INDIANA HS BASEBALL
COMMUNITY 11 ALEXANDRIA MONROE 3
BLOOMINGTON SOUTH 2 BROWNSTOWN CENTRAL 1
WATKINS MEMORIAL 12 HAMILTON SOUTHEASTERN 10
OSWEGO EAST 18 UNIVERSITY 8
LAFAYETTE CENTRAL CATHOLIC 11 FRANKLIN COUNTY 1
GIBSON SOUTHERN 8 MARTINSVILLE 7
EVANSVILLE CENTRAL 10 MARTINSVILLE 2
LOOGOOTEE 13 EASTERN GREENE 3
PLAINFIELD 10 ROSSVILLE 0
COVENANT CHRISTIAN 7 BLACKFORD 6
BEDFORD NORTH LAWRENCE 9 FRANKLIN 8
BLACKFORD 8 CANNON COUNTY 2
FORT WAYNE CARROLL 11 NEW ALBANY 6
NORWELL 16 JENNINGS COUNTY 1
RIVER FOREST 17 BOWMAN ACADEMY 7
HERITAGE HILLS 13 BARR REEVE 9
EVANSVILLE MATER DEI 5 SOUTH SPENCER 1
WAPAHANI 16 MUNCIE CENTRAL 6
AUSTIN 5 TRINITY LUTHERAN 2
AUSTIN 16 S. RIPLEY 0
DAVIDSON ACADEMY 15 ALEXANDRIA MONROE 4
SOUTH RIPLEY 19 TRINITY LUTHERAN 9
CASTLE 9 UNION COUNTY 3
FISHERS 8 MCCRACKEN COUNTY 5
BISHOP CHATARD 10 HAUSER 6
NOBLESVILLE 10 MCCALLIE 0
PAOLI 15 NORTH KNOX 10
TRIMBLE COUNTY 9 SHAWE MEMORIAL 8
PLAINFIELD 10 ROSSVILLE 3
NORWELL 21 SEEGER 10
JENNINGS COUNTY 8 SEEGER 0
SPRINGS VALLEY 10 VINCENNES RIVET 0
EVANSVILLE REITZ 14 PRINCETON 4
HAMILTON SOUTHEASTERN 10 SIEGEL 5
VINCENNES LINCOLN 4 GIBSON SOUTHERN 2
EVANSVILLE NORTH 2 THAT FOR NORTH LAWRENCE 0
UNIVERSITY 10 DYERSBURG 3
CLARKSVILLE ACADEMY 7 W. VIGO 6
GREENWOOD CHRISTIAN 17 SETON CATHOLIC 3
GREENWOOD CHRISTIAN 23 SETON CATHOLIC 1
CLAY CITY 9 LOOGOOTEE 0
INDIANA HIGH SCHOOL SOFTBALL
NORTH HARRISON 12 PERRY CENTRAL 6
FISHERS 16 CASTLE 7
GIBSON SOUTHERN 9 FISHERS 3
CORYDON CENTRAL 3 MADISON 2
HERITAGE HILLS 6 EVANSVILLE MATER DEI 1
BROWNSTOWN CENTRAL 16 SOUTHWESTERN 0
JENNINGS COUNTY 4 SHELBYVILLE 3
EDGEWOOD 17 S. SPENCER 4
BORDEN 4 MITCHELL 1
BEDFORD NORTH LAWRENCE 7 SILVER CREEK 6
RISING SUN 19 BATESVILLE 4
NORTH DECATUR 11 SOUTHWESTERN 3
PROVIDENCE 11 CRAWFORD COUNTY 1
BORDEN 8 MITCHELL 5
BROWNSTOWN CENTRAL 27 N. DECATUR 2
CORYDON CENTRAL 10 EDGEWOOD 0
MOUNT VERNON 15 N. HARRISON 4
BEDFORD NORTH LAWRENCE 8 AVON 2
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
FINAL FOUR
SAN DIEGO STATE 72 FLORIDA ATLANTIC 71
UCONN 72 MIAMI FLORIDA 59
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
MONDAY APRIL 3 9:30PM
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL-NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
IOWA vs. LSU SUNDAY APRIL 2 3:30
NBA SCOREBOARD
MIAMI 129 DALLAS 122
NEW ORLEANS 122 LA CLIPPERS 114
NHL SCOREBOARD
NASHVILLE 6 ST. LOUIS 1
BOSTON 4 PITTSBURGH 3
FLORIDA 7 COLUMBUS 0
CAROLINA 3 MONTRÉAL 0
TORONTO 3 OTTAWA 0
BUFFALO 6 PHILADELPHIA 3
TAMPA BAY 5 NY ISLANDERS 0
NEW JERSEY 6 CHICAGO 3
COLORADO 5 DALLAS 2
SAN JOSE 7 ARIZONA 2
EDMONTON 6 ANAHEIM 0
LOS ANGELES 3 SEATTLE 1
VEGAS 4 MINNESOTA 1
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
ST. LOUIS 4 TORONTO 1
SAN FRANCISCO 7 NY YANKEES 5
TEXAS 16 PHILADELPHIA 3
HOUSTON 6 CHICAGO WHITE SOX 4
LA ANGELS 13 OAKLAND 1
BOSTON 9 BALTIMORE 8
MINNESOTA 2 KANSAS CITY 0
TAMPA BAY 12 DETROIT 2
CLEVELAND 2 SEATTLE 0
MILWAUKEE 3 CHICAGO CUBS 1
ATLANTA 7 WASHINGTON 1
CINCINNATI 6 PITTSBURGH 2
NY METS 6 MIAMI 2
SAN DIEGO 8 COLORADO 4
LA DODGERS 10 ARIZONA 1
MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SCOREBOARD
OMAHA 12 INDIANAPOLIS 1
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
ATLANTA 1 NEW YORK 0
CINCINNATI 1 MIAMI 0
COLUMBUS 4 SALT LAKE 0
SEATTLE 2 LA 1
NEW ENGLAND 1 NEW YORK CITY 1
NASHVILLE 2 ORLANDO 0
PHILADELPHIA 0 KANSAS CITY 0
CHARLOTTE 2 TORONTO 2
CHICAGO 0 DC 0
DALLAS 1 PORTLAND 1
MINNESOTA 1 ST. LOUIS 0
COLORADO 0 LAFC 0
SAN JOSE 2 HOUSTON 1
VANCOUVER 5 MONTRÉAL 0
TOP INDIANA (RELEASES)
INDIANA PACERS
GAME PREVIEW: PACERS AT CAVALIERS
The Pacers will play their penultimate road game of the season on Sunday night in Cleveland. It will be the final meeting of the year between Indiana (34-44) and the Cavaliers (48-30). Cleveland has won two of the previous three games.
The Blue & Gold have turned their focus to developing their young players over the last couple weeks of the season and the fledgling Pacers — alongside veterans T.J. McConnell and Buddy Hield — were able to come away with an impressive victory on Friday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Indiana outplayed a full-strength Oklahoma City team fighting for a playoff berth down the stretch, withstanding a 39-point outing from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to come away with a 121-117 win.
McConnell was a major catalyst off the bench, tallying 21 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists, but the Pacers’ young players also stepped up in a big way. Rookie point guard Andrew Nembhard had 18 points and six assists and fellow rookie Bennedict Mathurin scored 15. Third-year big man Jalen Smith had a double-double with 12 points and 15 rebounds, while second-year center Isaiah Jackson had 13 points and two blocks off the bench.
The Cavs are coming off a 130-116 loss to the Knicks on Friday night in Cleveland in a game that was likely a preview of a first-round playoff series. Cleveland has already clinched a playoff berth and is all but locked into the fourth seed in the East, while New York is likely to secure the fifth seed.
The Cavs are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2018 after adding All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell to their young core in a blockbuster trade over the summer. Mitchell has lived up to expectations. The 26-year-old out of the University of Louisville ranks seventh in the league in scoring, averaging a career-high 27.9 points per game while shooting 48 percent from the field and 38.4 percent from 3-point range while also tallying 4.5 assists and 1.5 steals per contest.
In addition to Mitchell, Cleveland also relies heavily on point guard Darius Garland (21.7 points and 7.8 assists), forward Evan Mobley (16.4 points, 9 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks), and center Jarrett Allen (14.4 points, 9.9 boards, and 1.2 blocks), all of whom are 24 and younger.
Projected Starters
Pacers: G – Andrew Nembhard, G – Bennedict Mathurin, F – Aaron Nesmith, F – Jordan Nwora, C – Jalen Smith
Cavaliers: G – Darius Garland, G – Donovan Mitchell, F – Caris LeVert, F – Lamar Stevens, C – Evan Mobley
Injury Report
Pacers: Myles Turner – questionable (sore left ankle), Kendall Brown – out (right tibia stress fracture), Chris Duarte – out (sore left ankle), Tyrese Haliburton – out (right ankle sprain/sore left elbow)
Cavaliers: Jarrett Allen – questionable (right groin strain), Isaac Okoro – out (sore left knee), Dylan Windler – out (left foot sprain)
Last Meeting
Feb. 5, 2023: The Cavs closed the second quarter with a 26-9 run to open up a double-digit lead, then never let Indiana get back within single digits the rest of the way, rolling to a 122-103 win at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Myles Turner scored a team-high 27 points and pulled down 10 rebounds on Sunday for Indiana while also blocking three shots to move into third place in franchise history.
But the Pacers simply didn’t have enough firepower to hang with the Cavs, who had all five starters score at least 17 points.
Darius Garland led Cleveland with 24 points and six assists while going 4-for-6 from beyond the arc. Isaac Okoro scored 20 points, Donovan Mitchell added 19 points and six dimes, and Jarrett Allen (18 points and 13 rebounds) and Evan Mobley (17 points and 10 boards) both recorded double-doubles.
Tyrese Haliburton recorded a double-double for Indiana in the loss, tallying 15 points and 11 assists. Buddy Hield finished with 16 points and five rebounds, going 4-for-9 from 3-point range.
Noteworthy
The Pacers have dropped their last three regular season games in Cleveland.
With a win on Sunday, the Cavs would take the season series with Indiana for the second straight year. Prior to that, the Pacers had won the season series with Cleveland for four straight seasons from 2017-18 to 2020-21.
Nembhard became the second rookie in franchise history to tally 300 assists in their debut season on Friday against Oklahoma City. Nembhard now has 305 assists on the season, second only to Jamaal Tinsley, who dished out a franchise-record 647 assists as a rookie in 2001-02.
Broadcast Information (TV and Radio Listings >>)
TV: Bally Sports Indiana – Chris Denari (play-by-play), Quinn Buckner (analyst), Jeremiah Johnson (sideline reporter/host)
Radio: 93.5/107.5 The Fan – Mark Boyle (play-by-play), Pat Boylan (studio host)
Tickets
The Pacers return to Gainbridge Fieldhouse to host Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks on Wednesday, April 5 at 7:00 PM ET.
INDIANAPOLIS INDIANS
SWAGGERTY DOUBLES IN INDIANS SATURDAY LOSS
INDIANAPOLIS – The Omaha Storm Chasers scored in four consecutive innings and erupted for a five-run fifth en route to a series-clinching victory over the Indianapolis Indians on Saturday afternoon at Victory Field, 12-1.
All nine batters in the Storm Chasers (2-0) lineup scored at least one run in the victory, with the offense being led by a trio of three-hit performances and a five-RBI showing courtesy of a fifth-inning grand slam by designated hitter Jakson Reetz. Eight of Omaha’s 12 runs were charged to starting pitcher Caleb Smith (L, 0-1).
The Indians (0-2) were held to just one hit until Travis Swaggerty led off the seventh inning with a double, his second in as many games. Miguel Andújar followed and wasted no time driving Swaggerty in with a ground ball through the right side of the infield. Mark Mathias – who logged three hits in his Pirates organization debut on Friday – collected two of Indy’s five total hits.
After Omaha starter Austin Cox fanned five across 3.0 shutout innings, Drew Parrish (W, 1-0) entered from the bullpen and faced the minimum through 3.0 hitless frames.
The series finale begins at 1:35 PM ET on Sunday at Victory Field. RHP Mike Burrows (0-0, -.–) will take the mound as Indianapolis looks for its first win of the 2023 season. RHP Jonathan Heasley is set to counter for Omaha.
INDY ELEVEN
DESPITE DOMINANCE OF POSSESSION, INDY SHARES THE SPOILS AFTER SECOND CONSECUTIVE SHUTOUT
Indy Eleven fans braved chilly and windy conditions to bring excitement to Michael A. Carroll Stadium for Indy Eleven’s long-awaited home opener against Las Vegas Lights FC, which ended in a 0-0 draw. Despite dominating possession by a 80%-20% clip and shots 10-3, the Eleven couldn’t scratch a winner across, but Indiana’s Team did combine to not allow any shots on goal throughout the evening en route to a second straight shutout.
The field at Carroll Stadium was seemingly tilted towards the right in the first half, as over 70% of the Eleven’s possessions in the first 20 minutes came from the side patrolled by forward Douglas Martinez, midfielder Jack Blake, and defender Younes Boudadi. The first look towards goal came in the 8th minute from Eleven midfielder Aodhan Quinn on a right-footed shot from the 6-yard box, a tight-angled effort that missed wide.
A significant scoring chance for Indy forward Sebastian Guenzatti came at minute 23 after Blake slipped a ball past three defenders to find him in the center channel, but the Indy captain’s shot was sent into the chest of onrushing Lights FC goalkeeper Alan Díaz. Shortly after, Eleven forward Solomon Asante hit the post with a header from the center of the box, the chance coming off a Cam Lindley cross following a short corner.
The visitors saw their lone clear-cut chance of the half come in stoppage time, when Lights FC striker Pato Botello Faz got on the end of a loose ball 12 yards out. The off balance 1-v-1 shot was heading high from the start, although Eleven goalkeeper Yannik Oettl was nearby to cut down the angle should the effort have been steered on frame.
The second half began with Indy Eleven still on the front foot. Asante created a great look in the 56th minute, when he pulled out his pitching wedge and chipped a ball over the top for Guenzatti to meet, but Díaz was able to deflect away just outside his area.
At the hour, the familiar face of Justin Ingram made his way back onto the field at Carroll Stadium, the Indy native this time suiting up for the Lights, although his insertion did little to change the one-way traffic against his new side.
As the second half moved into the final quarter hour three cautions – two for Indy and one by Vegas – slowed the proceedings just briefly before Indy put more pressure on Diaz’ goal down the stretch. Once the four minutes of stoppage time started at Carroll Stadium, the Eleven kicked it into gear, highlighted in the 92nd minute when Asante providing a tantalizing ball from the right side that traveled through traffic and the six yard box without finding a runner. In the end, the clean sheet for Oettl was easy work, with the Indy netminder not having to make a single save on a night where Indy controlled everything except the count on the scoreboard.
Next up for the Eleven comes its maiden match in the 2023 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup – U.S. Soccer’s national club championship. Indy will begin its journey in the 108th edition of the competition this Wednesday, April 5, with a Second Round affair at 7:00 p.m. against NISA side Michigan Stars FC. The Boys in Blue will continue their three-game, weeklong homestand by welcoming Oakland Roots SC to Carroll Stadium next Saturday, April 8, for another 7:00 p.m. ET kickoff in the Circle City.
