OLYMPICS ROUNDUP | Saturday’s events

Baseball: It came down to the bottom of the ninth, with Cuba facing a one-run deficit. The bases were loaded with one out. The pitch, the swing ... double play. Game over. Gold medal for South Korea, finishing the tournament unbeaten with a 3-2 victory in the final Olympic baseball game until at least 2016. If indeed baseball never returns to the Olympic agenda, at least the United States can say it went out a winner. Behind home runs by Matt LaPorta, Matt Brown and Jason Donald, the Americans beat Japan 8-4 to claim the bronze medal. LaPorta returned after missing a few days following a concussion sustained when a pitch hit him in the head. Jayson Nix had a hit and scored a run in his first game back since a week ago Friday, when he fouled a ball off his left eye and underwent microsurgery.

Women’s basketball: Lisa Leslie scored 14 points to cap off her illustrious Olympic career with a fourth straight gold medal and the U.S. women’s basketball team beat Australia 92-65. Leslie joined former teammate Teresa Edwards as the only basketball players ever to win four gold medals. The Aussies have now lost to the Americans in the gold medal game in the past three Olympics with all three defeats coming by double-digit margins. Russia took the bronze medal beating host China 94-81 as Becky Hammon scored 22 points. Chen Nan scored 26 points for China, which was trying to win its first women’s basketball medal since taking home silver in Barcelona in 1992.

Women’s volleyball: The U.S. gals had all sorts of emotions, from their coach Jenny Lang Ping being in her hometown, where she remains a star, to the attack on the parents of former player Elisabeth “Wiz” Bachman McCutcheon, wife of the U.S. men’s coach. They rode the wave to the finals. But the Brazilians proved to be too tough. Brazil won a tight and tense deciding set to defeat the U.S., 25-18, 18-25, 25-13, 25-21, and finish the Olympic tournament without a loss. The United States has never won this event, taking silver in 1984 and bronze in 1992.

Diving: The Chinese divers came close, but they couldn’t match Michael Phelps’ feat of going 8-for-8 at the Water Cube. With seven down, all they needed was the men’s 10-meter platform. But Matthew Mitcham of Australia earned four perfect 10s on his last dive to send this title Down Under for the first time. Zhou Luxin earned the silver for China. In going 7-for-8, China claimed 11 of the 24 medals awarded in the sport that has produced the host nation’s most Olympic medals. The Americans, meanwhile, went 0-for-8 — not a single medal. For the second straight Olympics, too. The best the U.S. could muster in this event was David Boudia getting 10th; Thomas Finchum was 12th.

Canoe-kayak: The Chinese pair were the first to get to the finish line. Then, before they could totally cross it, their boat was upside down. While other crews laughed, Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun emerged to claim their second straight gold medal in the men’s 500-meter canoe double (C-2). The big upset of the final day of medal races came in the men’s 500-meter K-2, with Spain’s Saul Craviotto and Carlos Perez beating a German pair who were the defending gold medalists and who have been the world champions since 2001.

Boxing: Russian heavyweight Rakhim Chakhkiev and British middleweight James Degale were among the winners of the first five gold medals. So was Ukrainian featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko, who was so dominant that the referee mercifully stopped his title bout with nine seconds left in the opening round and Lomachenko already up 9-1. “I made very precise hits,” Lomachenko said.

Men’s soccer: In temperatures that topped 107 degrees, Angel di Maria scored off a pass from Lionel Messi in the 58th minute, helping Argentina defeat Nigeria 1-0 and win its second straight Olympic soccer title. “This group deserved this,” Messi said. Di Maria’s strike was a goal to lift a game in which play obviously was affected by the searing temperatures. The referee took the rare step of twice allowing players to stop and take drinks. The game was the only one to be played in Beijing’s main Olympic stadium, and it was watched by a crowd of 89,102 that included former Argentina great Diego Maradona.

Associated Press