman Ondrej Sebesta told AFP. He put the extra cost at 150 million euros ($156 million), mainly in transit fees. – Moldova on alert – Moldova is already bracing for energy cuts despite taking steps to diversify supplies. The former Soviet republic gets 70 percent of its electricity from the Cuciurgan power station based in the separatist region of Transnistria, which uses Russian gas imported via Ukraine. Moldova’s pro-European President Maia Sandu recently said that there are other transit routes bypassing Ukraine that Russia could use to deliver the gas. “But it seems that Gazprom is not ready to keep its contractual obligations,” she added. Sandu slammed the Kremlin’s “blackmail” possibly aimed at destabilising Moldova several months before a general election in 2025. Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries, declared a 60-day state of energy emergency in mid-December. It will have to buy power from neighbouring Romania and pay more. – Hungary almost safe – Unlike its neighbours, Hungary receives most Russian gas via TurkStream. It gets only a fragment via Ukraine and will not be hurt by Kyiv’s decision to block the supplies. But Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last week that “we don’t want to give up” this route because of the reasonable price. While Budapest leads talks with Kyiv and Moscow, Orban suggested his country might play a “trick” as it would buy Russian gas before it enters Ukraine. “Then what comes through Ukrainian territory will no longer be Russian gas, but Hungarian,” he added. Energy security expert Deak said that Hungary risks being “left as the last Gazprom client in the EU”. It will then face mounting “political pressure” from the EU to get rid of its energy dependence on Russia, he added.
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