Single-game tickets for all home games at IUPUI Carroll Stadium along with 17-game Season Ticket Memberships, specially-priced group tickets, and an increased portfolio of hospitality options are available for purchase now via indyeleven.com/tickets or by calling 317-685-1100 during regular business hours (Mon.-Fri., 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.).
USL Championship Regular Season
Indy Eleven 0 : 0 Las Vegas Lights FC
Saturday, April 1, 2023
Michael A. Carroll Stadium – Indianapolis, Ind.
Indy Eleven: 1W-0L-2D, 5 pts.
Las Vegas Lights FC: 0W-0L-3D, 3 pts.
Scoring Summary:
none
Discipline Summary:
LV – Jacob Bushue (caution) 21’
IND – Cam Lindley (caution) 76’
LV – Jordan Ayimbila (caution) 79’
IND– Bryam Rebellón (caution) 81’
Indy Eleven line-up (4-3-3): Yannik Oettl; Bryam Rebellón (Robby Dambrot 85’), Jesus Vazquez, Adrian Diz Pe, Younes Boudadi; Cam Lindley (Juan Tejada 91+’), Aodhan Quinn, Jack Blake (Harrison Robledo 81’); Solomon Asante, Douglas Martinez, Sebastian Guenzatti
Las Vegas Lights FC line-up (4-2-3-1): Alan Díaz; Jordan Ayimbilia (Marcelo Lage 81’), Alejandro Mitrano, Zach Carroll, Lucas Stauffer; Andrés Jiménez, Jacob Bushue; Andrew Carleton, Erick ‘Cubo’ Torres (Tabort Preston 76’), Tyler Bagley (Justin Ingram 60’); Pato Botello Faz
INDIANA MEN’S BASKETBALL
JACKSON-DAVIS NAMED KARL MALONE POWER FORWARD OF THE YEAR
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Senior forward Trayce Jackson-Davis was named the 2023 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year, as announced on ESPN College GameDay on Saturday.
“I could not be more excited to receive this year’s Karl Malone Award, “said Jackson-Davis. “This is something I share with our coaches and staff, my teammates, family, and all of Hoosier Nation. Thank you to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame for this honor.”
“Trayce has accomplished so much as an Indiana Hoosier and is very deserving of the Karl Malone Award,” said IU Coach Mike Woodson. “When this team was down in early January, he put the entire program on his shoulders, and night after night he made winning plays. He was the best player on the court all the way through the postseason.”
Jackson-Davis, a consensus All-America First Team selection, started 32 games this season and averaged 20.9 points, 10.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 2.9 blocks per game. He is the first Division I men’s basketball player to average at least 20.0 points, 10.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 2.0 blocks in a season in over 25 years. He led the Hoosiers in all four categories while also shooting 58.2% (262-of-450) from the floor and 69.5% (146-of-210) from the free throw line.
TJD has previously been honored as an All-America First Team player by the Associated Press, NABC, Sporting News, USBWA, and the Wooden Award. He was honored as a unanimous All-Big Ten First Team selection by both the coaches and the media and was tabbed to the All-Big Ten Defensive Team. Jackson-Davis was named Big Ten Player of the Week on five occasions during his senior campaign.
Jackson-Davis finished his Hoosier career third on the all-time program list for career points (2,258) and double-doubles (50). He holds the school record in both career rebounds (1,143) and blocked shots (270). TJD became the fifth player in Big Ten men’s basketball history to amass 2,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds.
He compiled 11 career 30-point games, 24 games with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, and 112 games with at least 10 points scored. He blocked at least one shot in 105 games and owns 78 multi-block games to his credit. He averaged 17.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game over his four seasons with the Cream and Crimson.
Jackson-Davis joins Montrezl Harrell (Louisville, 2015), Georges Niang (Iowa State, 2016), Johnathan Motley, Baylor (2017), Deandre Ayton (Arizona, 2018), Zion Williamson (Duke, 2019), Obi Toppin (Dayton, 2020), Drew Timme (Gonzaga, 2021), and Keegan Murray (Iowa, 2022) as recipients of the prestigious award.
2023 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Men’s Starting Five
Bob Cousy Award (Point Guard) – Markquis Nowell, Kansas State
Jerry West Award (Shooting Guard) – Marcus Sasser, Houston
Julius Erving Award (Small Forward) – Jalen Wilson, Kansas
Karl Malone Award (Power Forward) – Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award (Center) – Zach Edey, Purdue
INDIANA BASEBALL
BASEBALL DROPS GAME ONE AT PENN STATE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – a pair of three-run innings proved the difference in a series opening loss for the Indiana baseball program at Penn State on Saturday (April 1). The Hoosiers jumped out to the early lead, before the Nittany Lions scored the final six runs of the game in a 7-2 loss for IU.
Indiana (18-8) opened the scoring with one run in the first inning, but Penn State (14-8) answered with a single run in the second. After IU scored one in the third inning, PSU added three in the bottom of the frame to take its first lead. Three in the seventh inning capped its scoring.
Sophomore Brock Tibbitts was the offensive standout with a 4-for-4 effort at the plate and two RBIs. Freshman Devin Taylor tripled and scored two runs, and sophomore Josh Pyne posted the only other multi-hit game with a 2-for-5 day at the plate. Senior Phillip Glasser moved his reached base streak to 26 games with a walk.
For the first time in 2023, Indiana lost a game which sophomore Luke Sinnard (3-1) started. The right-hander threw five innings and allowed our runs on six hits. He walked two and struck out two. Freshman Brayden Risedorph allowed three runs over 1 2/3 innings of work and sophomore Adrian Vega tossed 1 1/3 clean innings to close out the game.
Jade Henline (3-1) picked up the victory with five innings of two-run work, before he handed the ball to Travis Luensmann (1) for the final four innings. Luensmann struck out 10 of the 12 batters he faced and scattered two hits and one walk to earn the save. Grant Norris drove in two RBIs in the contest, while four other Nittany Lions drove in one RBI. Billy Gerlott had three hits and homered in the game.
Scoring Recap
Top First
After two quick outs, Devin Taylor tripled into the right field corner and came in to score on a single from Brock Tibbitts.
Indiana 1, at Penn State 0
Bottom Second
Billy Gerlott tied the game with a solo home run with two outs.
Indiana 1, at Penn State 1
Top Third
Taylor and Tibbitts produced the second run of the game for IU, with Taylor reaching on a fielder’s choice in front of a Tibbitts RBI double.
Indiana 2, at Penn State 1
Bottom Third
Tayven Kelly hit a leadoff home run to left field. A double and single followed before Jay Harry’s pushed the second run of the frame across with a base hit. The third run of the inning came on a double play ball.
at Penn State 4, Indiana 2
Bottom Seventh
The first two Nittany Lions were retired before a single and hit-by-pitch put two runners on base. Johnny Piacentino singled up the middle to score the first run of the frame. After Piacentino stole second base, Grant Norris then singled to plate two more runs.
at Penn State 7, Indiana 2
Up Next
Indiana and Penn State will play two games to close out the series on Sunday (April 2) with first pitch scheduled for 11 a.m. on Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. The game can be seen on B1G+ and heard on the Indiana Sports Radio Network.
INDIANA SOFTBALL
NO. 24 INDIANA BREAKS PROGRAM RECORD FOR LONGEST WIN STREAK IN RUN-RULE VICTORY OVER BUCKEYES
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – No. 24 Indiana softball (26-9, 6-0 B1G) set a new program record for longest win streak in program history in a 17-9 run-rule victory over Ohio State (21-9, 2-2 B1G) in six innings at Andy Mohr Field, after resuming the game in the bottom of the third inning due to inclement weather on Friday, March 31.
INDIANA 17, OHIO STATE 9
KEY MOMENTS
• Ohio State struck first with an RBI double to right center in the top of the second before extending the lead with back-to-back home runs and another RBI double in the third, 3-0.
• The Hoosiers made a comeback in the bottom of the inning as they tied the game up, 3-3, behind an RBI double from sophomore Taylor Minnick and a three-run home run from teammate Sarah Stone, 4-3.
• Sophomore Kinsey Mitchell connected with one in the bottom of the third as she hit an RBI triple off the left center wall before the game was postponed due to inclement weather.
• IU picked right back up where they left off as senior Cora Bassett hit an infield double earning two more RBI, 6-3.
• The Buckeyes added on four runs in the top of the fourth to take an 8-7 lead.
• Minnick hit a leadoff double to start the bottom of the fourth as Stone came in clutch to tie the game with an RBI double to deep left field to score Minnick, 8-8.
• Mitchell hit a double to center field earning two RBIs to put the Hoosiers in front, 10-8.
• Indiana added on four more runs as they extended the lead, 14-8, in the fifth highlighted by a pair of doubles from sophomore Brianna Copeland and freshman Avery Parker as they combined for three RBI.
• OSU scored another run in the top of the sixth, 14-9.
• Junior Brooke Benson went yard in the bottom of the inning as IU scored three runs to run-rule the Buckeyes in game one.
NOTABLES
• Indiana sets a new program record for longest win streak in program history with 19.
• The Hoosiers tallied 14 hits, 16 RBI and seven doubles along with 10 free passes.
• Minnick went 3-for-3 with a batting avg. of .421. She hit two doubles and two free passes, earning two RBI.
• Benson hit her second home run of the season and scored two runs.
• Stone had two hits, one double and one home run with four RBI in game one against the Buckeyes.
• Copeland hit .429 with three hits, one double, two home runs and three RBI.
• Sophomore pitcher Heather Johnson picked up her eighth win inside the circle this season.
UP NEXT
Indiana will complete the series against Ohio State in a doubleheader tomorrow at Andy Mohr Field with the first game starting at 12 p.m. ET on Big Ten Plus with the second game starting 30 minutes after the first.
PURDUE MEN’S BASKETBALL
EDEY NAMED USWBA NATIONAL PLAYER OF THE YEAR; RECIPIENT OF KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR AWARD AT THE FINAL FOUR
HOUSTON, Texas – Purdue junior center Zach Edey has been named the recipient of the Oscar Robertson Trophy, given by the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) for its National Player of the Year, continuing his quest toward unanimous National Player of the Year accolades.
In addition, he was named the recipient of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, given to the nation’s top center by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Edey has now earned four major National Player of the Year accolades, previously being recognized by The Sporting News, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and the Associated Press (AP) as their recipient of the award. He also won the Pete Newell Big Man of the Year Award on Tuesday, in addition to being named the National Player of the Year by CBS Sports on Thursday. He has been named a first-team All-American by every outlet.
The Naismith Award will be announced Sunday at the Final Four, while the Wooden Award will be announced next week.
Edey becomes the first Canadian native to win National Player of the Year honors and is the first Boilermaker since Glenn Robinson in 1994 to win National Player of the Year accolades. He is also the fifth Big Ten Player in the last 14 years to be named National Player of the Year joining Evan Turner (2010), Trey Burke (2013), Frank Kaminsky (2015) and Luka Garza (2021) as National Players of the Year.
Earlier this week, Edey won the the Pete Newell Big Man of the Year Award, given to the nation’s top post player. Edey is the third Boilermaker to receive this award, joining JaJuan Johnson (2011) and the late Caleb Swanigan (2017) as Purdue recipients. Purdue and Duke are the only institutions to have three Pete Newell Big Man of the Year award winners.
Edey earned the Oscar Robertson Trophy after one of the most-dominating seasons in college basketball history. He was named a consensus first-team All-American, the second straight season that Purdue has had a consensus All-American (Jaden Ivey, 2022), after averaging 22.3 points, 12.9 rebounds, 2.1 blocks and 1.5 assists per game.
He became the first player in NCAA history (since blocks became an official NCAA stat) to record at least 750 points, 400 rebounds, 70 blocks and 50 assists in a season, ranking sixth nationally in scoring, second in rebounds, 19th in blocked shots and 21st in field goal percentage (.607), the only player in the NCAA database to rank in the top 25 of all four categories in the same season.
He finished the season ranking sixth on Purdue’s single-season chart for points (757), first in rebounds (438), fifth in field goals made (290), 14th in field goal percentage (.607), first in dunks (76) and second in double-doubles (27).
He has scored in double-figures in 51 straight games, the longest streak in the country, and fourth-longest streak in school history.
For his career in 99 games, he has 1,533 points, the most for a player through his junior season in school history, with 847 rebounds, 148 blocks and 106 assists.
He finished the year with eight games of at least 30 points and 10 rebounds, the most for a major-college player in the last 20 years, and his 11 games of at least 25 points and 10 rebounds are the most for a Big Ten player in the last 20 years by four games over Luka Garza (Iowa; 7). The 438 rebounds are the fourth most by a player in Big Ten history behind three seasons by Ohio State great Jerry Lucas (1960-62).
Edey became just the second player in Big Ten history to lead the league in scoring, rebounding and field goal percentage and is one of just nine players (Blake Griffin, Ike Diogu, Antawn Jamison, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, Bill Walton, Lew Alcindor, Gary Bradds) to lead a major-college conference in all three categories in NCAA history. Griffin was the last to do so in 2009.
Edey also earned Big Ten Player of the Year accolades after helping Purdue to a Big Ten regular-season title, a No. 1 national ranking for seven weeks and the Big Ten Tournament title. He has been named a finalist for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, given to the nation’s top center.
Earlier this season, Edey joined an exclusive list of Boilermakers to win the Big Ten Player of the Year, joining the late Caleb Swanigan (2017), JaJuan Johnson (2011), Glenn Robinson (1994) and Steve Scheffler (1990) as winners of the league’s top honor.
Edey was also named a semifinalist for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award and earned a spot on the Big Ten’s All-Defensive team.
KEADY GETS THE CALL FOR ENSHRINEMENT INTO THE NAISMITH MEMORIAL BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME
HOUSTON, Texas – Former Purdue head coach Gene Keady finally got the call he’s waited years for.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame has announced that Gene Keady will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, revealed today at the Final Four in Houston. Keady will be joined in the Class of 2023 by Pau Gasol, Dwayne Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Gene Bess, David Hixon, Gregg Popovich, Becky Hammon, Gary Blair, Jim Valvano and the 1976 U.S. Women’s Olympic Team.
Keady had been up for induction two previous times, but this was the first year he reached finalist status for enshrinement since 2006.
Keady, one of the most respected coaches in college basketball history, garnered 550 career NCAA wins and was named National Coach of the Year an amazing six times (1984, 1988, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000). He is the winningest coach in Purdue’s history (512 victories), won six Big Ten titles (1984, 1987, 1988, 1995, 1996) and a record seven Big Ten Coach of the Year awards (1984, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000).
Under Keady’s leadership, Purdue made 17 NCAA tournament appearances in 24 years. He was also inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, where he served as president from 2000-01.
Among the notable coaches that served under Keady’s direction are Bruce Weber, Kevin Stallings, Steve Lavin, Cuonzo Martin and Matt Painter, the current Boilermaker head coach.
The 86-year Kansas resident played at Garden City Community College from 1955-56. An outstanding athlete, Keady was named a Junior College All-American on the football field as a record-setting quarterback. He would then head to Kansas State, where he lettered in three sports (football, baseball and track and field), before graduating in 1958 with a degree in biological sciences and physical education.
He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 19th round of the 1958 NFL Draft, but did not see any action in the NFL.
Following college, he would get his coaching start at Beloit High School in Beloit, Kansas, but it wasn’t in any sports he played in college. The only coaching position open was for the head coach of the boys’ basketball team. Wanting to get into coaching, Keady took the position and led Beloit for six years, amassing a record of 142-47. Knowing the value of education, Keady never stopped learning and earned his master’s degree from Kansas State in 1964, while serving as a teacher and coach at Beloit.
He then began his collegiate coaching career in 1965, at Hutchinson Junior College in Hutchinson, Kansas, starting as an assistant coach for the 1965-66 season. After just one season, he was promoted to head coach where he led the Blue Dragons to six Jayhawk Conference titles while being named the region’s junior college coach of the year three times (1971, 1972, 1973). He led Hutchinson to a 29-4 record and a runner-up finish in 1973, eventually ending his time at Hutchinson with a 187-48 record.
Following the 1974 season, Keady joined legendary coach Eddie Sutton at Arkansas, serving as an assistant coach with the Razorbacks for four seasons. During the 1977 season, the Razorbacks made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 19 years, then made the Final Four in 1978. During his time at Arkansas, Keady helped the Razorbacks to a 94-24 record.
Following the Final Four run with Arkansas in 1978, Keady received his first Division I head coaching job, accepting the Western Kentucky position. It took just two years for Western Kentucky to win the Ohio Valley Conference and reach the NCAA Tournament. He posted a 38-19 record in his two seasons at Western Kentucky.
On April 11, 1980, Keady was announced as head coach of the Purdue Boilermakers, beginning a 25-year run of success. He would reach 17 NCAA Tournaments, win six Big Ten regular-season conference titles, be named Big Ten Coach of the Year seven times, record victories in 512 games (third all-time in Big Ten history), win 265 league games (also third in Big Ten history) and be named National Coach of the Year six times. Keady won all of this despite producing just one All-American, Glenn Robinson, who is considered one of the top collegiate players in the last 40 years.
Keady was part of the 2000 Dream Team staff, serving as an assistant coach while also spending time at St. John’s under Steve Lavin (2010-15) and as an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors (2006).
His all-time coaching record at every level as an assistant or head coach was 1,065 – 472 (.693).
He retired in April 2005, helping to hand-pick his successor in current head coach Matt Painter, who just completed his 18th year at Purdue and already ranks fifth on the Big Ten’s all-time wins list (413). Since 1980, Purdue has had just two head coaches, amassing a 925-468 overall record with 31 NCAA Tournament appearances and 10 Big Ten regular-season championships between them.
In addition, the Gene Keady coaching tree has many branches that is still spreading today. Ten former players or assistant coaches under Keady have all coached at the Division I level (Matt Painter, Bruce Weber, Kevin Stallings, Steve Lavin, Cuonzo Martin, Alan Major, Linc Darner, Paul Lusk, Austin Parkinson and Carson Cunningham).
This induction marks the sixth Hall of Fame that Keady will be enshrined in. He was inducted in the NJCAA Hall of Fame in 1990, the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2007), the Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010, and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. He was also honored with the Naismith Outstanding Contribution to Basketball in 2004, the John Wooden Legends of Coaching Award in 2007 (just the ninth recipient of the award at the time) and the Joe Lapchick Character Award in 2010.
The Class of 2023 will be enshrined during festivities in Springfield, Mass., the Birthplace of Basketball, on August 11-12. VIP packages to the 2023 Hall of Fame Enshrinement Weekend are now available. Single-event tickets are on sale now.
PURDUE SOFTBALL
PURDUE TAKES DOWN RUTGERS 6-3 IN 8 INNING THRILLER
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — In the eighth inning, fifth-year designated player Alex Echazarreta notched the game-winning two-run home run to clinch Purdue softball’s 6-3 victory at Rutgers. With the win, the Boilermakers clinched the series, earning the 2-0 advantage heading into the final game, which is set for tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET on B1G+.
The Boilermakers scored on both ends of the game, with three runs over the first three innings and another three in the eighth.
Earning the win was pitcher Madi Elish, who improves to 6-1 on the season after also earning yesterday’s win at Rutgers. The Boilermaker started and ended the game, recording one strikeout, no walks, four hits and one run allowed over her four innings pitched.
Purdue’s victory was sealed in extras with two outs. Shortstop Tyrina Jones came just shy of a home run as the ball hit off the top of the centerfield wall and bounced back into play, turning a would-be home run into a double. The next at-bat was Echazarreta, who then picked up where Jones left off, hitting one out of the park. Olivia McFadden followed it up with a single before freshman Rita Nuss recorded her first double of her career for Purdue’s insurance run.
The Boilermakers out-hit the Scarlet Knights 9-7, despite committing two errors in the outing.
The win marked Purdue’s first extra-inning victory of the season in addition to the first time the team has scored in all three opening frames this year.
BUTLER WOMEN’S LAX
BUTLER WLACROSSE TAKES DOWN XAVIER IN BIG EAST OPENER
The Butler women’s lacrosse team defeated Xavier 19-12 in head coach Maggie Zentgraf’s BIG EAST debut. The victory was the first ever conference win for Butler as well as the first ever meeting between the Musketeers and Bulldogs. Butler have won their third straight moving them to 5-4 on the season while Xavier moves to 4-5.
How it happened
Patricia Lynn led the Bulldogs to a hot start scoring twice in the first five minutes. Campbell Connors added to the scoring to build a three-goal cushion before Xavier would net two of their own to bring the game within one. The second half of the period saw a repeated pattern as Butler scored a quick three goals to give themselves a 6-2 lead before Xavier brought it back with two goals of their own.
The teams went back and forth in the second period. Both teams recorded nine shots, three saves, four turnovers, and five draw controls a piece. Despite what was an evenly matched period, five different Bulldogs managed to find the net while Caroline Smith and her defense held Xavier to four to create an 11-8 score line.
Defense in the third helped Butler take firm control of the game. Butler created seven turnovers, while Smith had four saves. Again, five separate Bulldogs would score to help win the period 5-1, including four consecutive going into the fourth.
Carrying over their momentum from the third, Leah Rubino notched back-to-back goals to cap off her five-goal game. Connors would conclude the scoring for Butler to build a 10-goal led. With six minutes to play, Xavier created three quick scores in under a minute, but the deficit proved too much for the Musketeers and Butler held on to the win.
Notable Stats
As a team, Butler recorded their season high in goals (19), points (23), and shots on goal (30).
Defensively, the Bulldogs tied their season high in caused turnovers (9).
Leah Rubino earned her third consecutive game with four or more goals.
Campbell Connors notched her season high in goals with four.
Butler was 7-8 on Free-position shots.
Freshman Patricia Lynn set a new her career high with back-to-back goals to start the game.
KK Callaghan, Kate Kaptrosky, and Kaley Attaway all added two goals.
Up Next
Butler returns to action next Wednesday, April 5 when they take on BIG EAST opponent, Denver. First draw is set for 1 p.m.
BUTLER SOFTBALL
BUTLER SOFTBALL SHUTS OUT CREIGHTON
OMAHA, Neb. – The Butler softball team won its eighth straight conference game, shutting out Creighton, 10-0, in game two of the three-game BIG EAST series. The Bulldogs (14-19, 8-0 BIG EAST) scored in every inning except the second in the five-inning affair, while the BlueJays (13-21, 0-8 BIG EAST) were limited to just two hits.
How It Happened
In the top of the first inning, the Bulldogs loaded the bases when both Sydney Carter (2-4, 2 R) and Ella White (2-4, 2B, 3 RBI) singled and Paige Dorsett was hit by a pitch. Teagan O’Rilley then put the ball in play in the infield, allowing Carter to score the first run of the game.
In the third inning, after Kaylee Gross and Carter had reached second and third, Dorsett singled through the left side, pushing Gross across. O’Rilley then hit a sacrifice fly to center field, sending Carter home. Butler led, 3-0, after three complete.
Ellie Boyer (2-3, 2B, SB, 2 R) led off the fourth with a double to right center, then stole third base. Two batters later, Olivia Moxley hit a single up the middle and extended the Bulldogs’ lead to 4-0.
In the top of the fifth, O’Rilley singled and Monique Hoosen launched the day’s only home run over the center field wall. Butler then loaded the bases with singles from Boyer and Cate Lehner along with a Creighton fielding error. Gross walked, pushing Boyer across, and White hit a double down the left field line that cleared the bases. The six-run inning put Butler up, 10-0.
The BlueJays were unable to score in the bottom of the fifth to extend the game.
Sydney Cammon (3-5) pitched a complete game for Butler and earned her third win of the season. In 5.0 innings, she conceded only two hits – one in the third inning and one in the fourth. She walked two and struck out two.
Bulldog Bits
Monique Hoosen’s home run was her ninth of the season and the 22nd of her career.
Ella White’s double was her seventh of the season and the 18th of her career.
Ellie Boyer’s double was her second of the season and the sixth of her career. Her stolen base was her first of the season and the 17th of her career.
Paige Dorsett has at least one hit in the past 11 games. She is 17-for-36 (.472) in that span.
Kaylee Gross is 18-for-34 (.529) in the past 11 games, with three hits in three of them.
Sydney Cammon pitched her second complete game of the season and her first shutout.
Up Next
Butler remains in Omaha, Neb., for the BIG EAST series with Creighton with game three scheduled for Sunday, Apr. 2.
BALL STATE SOFTBALL
SOFTBALL FALLS IN SERIES OPENER AT OHIO
ATHENS, Ohio – – The Ball State softball team could not get past a streaking Ohio squad Saturday afternoon, suffering a 13-3 (5) setback at the Ohio Softball Field.
The Cardinals (16-14, 6-3 Mid-American Conference) held the hosts off the board in the first inning, but a crucial error helped lead to eight unearned runs for the Bobcats (17-14; 8-2 MAC) in the second.
Redshirt sophomore catcher McKayla Timmons looked to spark Ball State in the top of the third, countering with a three-run blast. However, Ohio used a grand slam and a solo shot in the bottom of the inning to help extend its current winning streak to seven games.
HIGHLIGHTS
After hitting two-run blasts for her first six home runs of the season, Timmons added a three-run bomb to right field in the third inning … It was her seventh home run of the season and the 11th of her career.
Senior shortstop Amaia Daniel extended her streak of reaching base safely to 16 games with her single in the third inning, one shy of her current career-long streak.
Francys King led Ball State in the circle, limiting Ohio to two hits and one run over the final 2.0 innings.
SCORING SUMMARY: Ball State 3 – Ohio 13 (5)
B2 | With bases loaded and no outs, Ball State was able to get a force out at home, but an error on the play at first base allowed the first run to score. (1-0)
B2 | An RBI groundout by CiCI Keidel to second base gave Ohio a two-run lead. (2-0)
B2 | Belle Hummel singled through the right side to push the lead to three. (3-0)
B2 | Yasmine Logan added a two-run single through the right side. (5-0)
B2 | A bases loaded triple by Emma Hoffner extended the lead to eight. (8-0)
T3 | After a walk to senior third baseman Haley Wynn and a single by Daniel, Timmons launched a three-run blast into right field to bring BSU back within five. (8-3)
B3 | Unfortunately, Logan answered with a grand slam in the bottom of the inning. (12-3)
B3 | Annalia Paoli followed with a solo home run. (13-3)
UP NEXT
The Cardinals and Bobcats return to action Sunday with a noon doubleheader back at the Ohio Softball Field.
BALL STATE MEN’S VOLLEYBALL
MEN’S VOLLEYBALL OUTLASTS LEWIS IN FIVE SET THRILLER
ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – It was like Déjà vu tonight against the Flyers but this time the Cardinals came out on top over Lewis, winning the match in five sets at Neil Carey Arena.
At the start of Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) season, Lewis (14-12, 5-7 MIVA) pulled off the five-set thriller over Ball State (16-8, 9-3 MIVA) on Feb. 9 in Worthen Arena. But tonight, the Cardinals were resilient and were able to return the favor.
It was a close match from start to finish, which consisted of 46 ties and 15 lead changes.
Ball State opened tonight’s competition taking sets one (25-22) and two (25-19) from Lewis.
The Flyers would fight back to even the score after securing frames three (25-21) and four (25-17), sending the match into an extra period.
In the final set, it was a back-and-forth affair until back-to-back kills from Tinaishe Ndavazocheva gave BSU the upper hand (6-3) over the Flyers.
After that, Ball State continued to remain in control until Lewis knotted the set 11-11.
A Flyer service error, along with a kill from Dyer Ball, put Ball State back on top (14-12).
Ball State was serving for match points and Ndavazocheva came through for the Cardinals with an ace, sealing match point for BSU.
For the match, Kaleb Jenness led the Cardinals with 18 kills along with eight defensive digs. Ndavazocheva rounded out the night with 10 kills and three service aces.
The Ball State men’s volleyball team returns home to Worthen Arena for its last two MIVA regular season matches of the year when it hosts Loyola Chicago Thursday at 7 pm ET.
NOTRE DAME WOMEN’S LAX
#12 IRISH TOP #3 TAR HEELS SATURDAY AT HOME
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The 12th-ranked University of Notre Dame women’s lacrosse team defeated No. 3 North Carolina 16-12 Saturday.
Kasey Choma’s goal just 59 seconds into play gave the Irish an early lead, one which they held wire-to-wire to clinch their first win over a top-five opponent this season.
With the victory against the Tar Heels, the Irish maintain an undefeated home record in 2023 (7-0) and are 8-3 overall. Their 4-2 ACC record puts them into fifth in the conference.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Irish jumped out to a 5-2 lead to start the game as Kasey Choma, Kelly Denes, Hannah Dorney, Madison Ahern and Jane McAvoy all notched goals in the opening quarter against UNC Saturday.
Notre Dame continued to dominate in the second quarter, holding the Tar Heels to just two more goals and extending their lead to five. Goals from MK Doherty, Jackie Wolak, Denes and Ahern gave the Irish women a 9-4 lead heading into the halftime break.
The third quarter leaned in favor of the visiting Tar Heels with four goals off the free position but the Irish clung to the 12-9 lead. Choma tallied two goals in the third frame to score her team-best seventh hat trick of the year. Kristen Shanahan also scored in the frame for her 12th goal of the year.
Notre Dame secured the win when they outscored the Tar Heels 4-3 in the final quarter for the 16-12 final. Fourth quarter goals from Ahern and Denes, as well as Callahan’s two saves in the final 15 minutes, gave the Irish the win.
STAT OF THE GAME
The Irish snapped UNC’s 27-game conference win-streak Saturday afternoon. The Tar Heels’ last conference loss came on March 31, 2019 also at Notre Dame.
NOTRE DAME NOTES
Ahern’s five goals led the Irish to victory Saturday over No. 3 UNC. The senior now sits at 198 career points, including 140 goals over her four seasons with the Irish.
Including Ahern, three women tallied hat tricks in the victory as Choma and Denes each scored three goals Saturday afternoon.
With an empty net goal late in the game, Denes scored a season-high three goals and tied her career-best with the hat trick performance.
The Irish defense suffocated the Tar Heels Saturday with nine caused turnovers led by McHugh, Weigand and Shanahan with two a piece.
Callahan’s seven saves in goal bring her career total to 99.
The Notre Dame women had 21 points in the win behind 16 goals and five assists. Wolak and Doherty led the team with two assists each while Ahern’s five goals was a team-best in both goals and points.
UP NEXT
The Irish conclude their home stand next weekend when they host Boston College for a conference clash at noon on Saturday, April 8. The game between the Irish and Eagles will be broadcast on ESPNU.
NOTRE DAME MEN’S LAX
HUGE FOURTH QUARTER PROPELS #3 IRISH TO 20-12 WIN AT SYRACUSE
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish had an offensive explosion in the fourth quarter, scoring the final nine goals of the game over an 11-minute span to leave Syracuse with a 20-12 win. The win improves Notre Dame’s record to 7-1 on the season and 1-1 in ACC play.
Will Lynch played the best game of his career at the dot, winning 23-of-33 faceoffs and scooping up a career-high 13 ground balls in the winning effort.
The attack was balanced on the afternoon, as four players posted hat tricks. Jake Taylor led the way with four goals, while Chris Kavanagh, Eric Dobson, and Reilly Gray each added three.
Pat Kavanagh scored two goals and added three assists, which gave him the all-time Notre Dame career record for assists with 112, passing Tom Ulrich’s mark of 110.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Irish got off to a blistering start to open the game, scoring the first five goals of the day to open up a 5-0 lead with over four minutes left in the first frame. Pat Kavanagh scored twice to go along with goals from Taylor, Dobson and Reilly Gray.
The Orange answered with two goals of their own before Taylor scored his second of the afternoon just six seconds before the end of the opening 15 minutes of action.
Notre Dame scored the first two goals of the second quarter to extend its lead to 8-2 but the hosts managed to end the half by scoring five of the final six goals to trim the lead to 9-7 at the half.
Early goals from Gray and Chris Kavanagh pushed the Irish lead back to four at 11-7 but the Orange immediately responded with four straight to level the score at 11-11 to end the third quarter.
The Orange took its first lead of the day at the 13:09 mark in the fourth quarter off a score from Cole Kirst to go on top 12-11.
After that goal it was all Irish the rest of the way. Nick Harris scored a goal in transition to level it at 12-12 and exactly two minutes later Chris Kavanagh put Notre Dame back in the lead at 13-12 with his second of the day.
The Irish quickly extended their lead with goals from Taylor, Griffin Westlin and Gray to make the score 16-12 with six minutes remaining in the game. Notre Dame didn’t take its foot off the gas, as it tacked on four more goals, including the first of Carter Parlette’s career, to win by a final score of 20-12.
NOTRE DAME NOTES
The Irish level the all-time series at 10-10 with the win and have now won six straight in the series, including three at Syracuse.
With three assists on the day, Pat Kavanagh has 112 career assists, passing David Ulrich (110) for the program record.
Taylor’s hat trick was the first of his season and fifth of his career.
Pat Kavanagh finished with five points, giving him 187 in his career. That total moves him into fourth place in program history, passing Mike Sullivan (185).
Entenmann recorded 10 saves, marking his sixth straight game with double-digit saves.
Taylor now has eight goals over his last two games after coming back from injury.
UP NEXT
The Irish return to Arlotta for another big-time ACC matchup, as they welcome No. 4 Duke for a 4 p.m. ET clash on Saturday, April 8. The game will air on ESPNU.
INDIANA STATE SOFTBALL
SYCAMORES DROP SERIES OPENER TO SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
CARBONDALE, Ill. – Indiana State softball had their six-game MVC win streak snapped on Saturday as the Sycamores fell 5-1 to the Salukis on a windy afternoon at Charlotte West Stadium to open up a three-game series.
The Sycamores (17-15, 6-1) managed just three hits in what was a pitcher’s duel for much of the ballgame. Southern Illinois (25-5, 7-2) used a three-run fifth inning to get past Indiana State in the series opener.
Lexi Benko started in the circle for the Sycamores and struck out five across 5.1 innings of work, allowing two runs on seven hits. Hailey Griffin took the loss for ISU, allowing three runs in relief. SIU’s Madi Eberle threw a complete game and struck out four.
Indiana State struck first in the contest, going up 1-0 in the top of the fifth on a Kaylee Barrett double off the wall in left center which scored Cassie Thomerson. Annie Tokarek led off the frame with a double to end SIU’s no-hit bid. SIU answered in the bottom half of the frame with an RBI double followed by a two-run home run to left field to go up 3-1.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Salukis added a pair of runs on single down the left field line to make it a 5-1 game. Benko got her fifth strikeout to retire the side.
Cassie Thomerson was hit by a pitch in the top of the seventh but that would be the Sycamores lone baserunner in the inning as SIU closed out their 5-1 victory to open the weekend series.
Olivia Patton had the Sycamores third hit, an infield single in the sixth inning.
The series concludes on Sunday, April 2 with a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. ET at Charlotte West Stadium.
PURDUE FT. WAYNE MEN’S VOLLEYBALL
SENIORS SHINE ON MASTODON MVB SENIOR DAY
FORT WAYNE, Ind. – Behind 16 kills from Carlos Mercado, the Purdue Fort Wayne men’s volleyball team picked up a critical win on Senior Night on Saturday (April 1) over Lindenwood 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 25-18, 25-17).
The seniors were the story of the match through and through. Mercado’s 16 kills marked a new career-high, and he added five digs, two aces and a block. Sergio Carrillo registered a double-double with 38 assists and 11 digs and Noah Melendez had dive digs in the backcourt. Mercado, Carrillo and Melendez were honored before the match for the time they spent as Mastodons.
While the seniors honored were certainly in the spotlight, the rising seniors were equally as important in the match. Jon Diedrich registered 14 kills and an ace with an efficient .310 hitting performance and Bryce Walker had eight kills, three aces and three blocks with an even more effective .412 hitting clip.
The Mastodons’ pressure from the service line was a large contributing factor to the win. The ‘Dons had 10 aces and 11 errors from the line. The 10 aces tied a season-high.
The Mastodons gained control early in the contest, jumping out to an 11-5 lead after a block and kill from Walker. Shortly after, a 5-0 run behind Mercado’s service put them up 17-8. This run featured a kill and pair of aces from Mercado. Lindenwood held off four consecutive set points, but Carrillo and Ryan Steponaitis combined for the block to give the ‘Dons an early lead. Mercado had a perfect 5-0-5 performance offensively in the opening set.
The second set was full of runs and Lindenwood used a 7-2 run over the last nine points to even the match at a set each.
Purdue Fort Wayne silenced the Lions’ offense in set three, holding them to -.032 (9-10-31). After an 11-9 lead for the Lions, the ‘Dons finished the set on a 16-7 push. Carrillo had five of his digs in the third set.
Mercado in the fourth set looked like Mercado in the first set, as he had seven of his team-high 16. While pulling away much of the Lions’ attention, Diedrich was able to swing for four kills on five attempts. Lindenwood threatened late with a 4-0 push to bring it to 20-17 in favor of the ‘Dons, but Purdue Fort Wayne took the last five points with two kills from Mercado, one from Walker, an ace from Mark Frazier and a block from Carrillo and Walker. Seven different Mastodons had a dig in the fourth set.
AJ Lewis had a match-high 17 kills for Lindenwood.
With the win, Purdue Fort Wayne improves to 16-10 and 7-5 in the MIVA, guaranteeing the most MIVA wins since 2019. Lindenwood falls to 9-11, 6-6. This match had huge playoff implications, as the ‘Dons now hold the tiebreaker against Lindenwood and a two-match lead over Lewis with two matches left to play in the regular season. Purdue Fort Wayne will have a chance to clinch a home tournament game with matches at Ohio State on Thursday (April 6) and Ball State on Saturday (April 8).
PURDUE FT. WAYNE BASEBALL
MASTODONS RALLY FROM 10-RUN DEFICIT BUT FALL 15-14 TO PENGUINS
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Saturday’s (April 1) Purdue Fort Wayne at Youngstown State game would have ended in the seventh inning if there was a 10-run rule in the Horizon League. But there isn’t and the Mastodons took advantage with five runs in the eighth and five more in the ninth to tie the game. Youngstown State, however, scored one run in the ninth to get the win 15-14.
The ‘Dons entered the eighth down 14-4. The big hit in the eighth was a three-run bases loaded double by Jarrett Bickel. It made the score 14-9. It was that same score in the ninth. The final inning started with three walks and an infield single to make it a 14-10 game. Caileb Johnson doubled in a pair to make the score 14-12. Grant Thoroman followed with a sacrifice fly to score Ben Higgins and bring the ‘Dons within one at 14-13. It also put the tying run at third with one out. A strikeout accounted for the second out. Luke Miles entered as a pinch hitter as the Mastodons’ final chance. He took a 2-2 pitch to right field for the game tying single.
The Mastodons would need the game to go to a 10th for a chance to win, but it wouldn’t be. YSU supplied their own two-out RBI single to win the game 15-14. Matt Thompson had the game-winning hit for the Penguins.
Kenny Misik got the win for YSU. Brendan Reid took the loss.
Johnson and Tyler Nelson each had three hits for the ‘Dons. Johnson recorded a solo home run.
The ‘Dons worked 11 walks in the game with Cade Nelis recording four to tie a single-game school record.
Steven D’eusanio had four hits for the Penguins.
Purdue Fort Wayne falls to 7-20 (4-4 Horizon League). Youngstown State improves to 6-19 (3-4 Horizon League). The teams will play the rubber game of the series on Sunday.
EVANSVILLE BASEBALL
BELMONT TAKES BASEBALL OPENER, 8-1
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The visiting Belmont Bruins’ baseball team combined solid pitching with three home runs on Saturday to take the Missouri Valley Conference series-opener over the University of Evansville Purple Aces by a final score of 8-1 at German American Bank Field at Charles H. Braun Stadium in Evansville.
“You have to credit their starter, as he really competed against our lineup today,” said UE head coach Wes Carroll. “It is going to be a dog fight tomorrow to win the series. We need to come to the park ready to compete for 18 innings tomorrow.”
Current MVC Pitcher of the Week Andy Bean (3-3) of Belmont held Evansville at bay for six solid innings of work to earn the victory. His only mistake was a long solo home run by UE fifth-year first baseman Chase Hug in the bottom of the third inning. Outside of that, he held Evansville to just a single run on five hits while striking out seven in 6.0 innings of work. Reliever Jett Thielke worked around two hits and a walk in three innings of work to record his second save of the year on the mound.
Offensively, Belmont gave Bean all of the runs he would need in the top of the third inning, thanks to a two-run opposite-field home run by first baseman Brody Heaton, as he took advantage of a 20-mile-per-hour wind blowing out to right field to just clear the fence for his second home run of the year.
Hug’s long home run to right-center field in the bottom of the frame cut the Belmont lead to 2-1. UE would put two more men on in the frame, but with two outs, Bean struck out UE senior third baseman Brent Widder to get out of the jam.
Belmont catcher Blake Barton would then launch a solo shot of his own to right-center field in the fifth inning to push the lead to 3-1. BU centerfielder Jeff Clarke would then put the game out of reach with a grand slam in the sixth inning to move the advantage to 7-1. Belmont would tack on a run on a run-scoring wild pitch in the eighth inning to provide the final margin of victory.
Heaton and second baseman Jack Rando would lead Belmont offensively with two-hit efforts. Hug paced UE with a 2-for-4 effort to go along with his sixth home run of the year.
The two teams will conclude the series on Sunday at 12 p.m. with a doubleheader. UE is expected to send junior RHP Shane Harris (2-1, 5.00 ERA) and junior LHP Donovan Schultz (4-1, 2.81 ERA) to the mound on Sunday. Sunday’s first game can be seen live on ESPN+, with the nightcap available on ESPN3. Both games of the twinbill can be heard in Evansville on 107.1 FM-WJPS and the Old National Bank/Purple Aces Sports Network from Learfield.
EVANSVILLE SOFTBALL
FROSSARD DELIVERS GAME-WINNING HIT IN 11TH INNING
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – With two outs in the bottom of the 11th inning, Zoe Frossard singled to left field to bring in Marah Wood for the game-winning run as the Purple Aces defeated Belmont by a 3-2 final inside Tri-State Orthopaedics Field at James and Dorothy Cooper Stadium on Saturday.
Wood went 3-4 with two RBI and a walk in the contest while Frossard and Jenna Nink each recorded hits. Tossing six scoreless innings of relief, Megan Brenton earned her fifth victory of the season. In six frames, she gave up just three hits while striking out nine batters. Sydney Weatherford made the start and gave up two runs, one earned, in five innings.
After both teams picked up a hit in the first, the Bruins broke through with a run in the second on a Kailey Brown triple. A wild pitch with the bases loaded in the third saw them double their lead. Sydney Weatherford got out of the jam without any further damage. In the top of the fifth, Zoe Frossard made an excellent defensive play, making a catch against the left field wall with a runner on base.
Their efforts paid off as the offense found its groove in the bottom of the fifth. Sydney Kalonihea reached on an error to lead off and Jenna Nink followed with a double to left field. With one out, Marah Wood approached the plate and delivered her third hit of the afternoon – a double to the center field wall – to tie the game at 2-2.
Belmont opened the 10th inning by placing their leadoff batters on second and third but Brenton did a masterful job of getting through unscathed. In the 11th, Wood reached with a walk before advancing to second on a sacrifice bunt by Taylor Howe. With two outs, Frossard’s hit to left field sealed the 3-2 victory.
Tomorrow, the Aces and Bruins meet up for a doubleheader starting at 12 p.m.
SOUTHERN INDIANA BASEBALL
EAGLES LATE COMEBACK HALTED BY LIONS
ST. CHARLES, Mo. – University of Southern Indiana Baseball had their game two comeback halted as Lindenwood University was able to add a couple runs in the eighth inning and finish off the Screaming Eagles, 6-3. USI, who still looks for their first win in conference play, saw their record fall to 7-20, 0-5 in the OVC, while Lindenwood goes to 5-22, 2-3 OVC.
The Lions got things started with two early runs in the bottom of the first. The Eagles were able to cut the lead in half in the third inning as junior Nolan Cook (Evansville, Indiana) came around to score off of an up the middle single by sophomore Ricardo Van Grieken (Merida, Venezuela).
Lindenwood would extend their lead in the bottom of the third as they would bring two more runs around to extend their lead to three. USI would tack on another run in the top of the fourth as junior Steven Molinet (Elberfeld, Indiana) would come around to score off of a rocket down the right field line by junior Jack Ellis (Jeffersonville, Indiana) as he would get all the way to third for his first triple of the year.
The Eagles would cut the Lions lead to just one in the top of the sixth inning as Molinet would come around to score for the second time on the day after Ellis got his second extra base hit of the day with a double to left center field.
Lindenwood would stop the USI momentum as they would bring two around in the eighth to finish off the Eagles.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Gavin Morris (Brazil, Indiana) got the start on the mound, his fourth of the year. Morris would throw five innings for the Eagles, allowing four runs on six hits, all four runs were earned. Morris would also strikeout three batters and walk three.
Sophomore right-handed pitcher Adam Weihe (Louisville, Kentucky) was the only other Eagle on the mound on Saturday, going three innings, allowing two runs on two hits. Weihe would also strikeout one and walk one on the day.
Van Grieken would lead USI with three hits on the day while Ellis and senior Lucas McNew (Floyds Knobs, Indiana) each had two hits.
Up Next for the Eagles:
The Eagles and Lions conclude the OVC three-game series on Sunday at 1 p.m.
SOUTHERN INDIANA SOFTBALL
USI WINS SERIES OPENER BEHIND GOODIN’S FOUR RBIS AND NEWMAN’S 10 STRIKEOUTS
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Southern Indiana Softball won its series opener against the University of Tennessee at Martin, 6-4, on Saturday behind a four-RBI afternoon by senior Allie Goodin (Evansville, Indiana) and a 10-strikeout, complete game from sophomore pitcher Josie Newman (Indianapolis, Indiana).
With the win, Southern Indiana improved to 11-14 overall and 5-4 in the Ohio Valley Conference, which is good for a fourth-place tie after Saturday’s action. UT Martin dropped to 11-15 this season and 4-5 in OVC play.
In the bottom of the first inning, USI’s offense started out with back-to-back bunt singles. With two on and no outs, Goodin rocketed a two-RBI double to the gap, scoring both runners. Goodin scored later in the inning after a throwing error by UT Martin. USI led 3-0 after one.
USI led off the third inning with consecutive singles. After a wild pitch advanced both runners into scoring position, senior infielder Jordan Rager (Fishers, Indiana) recorded a sacrifice RBI to give USI a 4-0 lead.
Meanwhile, Newman was cruising in the circle. The sophomore started the game by retiring the first 11 Skyhawks, five of which came via the strikeout. With two outs in the top of the fourth inning, UT Martin broke into the hit column with a double.
UT Martin went on to cut into USI’s lead with three runs in the fourth inning, including two off a home run. All three runs were unearned after an error earlier in the inning. Two innings later, the Skyhawks tied the game, 4-4, on a solo home run in the sixth.
The Screaming Eagles answered in the bottom of the sixth inning. After three walks loaded the bases with one out, Goodin delivered again with a hard hit to left field to drive in a pair and put USI back up, 6-4.
Newman closed out the complete game in the seventh inning with her 10th strikeout of the contest and by stranding a leadoff baserunner. The outing was Newman’s ninth complete game of the season, as she moved to 9-6 in 2023. Along with 10 strikeouts, the right-hander allowed only one earned run and three hits. Newman is approaching 100 strikeouts on the season, sitting at 98, which is good for top-50 in the nation.
Offensively, Goodin led USI with three hits and four RBIs, increasing her season RBI total to 20 to pace the squad. Goodin’s .462 batting average through Saturday tops the team and is inside the top-20 in the nation. Junior outfielder Mackenzie Bedrick (Brownsburg, Indiana) also had a solid day at the plate with a couple of hits and two runs.
For UT Martin, junior Kierston Nixon started in the circle, lasted only two innings, and gave up four runs – three earned. The loss went to junior Katie Dreiling, dropping her record to 6-4 after tossing the last four innings with five strikeouts and two runs surrendered.
The Screaming Eagles and Skyhawks will continue the weekend series Sunday with a doubleheader starting at 12 p.m. Sunday’s games can be seen with a subscription to ESPN+ and heard on The Spin 95.7 FM. Additional coverage links are on the USI Softball schedule page on usiscreamingeagles.com.
U OF I SOFTBALL
BATS STAY HOT AS HOUNDS THUMP BULLDOGS IN HOME OPENER
INDIANAPOLIS—The No. 6 UIndy softball team compiled some impressive offensive numbers in their 2023 Baumgartner Field debut. Battling chilly and windy conditions, the Greyhounds compiled 30 runs and 16 extra-base hits in sweeping the visiting Truman Bulldogs, 18-3 and 12-4.
UIndy has now won 18 consecutive games versus Truman dating back to April of 2015, including each of the last six via run rule.
GAME 1 | UIndy 18, TSU 3 (5 innings)
The Hounds set a season high in runs in game 1, half of which came in the first inning alone. The patient UIndy hitters worked six walks in opening frame, with Jocelyn Calvin’s two-run double and Megan Nichols’ three-run bomb providing the pop.
Things didn’t improve for Truman as UIndy continued to rack up the runs. Emily O’Connor and Dominique Proctor both went yard in the third, while Tara Williams capped the scoring with a two-run double.
Shelby Cook, Sydnee Perry and Proctor all reached base safely in three plate appearances, with the latter going 3-for-3 with five ribbies.
Starting pitcher Kenzee Smith continued her strong junior campaign, moving to 17-3 on the year. She struck five and allowed two earned runs in three innings. Freshman Alexa Huth worked the final two frames.
GAME 2 | UIndy
The capper was a tighter affair, at least through the first three-and-a-half innings. Truman took their first lead of the day with a three-run rally in the top of the third to earn a 4-3 edge. Starter Kaitlyn Brown got two outs of the inning before back-to-back RBI singles put the ‘Dogs in front and ended her day.
Reliever sophomore Jayden Casebolt came on a eventually stopped the threat to keep it a one-run game.
The Hounds tied it in the very next inning on an RBI knock by Megan Wineinger before blowing int wide open in the bottom of the fourth. UIndy scored seven runs in the fourth – all with two outs. Five extra-base hits fueled the rally, including O’Connor’s second home run of the afternoon.
Casebolt (7-0) pitched around multiple base runners in both the fourth and fifth innings and ultimately earned the win. She tossed 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief with three Ks.
Calvin and Nichols, UIndy’s 1 and 2 hitters, combined for seven hits, three runs and seven RBIs. Wineinger finished 2-for-3 with a walk, two runs and two ribbies.
UP NEXT
The Hounds remain home to host the Hawks of Quincy tomorrow. First pitch of the doubleheader is scheduled for 12 p.m. ET.
U OF I BASEBALL
LATE COMEBACK FALLS SHORT AS GREYHOUNDS SPLIT DAY WITH UMSL
ST. LOUIS – After the originally scheduled three-day series with the University of Missouri St. Louis Tritons was pushed to a two-day, two doubleheader format, the UIndy baseball team split the opening day.
The Hounds poured on the runs in the first contest, winning 13-6, with both Easton Good and Caleb Vaughn going deep. The second game was a nailbiter in the end with the Hounds trailing 7-2 going into the final frame, but the comeback would not see maturity, falling just short.
GAME 1, UIndy 13, UMSL 6
The first contest of the day in St. Louis was an offensive showcase for the Greyhounds. The first three batters for the Hounds all reached with Vaughn getting the scoring started with a single to left field, scoring Brandon DeWitt. A wild pitch and then a Nick Lukac sacrifice fly. Lukac added another ribbie in the top of the third, working a bases loaded walk.
Good crushed his second homer of the season in the sixth, floating a ball over the right field fence, bringing in Adam Rakestraw in the process.
After a Triton run in the bottom of the sixth, Vaughn cranked a ball to left field that had no doubt about it. That ball marked the second long ball of the season for the Hounds speedy right fielder.
Good added two more in the seventh before the floodgates opened in the eighth with a wild pitch, error and a walk bringing in three more Greyhound runs. The Tritons dug at the hole they dug themselves into, notching five more runs between the eighth and the ninth but it was little too late as the Hounds won 13-6.
DeWitt’s seven inning day ended with him giving up only one run on five hit4s while striking out eight, his second consecutive start with eight punchouts.
GAME 2, UMSL 7, UIndy 5
Game two was a rough one for the Hounds in the opening frame. After plating two in the first off of a Lukac single and a wild pitch, the Tritons punched right back, scoring five. The Hounds ended up not answering until the seventh when the Triton lead had ballooned to 7-2.
A DeWitt double was followed by Drew Donaldson reaching via an E6. A wise Vaughn walk loaded the bases, inducing a Triton pitching change. Lukac worked a bases loaded walk after a Denton Shepler strikeout, scoring one with Brady Ware following that up with a clutch two RBI single, sending Vaughn and Donaldson home. However, despite another bases loaded situation, the Hounds were unable to capitalize, striking out two more time to end the contest.
UP NEXT
Day two of the Hounds v. Tritons matchup is on deck for Sunday with the Hounds looking to take the series with a pair of wins. The games are set for 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
U OF I MEN’S LAX
PARKER BREAKS RECORD, GREYHOUNDS CELEBRATE SENIORS IN OVERDUE RETURN TO KEY
INDIANAPOLIS – The No. 6 UIndy men’s lacrosse team (8-1, 2-0 GLVC) celebrated Senior Day in style on Saturday, cruising to a 21-10 victory over Davenport (3-6, 0-1 GLVC) in the Greyhounds’ first home game in 33 days.
Junior FOGO Caleb Parker set a new program single-game record in the rout, amassing 30 faceoff wins in 35 attempts. The Bixby, Okla., native fell just one ground ball shy of the record, as well, finishing with 17.
INS & OUTS
The Greyhound mantra was “early and often” against the Panthers, scoring at least four times in each quarter on Saturday, highlighted by a seven-goal effort in the third. UIndy built a 9-5 lead at halftime on the heels of Wyatt Auyer’s five goals, while the junior dished out both of his helpers in the high-scoring third quarter.
Three other Hounds finished with hat tricks, including Drew Billig, Owain Braddock, and Triston Schaffer. Schaffer netted each of his three goals in the second half, with a pair in the final frame.
UIndy won nearly three-fourths of the loose-ball opportunities, cleaning up 67 ground balls compared to Davenport’s 24. Kyle Basch (8) and Evan Soucy (6) combined for 14 scoops, while attackers Auyer (4) and Billig (5) were instrumental in keeping the ball in the Hounds’ offensive territory.
KC Carlson recorded eight saves in the win, while being credited with three ground balls and one caused turnover.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
– Parker joined former Greyhounds Robbie Berardi and Dominic Guarino in the program’s single-game top three with 17 ground balls against Davenport.
– Jake Allen accounted for two goals and one assist in the win, with both netters coming in the third quarter.
– A consistent factor on the defensive end, Josh Jackson added another three caused turnover and three scoops to his career line. The Coquitlam, British Columbia, native upped his career program record in caused turnovers to 88.
– Freshman Keegan Laughlin officially recorded his first collegiate point, scoring the final goal of the afternoon at 1:54 in the fourth quarter.
MORE NOTES
UIndy celebrated 14 current and former student-athletes prior to the league tilt, including Brian Robb and Andrew Simonich, who rank ninth and 14th, respectively, on the program’s all-time points list … the Greyhounds improve to 3-0 all-time against Davenport.
UP NEXT
The Greyhounds officially wrap up their regular-season home slate next Saturday, April 8, against Maryville at 12 p.m. The Saints are 6-4 this season, including a 1-1 record inside GLVC play.
INDIANAPOLIS WOMEN’S LAX
#4 WOMEN’S LACROSSE FALLS AGAINST #1 WEST CHESTER
GREENSBURG, Pa. – The No. 4 UIndy women’s lacrosse team (10-2, 1-0 GLVC) traveled to Greensburg, Penn., on Saturday and battled the top-ranked West Chester Rams on the campus of Seton Hill University. In the end, the Hounds fell 15-11 in the neutral site contest.
On offense, eight different players recorded one or more points. Anna Ziemba led the way with five after she notched three assists and two goals while Joey Fowler collected three on a three-goal effort.
On defense, Caroline Krauch caused a team-leading three turnovers while Amy Vegh and Delaney Stahrr each had two. Between the pipes, Audrey Moran managed six saves.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Both teams went back-and-forth through the opening half as West Chester was able to corral a slim 7-6 advantage heading into the halftime locker room. Despite a valiant effort to take down the top-ranked team in Division II, UIndy was never able to collect a lead in the final 30 minutes of play and eventually allowed the Rams to rattle off three unanswered goals through the end of the third and into the fourth which played a key part in the final outcome.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
-Vegh led the team with four ground balls while Malaena Michielin had a team-high three draw controls.
-UIndy won the shots battle at 25-24.
-The Greyhounds went a perfect 23-of-23 on clear attempts.
-West Chester dominated the draw control circle at 20-9.
-Ground balls were even between the two teams at 16 each.
UP NEXT
The Hounds will hit the road and battle McKendree in GLVC action on Thursday, April 6. That game will begin at 7 p.m. ET.
U OF I MEN’S TENNIS
#2 MEN’S TENNIS TAKES 7-0 DUB AGAINST SAINTS
INDIANAPOLIS – The University of Indianapolis men’s tennis team picked up yet another GLVC victory this weekend, downing the Marvyille Saints 7-0. The No. 2-ranked Hounds’ win moves them to 13-2 on the season and a 2-0 conference mark.
INS AND OUTS
The Hounds started doubles play already up a point, taking a win by walkover in the third doubles match. Matthieu Derache and Erwan Momo Andre got the job done in the No. 1 spot to secure the first point of the match. Nikolaj Talimaa and Louis Picaud did the same, winning 6-3 to sweep doubles play.
Singles was much of the same with the Hounds being gifted a 3-0 lead as the Saints did not have players for the No. 5 and No. 6 singles matches. Talimaa kept the Hounds rolling in the No. 1 slot, winning 6-3, 6-2. Thomas Mathis and Derache followed up with straight sets wins out of the No. 2 and No. 3 slots, both debuts in those spots. Momo Andre finalized the match with a 6-2, 6-1 win, making it a 7-0 perfect sweep.
UP NEXT
After a brief homestand, the Hounds hit the road once again, travelling to Illinois Springfield this Friday. The Hounds look to replicate their success from last season, having swept the Prairie Stars 4-0.
U OF I WOMEN’S TENNIS
GREYHOUNDS CLOSE OUT GLVC WEEKEND WITH WIN OVER SAINTS
INDIANAPOLIS – In this second consecutive GLVC matchup, the UIndy women’s tennis team found a 7-0 sweep versus the visiting Maryville Saints. The win marks the first sweep of the year for the No. 7-ranked Greyhounds.
INS AND OUTS
As usual, doubles action was the leadoff in the match. The Hounds did what they needed, securing both the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches. The No. 10 pair of Anna Novikova and Sofia Shaonova got business done out of the top slot in a tight match. Diane Flament and Lea Cakarevic had an easier go around in their match, winning 6-1.
Singles action was dominance one through six for the No. 7 Hounds, with five of the six being rested in straight sets. Novi’ was excellent out of the top slot, winning 6-2, 6-0. Maria Fiacan, who has had an incredible freshman year up to this point, continues to roll, winning back-to-back 6-1 sets. Cakarevic was the lone Hounds to be forced to three, but was calm in set three, taking care of business.
Flament, Sharonova and Aimee Reynoso rounded out the final three matches for the Hounds. The matches all went smoothly, minus a tough first set for Flament, but the senior bounced back big, waltzing to a 6-1 second. Reynoso, another part of the Hounds youth was as good as you could have asked, losing only one game in two sets.
UP NEXT
The tennis continues this Friday, as the Hounds make the trip to the Lincoln State, taking on the UIS Prairie Stars for their third consecutive GLVC match. Last season the Hounds took care of business versus the P-Stars, winning 4-2.
MARIAN WOMEN’S LAX
KNIGHTS EARN 13-12 SENIOR DAY WIN OVER (RV) INDIANA TECH
INDIANAPOLIS – For the first time in program history, the Marian women’s lacrosse team earned a win over in-state foe Indiana Tech, as the Knights gutted out a 13-12 win on their senior day Saturday morning. Having dropped the previous four matchups in the series’ history, Marian’s first win against the Warriors moves the Knights to 4-1 in the WHAC standings, sliding into third place at the close of day Saturday. Marian is 9-3 overall on the season with the win.
The early 11 a.m. start didn’t faze the visiting Warriors in Saturday’s WHAC clash, as Indiana Tech controlled the pace early in the game winning the first pair of draw controls, which led to a pair of goals. Marian got their offense in gear after the second Warrior goal as Katelynn Gray fired the first home shot attempt of the game, leading to a string of shot attempts in the ensuing minute. The offensive rhythm led to Marian’s first goal, as Ashlynn Gray scored unassisted with 8:03 remaining in the opening quarter. Marian would add the game’s next goal as Emily Blackburn followed with a goal just shy of three minutes later, leveling the score.
Indiana Tech would call timeout to slow the Marian momentum, winning the draw out of the break and scoring within 20 seconds of the stoppage to go back on top 3-2. Ash. Gray would tie the score once again with 2:34 remaining in the quarter, but 30 seconds later the Warrriors notched a score from Faith Donally, giving Indiana Tech a narrow 4-3 lead after 15 minutes of play.
Marian picked up their scoring in the second quarter, as the offense played an efficient quarter getting an early start with a Grace Martin goal. The senior’s goal was the first of four straight scored by the Knights, as Ella Grace Giedd scored a man-advantage goal to provide the first Marian lead of the game. Giedd would score again five minutes after her first score, slamming a free position goal to the back of the cage for her second with 5:10 remaining. Ash. Gray connected on her second goal just over a minute after the freshman’s giving Marian a three-goal cushion with a 7-4 lead. Indiana Tech would add two goals in the final four minutes of the first half, cutting Marian’s lead to one goal at the half, the the home team on top 7-6.
Both teams traded goals in the first two minutes of the second half as a Madison Ash goal on the Knights third possession of the quarter was matched by a Dani Macomber goal just 20 seconds off the draw control. Marian would dig in and get back on the offensive two minutes later to reclaim a two-goal advantage, with Grace Martin scoring a free position goal moments after causing a turnover. Giedd would come back with her third goal of the game following Martin’s score to give the Knights a 10-7 advantage, as Kate. Gray connected on the assist. Indiana Tech managed to get one of their final five shots in the quarter to find the back of the cage, as Halli Reinard’s goal with 5:49 remaining in the quarter made it a 10-8 score.
The Warriors out-played Marian to start the fourth quarter as they carried momentum in between periods, with a goal 24 seconds into the quarter cutting the lead to one, while a second two minutes later would bring the score to a 10-10 stalemate. Following Indiana Tech’s second goal of the quarter, the Warriors again took the draw and pressed the Knights, only to commit a turnover caused by Anna Moore. After clearing the play, Marian settled into their offense, with Moore rolling off an Giedd screen at the top of the crease, slicing a shot in for her first goal of the season.
Scores from Giedd and Ash. Gray would offset a goal from the Warriors’ Donally, as Marian led 13-11 with 6:58 to play, never relenting the lead. A yellow card would lead to man-advantage goal for Reinhard just 19 seconds after Gray’s score, with the score cutting to one goal once again. Leading 13-12, Marian would pack in their defense and slow play their offense, draining as much of the clock as possible. Martin won possession of the ball in the final minute after Sarah Travis caused a turnover, and was able to run out the clock racing down the sidelines, icing Marian’s 13-12 win.
Hirsch earned her ninth win of the season in goal, making 14 saves to 12 goals against. Hirsch also recovered four ground balls in the win. Offensively, the Knights were led by Giedd and Ash. Gray, who each scored four goals. Ruby Mason had two of the team’s five assists, and Martin scored twice on six shot attempts. The defense caused 20 turnovers in the winning effort, with Madeline Dumke causing five to lead the way.
Marian will close their current home stand with a 4 p.m. home matchup against Lourdes on Wednesday, April 5.
MARIAN MEN’S TENNIS
KNIGHTS LOSE TIGHT BATTLE TO NO. 16 HOLY CROSS
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Marian men’s tennis team dropped a close one to No. 16-ranked Holy Cross on Friday evening, as they fell 4-3, moving their overall record to 14-8 on the season.
Holy Cross clinched the doubles point to take the early 1-0 lead after Andrew Ilett and Shadi Al Tori fell 6-2 at No. 1 singles to Perry Gregg and Laurenz Flender before Mark Griffin and Jona Henze lost their match 6-2 to Ryan Lee and Ciaran McCarthy at the No. 3 spot. At. No. 2 doubles, Ashwin Bhat and Jones McNamar were tied 5-5 with Luca McManus and Will Page before their match went unfinished.
The Knights tied it up after Ilett picked up the first win in singles, winning 6-3, 6-0 to Polis Koursaros at the No. 3 spot. At No. 1 singles, Griffin fell 6-1, 6-2 to Gregg, while McNamar tied things back up after he defeated Lee 6-3, 6-4. Bhat fell to Page 6-3, 6-4 at No. 4 singles, while Henze picked up another win for the Knights at the No. 5 spot with his 6-1, 1-6, 1-0 (12-10) victory over McCarthy. With the score at 3-3, the deciding factor for the match came down to the No. 2 singles match with Dmitrii Voshchenkov and Luca McManus. However, Voshchenkov dropped in three sets to McManus at 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 0-1 (7-10).
Marian will return home on Sunday for a home match against Indiana Tech beginning at 2 p.m.
MARIAN WOMEN’S TENNIS
MARIAN FALLS TO NO. 18 HOLY CROSS
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Marian women’s tennis suffered their second straight loss on Friday night, falling 4-0 to No. 18-ranked Holy Cross. The Knights are now 15-8 overall on the season after the match.
Holy Cross picked up the doubles point quickly with two wins at the No. 3 and No. 2 spots. Emma Chrome and Joelle Leihbacher fell 6-1 to Diane Maillotte and Clara Ruediger, before Tea Vrkic and Isadora Muller dropped 6-4 to Anna Beer and Victoria Savvides. At No. 1 doubles, Betija Dusele and Katharina Bopst were trailing 6-5 before their match went unfinished.
In singles action, Holy Cross continued their dominant performance by picking up three wins to clinch the match. Muller fell 6-3, 6-1 to Mailotte at No. 4 singles, while Bopst dropped her two sets to Kia Carvalho-Landell 6-3, 6-4 at the No. 2 spot, and at No. 6 singles Vrkic dropped 6-4, 7-6 (5) to Ruedige.
On the courts that were unfinished, Dusele was leading 6-3, 2-6, 3-2 over Savvides at No. 1 singles, Chrome was ahead in her third set over Helga Lopez at 4-6, 6-2, 4-0, and Leihbacher was trailing 6-2, 0-6, 3-5.
Marian will return home on Sunday for a home match against Indiana Tech beginning at 2 p.m.
SMALL COLLEGE ATHLETIC SITES:
INDIANA WESLEYAN ATHLETICS: https://iwuwildcats.com/
EARLHAM ATHLETICS: https://goearlham.com/
WABASH ATHLETICS: https://sports.wabash.edu/
FRANKLIN ATHLETICS: https://franklingrizzlies.com/
ROSE-HULMAN ATHLETICS: https://athletics.rose-hulman.edu/
ANDERSON ATHLETICS: https://athletics.anderson.edu/landing/index
TRINE ATHLETICS: https://trinethunder.com/landing/index
BETHEL ATHLETICS: https://bupilots.com/
DEPAUW ATHLETICS: https://depauwtigers.com/
HANOVER ATHLETICS: https://athletics.hanover.edu/
MANCHESTER ATHLETICS: https://muspartans.com/
HUNTINGTON ATHLETICS: https://www.huathletics.com/
OAKLAND CITY ATHLETICS: https://gomightyoaks.com/index.aspx
ST. FRANCIS ATHLETICS: https://www.saintfranciscougars.com/landing/index
IU KOKOMO ATHLETICS: https://iukcougars.com/
IU EAST ATHLETICS: https://www.iueredwolves.com/
IU SOUTH BEND ATHLETICS: https://iusbtitans.com/
PURDUE NORTHWEST ATHLETICS: https://pnwathletics.com/
INDIANA TECH ATHLETICS: https://indianatechwarriors.com/index.aspx
GRACE COLLEGE ATHLETICS: https://gclancers.com/
ST. MARY OF THE WOODS ATHLETICS: https://smwcathletics.com/
GOSHEN COLLEGE ATHLETICS: https://goleafs.net/
HOLY CROSS ATHLETICS: https://www.hcsaints.com/index.php
TAYLOR ATHLETICS: https://www.taylortrojans.com/
VINCENNES ATHLETICS: https://govutrailblazers.com/landing/index
TOP NATIONAL NEWS
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL FINAL FOUR
BUTLER’S BUZZER-BEATER SENDS SAN DIEGO STATE TO TITLE GAME
HOUSTON (AP) San Diego State’s vaunted defense staggered well into the second half as free-flowing Florida Atlantic breezed to a 14-point lead.
The Aztecs found their teeth again to get back into the game. Then Lamont Butler delivered at the very end.
Butler hit a buzzer-beating jumper for the ages, sending San Diego State to its first national championship game with a 72-71 win over fellow mid-major Florida Atlantic in the Final Four on Saturday night.
“I didn’t really know how big it was,” Butler said after his calm reaction to one of the greatest shots in NCAA Tournament history. “We’re going to the national championship. That’s not things many people do.”
A diabolical defense had pushed San Diego State (32-6) all the way to the final stop for the NCAA tourney. The Aztecs bumped and harassed opponents all season to create the first all-mid-major national semifinal since VCU and Butler in 2011.
The swaggy Owls (35-4) seemed to have solved San Diego State’s vaunted defense, using constant movement and ball reversals to create mismatches they could exploit.
San Diego State found its defensive mojo midway through the second half, clamping down on the Owls while whittling their lead down to one on Jaedon LeDee’s short jumper with 36 seconds left.
When FAU’s Johnell Davis missed a contested layup, San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher opted to not call timeout, joking that he didn’t have any plays left.
All he had to do was get the ball to Butler.
The clock ticking down, Butler dribbled to the baseline, found that cut off and circled back. He stepped back to create a little room and hit a jumper that sent the Aztecs racing out onto the floor and had San Diego Padres fans going wild at Petco Park.
Butler’s winning buzzer-beater was the first for the Final Four since Jalen Suggs for Gonzaga against UCLA in 2021 and No. 5 overall. But it’s the only one when the winning team was trailing at the time of the shot.
Next up for the Mountain West’s first Final Four team is a chance to win the conference’s first national title Monday night against UConn, which advanced with a 72-59 win against Miami.
“We’ve always been knocked down,” said San Diego State’s Matt Bradley, who had 21 points after struggling in the previous three games. “But the biggest thing we always do is get back up and keep fighting.”
San Diego State had been building toward this since coach Brian Dutcher took over for his longtime mentor Steve Fisher. Dutcher followed the mold Fisher had created, adding an extra dose of nasty to the defense.
The Aztecs lost an opportunity when they were in position for a No. 1 seed in the 2020 NCAA Tournament, only to have it wiped out by the pandemic.
San Diego State followed a pair of NCAA Tournament first-round flameouts with a solid 2023 season, winning 27 games to earn a No. 5 seed in the East Region in this year’s bracket.
Once the NCAA Tournament started, the Aztecs ramped up their defense even more, holding their first four opponents to an average of 57 points per game and 17% shooting from the 3-point arc.
FAU found an answer through quick ball movement, with the occasional dump into the post to keep the Aztecs honest.
The result: The Owls led 40-33 at halftime after hitting 5 of 11 from 3-point range against a defense that held its previous two NCAA Tournament opponents to 5-of-44 shooting from the arc.
FAU kept making shots, stretching the lead to 14 midway through the second half.
Then, with Fisher watching in the stands, the Aztecs got gritty.
Contesting nearly every shot and pass while pulling down a string of offensive rebounds, including six in 59 seconds, San Diego State rallied to tie it at 65-all.
“They went on a run, getting extra possessions,” said FAU’s Nick Boyd, who hit three early 3s and finished with 12 points. “That was really the turning point of the game.”
FAU kept San Diego State at bay most of the second half thanks to Alijah Martin, who seemed to have an answer for every Aztecs move by scoring 19 of his 26 points in the second half.
He hit a reverse layup with 45 seconds left to put FAU up 71-68, but wasn’t enough to prevent the Owls’ improbable run from coming to an end.
“These guys have created memories and a legacy that will last a lifetime,” FAU coach Dusty May.
So did the Aztecs – with one more chance to add to it.
UCONN PUTS FINAL FOUR BEATDOWN ON MIAMI 72-59
HOUSTON (AP) Nobody was guarding UConn’s best player. So Adama Sanogo spun the ball to get his fingers just right, set his feet behind the 3-point line and splashed in the shot. Then, less than a minute later, he did it again.
It was as much basketball clinic as highlight video – and all of it perfectly fitting for the Huskies, who are methodically steamrolling through a March Madness bracket that has been a free-for-all everywhere else.
UConn doled out another drama-free beatdown Saturday, getting 21 points and 10 rebounds from Sanogo to dispatch Miami 72-59 and move one win from the school’s fifth national title.
“There’s a lot of teams that want to play Monday,” Sanogo said. “It means a lot to us.”
Jordan Hawkins overcame his stomach bug and scored 13 for the Huskies, who came into this most unexpected Final Four as the only team with any experience on college basketball’s final weekend and with the best seeding of the four teams in Houston – at No. 4.
Against fifth-seeded Miami, they were the best team on the court from beginning to end. Starting with three straight 3s – one jumper from Hawkins and two of those set shots from Sanogo – UConn took a quick 9-0 lead and never trailed.
“This is something that I worked on all summer, especially shooting,” Sanogo said.
On Monday in the title game, the Huskies will face San Diego State, which became the first team to hit a buzzer-beater while trailing in a Final Four game for a 72-71 victory over Florida Atlantic. UConn was an early 7 1/2-point favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
“They’re one of the best teams in the country,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said of the Aztecs. “And I think it’s fitting that both of us kind of earned our way into this title game.”
But while the early game was an all-timer, the nightcap was simply more of the same from the Huskies (30-8).
The 13-point win was UConn’s closest since the brackets came out. The Huskies are the sixth team since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 to reach the title game with five straight double-digit victories. It’s an impressive list of behemoths with a knack for closing: Four of the first five went on to win the championship.
Some thought Miami (29-8), with the nation’s fifth-ranked offense and four players who have scored 20 points at least three times this season, might be the team to slow this Huskies juggernaut. Not to be.
Isaiah Wong led the ’Canes with 15 points on 4-for-10 shooting. Harassed constantly by Sanogo, 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan and the rest of Connecticut’s long-armed, rangy perimeter players, Miami, which came in with the nation’s fifth-best offense, shot 25% in the first half and 33.3% for the game.
“Obviously what we tried to do not only didn’t work, I couldn’t even recognize it,” Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. “Offensively we were out of sync, but defensively we were too.”
Not that UConn was all boring. The Huskies enjoyed their own sort of buzzer-beater in the form of a 3 from Alex Karaban that sent the Huskies jogging into the locker room with a 13-point lead at halftime.
They built it to 20 before the first TV timeout of the second half. By then, Jim Nantz, calling his last Final Four, could start saving his voice for Monday.
Miami did get it under double digits a few times, but this never got interesting.
Not helping: Hurricanes guard Nijel Pack missed about five minutes after managers had trouble locating a substitute for a busted shoe. Pack finished with eight points, and Jordan Miller, who hit all 20 shots he took from the floor and the line in Miami’s Elite Eight win, went 4 for 10 for 11 points. Only one Miami player made more than half his shots.
“I’m a defensive guy first and foremost,” Hurley said. “I just love the way we guarded them. They’re one of the best offenses in the country, and we really disrupted them.”
UConn had five blocks, including two from Sanogo, and 19 assists, led by eight from Tristen Newton – both signs of the sort of all-around effort the Huskies have been putting in since the start of February, when they began the bounce back from a six-loss-in-eight-games stretch that halted their momentum.
That cold stretch is a big reason they were seeded only fourth for March. Now, it’s April and the number UConn is thinking about is “5” – as in, a fifth title that will come if it can keep this up for one more game.
“Maybe it was a little bit delusional,” Huskies guard Andre Jackson Jr. said, “but we always knew we were the best team in our mind.”
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
ALIYAH BOSTON HEADED TO WNBA, PROJECTED AS NO. 1 DRAFT PICK
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) South Carolina All-American Aliyah Boston is headed to the WNBA.
The Gamecocks’ 6-foot-5 forward made it official Saturday, a day after her team’s bid for a second straight NCAA Tournament title and undefeated season was ended in a 77-73 loss to Iowa in the national semifinals.
Boston long has been considered the No. 1 overall pick if she chose to go pro. She released a post on social media where she thanked her family, coaches, teammates and South Carolina fans.
“I have decided to further pursue my dream by declaring for the 2023 WNBA draft,” she said.
Boston, a senior who started for the past four seasons, could have taken an additional year due to COVID-19.
Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley has long recommended Boston go pro, in large part because of the freedom she’d have around the basket due to the WNBA’s rules that limit packing the paint.
“She’s great. She’s ready. She’s ready to see single coverage,” Staley said after the Final Four loss. “She’s ready to make the next step to the league.”
Boston was a three-time first-team All-American pick by The Associated Press. She was a two-time Southeastern Conference player of the year and helped the Gamecocks go 131-9 in her four seasons – with just one of those losses at home.
She started all 138 games she played at South Carolina, averaging 14.1 points and 10.8 rebounds. She had a program record 82 games with double figure points and rebounds.
Boston was limited to eight points in the loss to Iowa after missing much of the first half with two early fouls.
NBA NEWS
NBA, PLAYERS REACH DEAL FOR A NEW LABOR AGREEMENT
(AP) — The most financially successful era in NBA history will continue uninterrupted for at least six more years, after the league and its players came to a tentative agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will kick in this summer.
It took more than a year of bargaining, with the intensity and expectation growing in recent days, and the handshake agreement was struck in the wee hours of Saturday morning – shortly after the league intended to tell the National Basketball Players Association of its plan to opt out of the current CBA on June 30.
Instead, a deal got done, at least in principle. “The NBA and National Basketball Players Association have reached a tentative agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, pending ratification by players and team governors,” was the league’s only comment, coming shortly before 3 a.m. Eastern.
Technically, it will be a seven-year deal, though either side can opt out a year early – meaning labor peace is only assured through the 2028-29 season. It will also begin the era of an in-season tournament, something Commissioner Adam Silver has wanted for years.
Barring a change to the current plan, teams will be given an 80-game schedule for next season in August. Those 80 games will include “tournament” games – probably four – that will count in regular-season standings. All teams will have two more games added to their schedule eventually so the full 82-game slate is played; the two teams that make the tournament final will be playing an 83rd game that won’t count in the standings.
Among other details, per a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke to The Associated Press: players will generally have to appear in at least 65 games in order to be eligible for the top individual awards such as Most Valuable Player; the maximum value of contract extensions will rise; and a third two-way contract will now be available to teams – which could potentially see roster sizes grow from 17 to 18. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the league nor the National Basketball Players Association released specifics publicly.
Another new part of the CBA will be a second luxury tax level that, when reached, will keep teams from using their midlevel exception to sign players. That was a clear compromise, given how some teams wanted the so-called “upper spending limit” that would have essentially installed an absolute ceiling on what can be spent each season and help balance the playing field between the teams that are willing to pay enormous tax bills – like the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors – and those who aren’t.
“Players lose again … Middle and Lower spectrum teams don’t spend because they don’t want to,” Golden State’s Draymond Green posted to Twitter. “They want to lose. So increase their spending capabilities, just to increase them. They continue to cut out the middle. And this is what we rushed into a deal for?”
The new CBA won’t include a return to the policy that would allow high school players to enter the NBA draft. It was discussed and has been an agenda item for months, but the rule won’t be changing anytime soon – probably not for at least the term of the next CBA.
“We also appreciate that there is a lot of benefit to really having veterans who can bring those 18-year-olds along,” NBPA executive director Tamika Tremaglio said in February during an NBPA news conference at All-Star weekend. “And so, certainly anything that we would even consider, to be quite honest, would have to include a component that would allow veterans to be a part of it as well.”
Silver said Wednesday, at the conclusion of a two-day Board of Governors meeting, that he was hopeful of getting a deal done by the weekend – a clear positive sign. The current CBA, which took effect July 1, 2017, came with a mutual option for either the NBA or the NBPA to opt out after six seasons, or June 30 of this year.
Saturday’s agreement doesn’t end the process, though it’s obviously a huge step forward.
The owners will have to vote on what the negotiators have hammered out, and the players will have to vote to approve the deal as well. Then comes the actual writing of the document – the most recent CBA checked in at around 600 pages containing nearly 5,000 paragraphs and 200,000 words. Much of it will be the same; much of it will need revising.
And while these talks went on for more than a year, this is the second consecutive CBA to be negotiated without the dysfunction that accompanied the talks in 2011 – when the league wound up locking out players for 161 days and had to eventually shorten the 2011-12 season from 82 to 66 games.
There was no appetite for a work stoppage, not after a 2021-22 season in which the NBA revenue topping $10 billion for the first time and basketball-related income reaching $8.9 billion, another record. Silver said the NBA is on pace this season for more sold-out games than ever before.
POP, GASOL, HAMMON, PARKER, NOWITZKI, WADE HEADING TO HALL
(AP) — Tony Parker and Pau Gasol played for him. Becky Hammon coached alongside him. Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade waged battles against him.
He is Gregg Popovich.
And he, finally, is a Hall of Famer.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame made it official Saturday, with three of the NBA’s all-time international greats – Nowitzki, Parker and Gasol – joining Wade, Hammon and Popovich as the headliners of the 2023 class that will be enshrined on Aug. 11 and 12 at ceremonies in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
“This is basketball heaven,” Wade said on the ESPN telecast of the announcement in Houston.
Also getting the Hall’s call: the 1976 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team; former Purdue coach Gene Keady, a seven-time Big Ten coach of the year; former Texas A&M women’s coach Gary Blair, who took two teams to the Final Four; longtime coach at Division III Amherst and two-time national champion David Hixon; and Gene Bess – who won 1,300 games as a junior college coach at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
The late Jim Valvano, who as a coach who led N.C. State to the 1983 NCAA title, was selected as a contributor – also taking into account his work as a broadcaster and an outspoken advocate for cancer research and the V Foundation.
Hall of Fame chairman Jerry Colangelo told the new members or their families about the happy news earlier this week. Most of them joined Colangelo and other Hall of Famers on Friday for a welcome dinner of sorts, then on Saturday took their first public bows as basketball royalty.
“This class not only represents all levels of basketball – it represents truly, in every regard, what the game is all about and where it is,” Colangelo told The Associated Press. “I mean, think about the candidates. There’s the countries that are represented, Germany and Spain and France. It shows how far the game has come and where it is today. I think maybe it’s the most unique class, I’d say, of all time, and that covers a lot of territory. It stands by itself as in its uniqueness.”
The four NBA players – Nowitzki, Parker, Gasol and Wade – combined for 95,092 points, 39 All-Star appearances and 10 NBA championships. Hammon was a six-time WNBA All-Star and is coach of the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces.
And all Popovich has done is win five NBA titles, more games than anyone else in league history and an Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Games that were played in 2021.
“He’s amazing,” said Golden State coach Steve Kerr, who played for Popovich and coached under him with USA Basketball at the 2019 World Cup and then the Tokyo Olympics. “The Hall of Fame was just a formality. Everybody knew he would be there. It was just a matter of when.”
The longstanding belief was that Popovich wanted certain people in the Hall before he would allow himself to be under consideration. Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili had to go in first, and Popovich also lobbied for Houston two-time champion coach Rudy Tomjanovich. Parker going in with Popovich seems fitting, and Popovich has long raved about Hammon’s ability.
“In all honesty, I always felt the Hall of Fame is like for Red Holzman, Red Auerbach and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. … I’ve never felt like I really belonged, to be honest with you,” Popovich said. “I’m not trying to be ‘Mr. Humble’ or anything. I’m a Division III guy. I’m not a Hall of Fame guy.”
It’s the latest accolade for Gasol, Spain’s longtime star whose two NBA championships came with the Los Angeles Lakers alongside his dear friend Kobe Bryant. Nowitzki, the German great who changed the game with his combination of big-man size and guard skills, spent the entirety of his 21-year career in Dallas and is sixth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. Parker won four rings with Popovich in San Antonio.
“When Jerry called, I tried to stay all cool on the phone … but this is super cool,” Nowitzki said. “And I called my family, my immediate family … and my mom, right away, said, ‘I’m the mother of a Hall of Famer.’ That’s when it really set in.”
Wade won three titles with Miami. At the arena where the Heat play, they’ve retired the numbers of five former players – Tim Hardaway, Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Chris Bosh and Wade. And now all five of them are linked by Hall of Fame membership as well.
Like Parker, Nowitzki and Gasol – and Popovich, for that matter – Wade got in on his first ballot.
“To me, it’s a no-brainer that all of these guys are first-ballot guys,” Heat president Pat Riley said. “Look at the records. Look at the longevity that they’ve had in this league. Look what they’ve done for the league, and how much the league calls them back – because they’re ambassadors of this great league and they have a great voice and a great message. Dwyane being a first-ballot was a no-brainer.”
The class will get its jackets and Hall of Fame rings on Aug. 11 in Uncasville, Connecticut, then the ceremony and their speeches will come on Aug. 12 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
“It’s incredible,” Popovich said on the telecast. “It’s obviously an honor … I sit here amongst people who I’ve always been in awe of myself. So to be in this situation is kind of an out-of-body experience to be honest with you. All I can do is thank all the people who have helped me to be in this position.”
BUTLER HAS 35, MIAMI GETS NEEDED WIN OVER DALLAS, 129-122
MIAMI (AP) Miami was desperate. So was Dallas.
Jimmy Butler and the Heat had just enough to help their playoff position – while dealing the Mavericks a big blow.
Butler had 35 points and 12 assists, Cody Zeller added 20 points and the Heat held off the Mavericks 129-122 on Saturday night to snap a three-game losing streak.
Max Strus and Kevin Love each scored 18 and Tyler Herro added 15 for the Heat. Miami won despite allowing Dallas to shoot a season-best 61%.
“I wouldn’t necessarily have drawn it up this way,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Luka Doncic was brilliant again for Dallas, finishing with 42 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. Tim Hardaway Jr. had 31 points and Kyrie Irving added 23 points and eight assists for the Mavericks.
“A win is a win,” Butler said. “I don’t like the fact that they shot 61%. But I do like the fact that we finally won a game.”
The Mavs had been 7-0 this season when shooting at least 54%, and fell to 30-2 all-time, including playoffs, in games where they shot at least 60%.
“Our defense was nonexistent,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said. “Couldn’t get stops.”
Both clubs went to the conference finals last season; the Heat are trying to get out of the play-in round, and the Mavericks are trying to just have a shot at the playoffs.
The win moves Miami (41-37) closer to securing no worse than the No. 7 seed and most advantageous spot in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament. The Heat are now 2 1/2 games ahead of both No. 8 Atlanta (38-39) and No. 9 Toronto (also 38-39).
Miami moved within 1 1/2 games of No. 6 Brooklyn (42-35). Even if the Heat win out and finish with 45 wins, the Nets – who hold the head-to-head tiebreaker – would only need to go 3-2 in their final five games to ensure they would finish ahead of Miami.
Meanwhile, it’s a big blow to Dallas (37-41).
The Mavs fell a full game back of No. 10 Oklahoma City (38-40) in the race for the last Western Conference play-in spot, and worse, the Thunder own the head-to-head tiebreaker. Dallas is now two games back of No. 9 Minnesota (39-39) and just a half-game ahead of No. 12 Utah (36-41).
“Just got to play hard, play with desperation and anything can happen,” Hardaway said. “Anything can happen.”
Miami changed its starting lineup, partly out of necessity. Center Bam Adebayo didn’t play because of a right hip contusion, so Zeller – starting a game for the first time since May 15, 2021, for Charlotte – took his spot and Strus took the forward starting spot that had been held by Love since he joined the Heat in February.
The moves paid immediate dividends. Strus was 3 for 3, all 3-pointers, in his first shift. Love was 3 for 3 from the field and 6 for 6 from the line for 13 points in his first 8 minutes off the bench, and Zeller had 12 points by halftime.
“K-Love is always, always has been about winning,” Butler said. “As long as we win, he’s not going to complain.”
It all helped add up to the third highest-scoring first half in Heat history: Miami led 76-64 at the break, stretched the lead to 18 in the second half – then had to hang on in the final moments anyway.
TIP-INS
Mavericks: Dallas’ string of three consecutive winning regular seasons will end. The best the Mavs can finish is 41-41. … The Mavs fell to 5-16 in games where they allow more than 100 points. … Dallas had one offensive rebound.
Heat: Butler’s 16 first-quarter points were his second-most in any quarter this season. He had 17 in the third quarter against Milwaukee on Feb. 4. … Miami will finish with a record of at least .500 for the fourth consecutive year and the 24th time in its 35 seasons.
WHAT’S LEFT
Dallas plays its final road game of the regular season at Atlanta on Sunday, then finishes with home games against Sacramento, Chicago and San Antonio.
Miami starts a trip to Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington on Tuesday, before finishing at home April 9 against Orlando.
UP NEXT
Mavericks: Visit Atlanta on Sunday.
Heat: Visit Detroit on Tuesday.
INGRAM’S 36 POINTS LEAD PELICANS PAST CLIPPERS, 122-114
NEW ORLEANS (AP) When Clippers star Kawhi Leonard hit big shots in the closing minutes, the Pelicans answered with Brandon Ingram, whose recent form has sent his team surging up the standings.
Ingram scored 36 points, bringing fans to their feet with an array of clutch, mid-range jump shots, and New Orleans beat Los Angeles 122-114 on Saturday night.
“If you want to be the best, you’ve got to go against the best and you’ve got to beat them,” Ingram said. “That’s one of the things that was in my head tonight, just trying to get this win.”
Jonas Valanciunas scored 23 points – 15 in the third quarter – and grabbed 12 rebounds for New Orleans (40-38), which won for the seventh time in eight games and pulled within a half-game of the Clippers (41-38) for sixth place in the Western Conference.
Los Angeles lost its second straight despite getting 40 points from Leonard, who played 41 minutes in New Orleans after being restricted to 18 minutes during a loss at Memphis a night earlier so that he’d be more available against the hotly pursuing Pelicans.
“We just have to give credit to them as they played amazing,” Leonard said. “Ingram played great.”
CJ McCollum and Trey Murphy III each added 19 points for New Orleans, which trailed for most of the first three quarters but maintained a slim lead throughout the fourth.
Ingram made 13 of 23 shots, including nine shots away from the rim, ranging from pull-ups to tough turnaround fades.
“Those are I’m-just-better-than-you shots,” McCollum said of Ingram’s shot selection. “He’s relying on his skill set and his comfort level. Regardless of analytics and what’s considered a good shot, that’s a great shot for him.”
Ingram also made 10 of 11 free throws, and has now scored 25 or more points in nine straight games.
“Just maneuvering a little bit, seeing what’s open, seeing what spot I can get to on the floor, not forcing the game,” Ingram said. “That’s the biggest thing: Seeing what’s the best shot for the team, but also making sure that I stay aggressive.”
Russell Westbrook had 24 points and nine assists for the Clippers. Ivica Zubac added 15 points and Norman Powell 12.
Westbrook, who scored 36 in a victory over Memphis on Wednesday, had 19 in the first half in New Orleans, helping the Clippers build a lead as large as 12.
Ingram and McCollum each scored 15 in the first two periods to help the Pelicans gradually trim that deficit down substantially by halftime, when Los Angeles led 56-55.
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said Los Angeles defenders tried to blitz Ingram when the star forward had the ball, and “he still got where he got with the blitz.”
“It was just a tough night for us defensively,” Lue added. “After that first quarter, they really picked up the offensive scoring and it was just tough to slow them down.”
TIP-INS
Clippers: Eric Gordon, who had 13 points in 16 minutes in Memphis on Friday, was scratched from the lineup in New Orleans because of tightness in his right hip. … Leonard was 15 of 28 shooting, including 4 of 8 from 3. He also made all six of his free throws. … Los Angeles shot 49.4%, including 11 of 29 from deep.
Pelicans: Valanciunas has 42 double-doubles this season. He had 50 during the 2021-22 regular season with New Orleans. … Outscored the Clippers 56-50 in the paint and outrebounded Los Angeles 40-37. … Shot 48.8% (42 of 86), including 7 of 17 from 3-point range.
TWO-WAY IMPACT
Pelicans coach Willie Green made a defensive switch in the second half, assigning the 6-foot-8 Ingram to guard the 6-3 Westbrook. Ingram limited the explosive guard to five points from that point on.
“I was just trying to put some length on him and trying to discourage him going to the rim,” Ingram said.
UP NEXT
Clippers: Host the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday.
Pelicans: Host Sacramento on Tuesday.
MLB NEWS
FLAHERTY PITCHES 5 HITLESS INNINGS, CARDINALS BEAT JAYS 4-1
ST. LOUIS (AP) Jack Flaherty survived a career-high seven walks and a hit batter in throwing five no-hit innings, and the St. Louis Cardinals scored three unearned runs in the third on their way to a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday for their first win this season.
“Seven walks is not pitching,” Flaherty said. “That’s not something that’s going to work over the long run. I was able to get away with it today.”
Bothered by shoulder issues that sidelined him most of last season, Flaherty (1-0) had only one clean inning but it was his final one. Facing the Blue Jays for the first time in his career, he fanned four and benefited from a second-inning double play started by third baseman Nolan Arenado on George Springer.
“I probably shouldn’t have been rewarded today the way I was throwing,” Flaherty said.
On a windy 46-degree day, Flaherty threw 49 of 95 pitches for strikes.
“I’m actually proud of him,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “I think we took a big step in the right direction today as far as keeping his cool and figuring out how to make an adjustment rather than allowing it to snowball. That game could have got real ugly in a heartbeat and he didn’t allow it to.” Toronto had three hits after getting 16 singles among an opening day, club record 19 hits on Thursday.
“It’s weird like you’re sitting around waiting, sitting around waiting and you kind of need someone to get the hit,” Toronto manager John Schneider said. “We just didn’t get it today. But I thought the approach was good.”
Facing Andre Pallante, the third of five St. Louis pitchers, Kevin Kiermaier lined a single past the dive of second baseman Brendan Donovan with one out in the seventh. Kiermaier also beat out an infield single in the ninth, and Bo Bichette looped a single off Ryan Helsley in the ninth.
A two-out throwing error by third baseman Matt Chapman led to the three unearned Cardinals runs in the third. Paul Goldschmidt, who is 6 for 9 against Kevin Gausman (0-1), gave the Cardinals runners at first and third on a bloop single with two outs. Then, Chapman bobbled Arenado’s grounder and threw wide of first base, allowing the first run to score.
Nolan Gorman’s two-run single past the diving attempt of Chapman made it 3-0. Rookie Jordan Walker’s infield hit drove in the Cardinals’ final run in the eighth.
Gausman, 1-5 against the Cardinals, scattered eight singles over six innings while allowing no earned runs.
The Blue Jays drew 10 walks, including three in the eighth off Jordan Hicks, who topped 100 mph with 13 of 20 pitches. Toronto scored on a wild pitch in the eighth and stranded 12 runners while going 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position. Helsley, a 2022 National League All-Star who took the lost on opening day, had a five-out save.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cardinals: C Willson Contreras, who sustained a bruised right knee Thursday, has healed more quickly than expected and may be able to play in a day or two. … OF Lars Nootbaar was out with a jammed left thumb from a slide at third base on Thursday. RHP Giovanny Gallegos (lower back stiffness) didn’t play in his second straight game.
UP NEXT
RHP Chris Bassitt, 15-9 for the New York Mets last season, will make his Blue Jays debut in Sunday’s series finale. Former New York Yankees left-hander Jordan Montgomery, who is 3-1 with a 3.86 ERA against Toronto in his career, will start for the Cardinals. —
FRALEY, NEWMAN, INDIA HOMER TO LIFT THE REDS OVER PIRATES
CINCINNATI (AP) Jake Fraley came off the bench to hit a three-run homer, Kevin Newman had a two-run shot against his former team and the Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-2 on Saturday.
Jonathan India added a solo homer and Nick Lodolo overcame a challenging first inning as Cincinnati snapped an eight-losing streak to Pittsburgh that dated to last season, when both teams lost 100 games.
Fraley’s second career pinch-hit homer in the sixth off right-hander Chase De Jong reached the visitors’ bullpen down the right-field line.
The only timer violation in the game led to Pittsburgh first baseman Carlos Santana leading off the fifth with an automatic strike against him.
Lodolo (1-0) needed 109 pitches to navigate five innings. The Pirates reached the second-year lefty for seven hits and two runs. He finished with nine strikeouts and two walks.
Lodolo retired seven of the last eight batters he faced. Ian Gibaut, Buck Farmer and Reiver Sanmartin combined to retire the final 12 Pirates batters.
Rich Hill (0-1), who turned 43 in March, began his 19th season with his 12th major league team. He allowed three runs and three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks in five innings. Hill joined Pittsburgh as a free agent in January.
After the Pirates took a 1-0 lead during Lodolo’s 35-pitch first inning, India hit Hill’s fourth pitch for his eighth career leadoff home run. The 2021 NL Rookie of Year is one shy of Reds Hall of Famer Barry Larkin and two short of matching the club record set by Kal Daniels.
Newman, acquired in a November trade, followed later in the first with a two-run drive that caromed off the façade of the second deck in left field for a 3-1 lead.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Pirates: Former Reds RHP Robert Stephenson (right elbow inflammation) threw 15 pitches in one inning on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Indianapolis in its season opener Thursday.
Reds: 1B Joey Votto (left shoulder, biceps surgery last August) was scheduled to play first base in Game 1 and be the designated hitter in Game 2 of Triple-A Louisville’s season-opening doubleheader at Nashville caused by a rainout of Thursday’s scheduled opener. Votto is on a rehab assignment.
UP NEXT
RHP Vince Velasquez is scheduled to make his Pirates debut in the series finale Sunday against Graham Ashcraft.
MLB ROUNDUP: TRAYCE THOMPSON’S 3 HRS POWER DODGERS’ ROUT
Trayce Thompson established career highs of three homers and eight RBIs to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a crushing 10-1 victory over the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday night.
Thompson hit a grand slam in the first inning, a three-run shot in the fifth and a solo shot in the eighth. It was just the second multi-homer game of his career. J.D. Martinez also went deep for the first time as a member of the Dodgers.
Clayton Kershaw (1-0) gave up one run and four hits in six innings for the Dodgers. He struck out nine and walked none.
Christian Walker homered for Arizona. Walker had two of the Diamondbacks’ five hits. Madison Bumgarner (0-1) gave up five runs and four hits in four innings. He walked four and struck out two.
RED SOX 9, ORIOLES 8
Adam Duvall hit a two-run, walk-off home run in the ninth inning to lift Boston over Baltimore.
His two-run shot just over the top of the Green Monster was his second homer of the game and capped a 4-for-5 effort. He finished with five RBIs, three runs and was a single shy of the cycle.
Austin Hays became the second Orioles player to go 5-for-5 in as many games, matching the effort of Adley Rutschman on Opening Day. Hays hit a homer and two doubles. Ryan Mountcastle and Cedric Mullins also homered, and Felix Bautista (0-1) took the loss.
RANGERS 16, PHILLIES 3
Mitch Garver hit a pair of three-run home runs in Texas’ rout of Philadelphia in Arlington, Texas.
Garver’s first home run extended the Texas lead to 7-3 in the fifth. His second came in the seventh and made it 10-3. Second baseman Marcus Semien also homered for the Rangers, who had 17 hits.
Nick Castellanos, Darick Hall, Bryson Stott and Trea Turner each had two hits for the Phillies.
ANGELS 13, ATHLETICS 1
Taylor Ward capped an 11-run third inning with a two-run homer, left-hander Patrick Sandoval worked five strong innings and visiting Los Angeles avenged an Opening Day loss to Oakland.
The Angels roughed up Oakland starter Shintaro Fujinami (0-1) and reliever Adam Oller for seven hits in the third inning alone in the rematch, spoiling the major league debut of the former Japanese star.
Ward, batting leadoff, went 3-for-5 with four RBIs, one off his career best. Sandoval (1-0) eased through his five innings, limiting the A’s to two hits and one run. Ramon Laureano homered for Oakland.
ASTROS 6, WHITE SOX 4
Kyle Tucker had a pair of RBI singles and Yordan Alvarez recorded three hits and two runs as host Houston beat Chicago.
The high-powered Astros banged out 11 hits, 10 of them singles.
Yoan Moncada homered in the second inning and backup catcher Seby Zavala went deep in the fourth for the White Sox.
BREWERS 3, CUBS 1
William Contreras snapped a tie with a two-run single in the eighth inning, helping visiting Milwaukee avenge an Opening Day loss with a victory over Chicago.
Ian Happ hit a solo homer in the sixth inning. Peter Strzelecki (1-0) pitched a scoreless inning in relief of Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff, who allowed one run on three hits, with one walk and eight strikeouts over six frames. Devin Williams stranded a runner at third in the ninth inning for his first save.
Milwaukee rallied in the eighth inning against Javier Assad (0-1), who gave up a leadoff single and a walk. Pinch hitter Jesse Winker followed with a single to center that scored one run. Assad was later replaced by Michael Fulmer, who walked one to load the bases but struck out the next batter. Contreras then gave Milwaukee the lead with his hit.
GIANTS 7, YANKEES 5
LaMonte Wade Jr. and Thairo Estrada delivered RBI singles on hits that did not leave the infield in the sixth inning as visiting San Francisco recorded a victory over New York.
Joc Pederson hit a solo homer and Brandon Crawford hit a two-run shot off New York’s Clarke Schmidt in the fourth as the Giants rallied from an early two-run deficit. Mike Yastrzemski added an insurance RBI double in the ninth, and Crawford hit a run-scoring single off Clay Holmes.
Giancarlo Stanton accounted for New York’s first two runs. He reached on a throwing error by San Francisco starter Alex Cobb in the first, allowing Aaron Judge to score, and then homered in the third.
BRAVES 7, NATIONALS 1
Matt Olson homered twice, Spencer Strider pitched six scoreless innings and visiting Atlanta beat Washington.
Ronald Acuna Jr. and Marcell Ozuna also homered for Atlanta, and Orlando Arcia had three hits and scored twice. Strider (1-0) was dominant in his sophomore season debut, limiting Washington to three hits and striking out nine batters while walking three.
Keibert Ruiz had two hits, including a home run, for Washington, which has scored three runs in two games. Nationals starter Josiah Gray (0-1) allowed five runs on seven hits — including three home runs — in five innings. He struck out four and walked two.
TWINS 2, ROYALS 0
Sonny Gray threw five shutout innings and visiting Minnesota blanked Kansas City for the second straight game.
Gray (1-0) allowed three hits, struck out one and walked four in the second game of the three-game series. Byron Buxton had two hits and scored both runs, and Christian Vazquez also delivered two hits for Minnesota, which won the season opener 2-0 on Thursday.
Salvador Perez had two hits for the Royals and starting pitcher Jordan Lyles (0-1) gave up two runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out two and walked two.
RAYS 12, TIGERS 2
Jose Siri and Josh Lowe totaled four RBIs in a seven-run third inning, Zach Eflin won in his pitching debut for his childhood team and Tampa Bay demolished Detroit in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The Rays scored the seven runs on six hits, and Yandy Diaz added two runs with a home run the following inning. Diaz went 3-for 4 with a homer, double, three RBIs and three runs. Wander Franco was 3-for-4 with two doubles, three RBIs and a run.
Eflin (1-0) pitched five innings, allowing one run. Over 74 pitches, he yielded three hits and a walk while striking out five. The Tigers’ Kerry Carpenter was 2-for-4 with two doubles and two runs. Miguel Cabrera and Austin Meadows singled in runs.
METS 6, MARLINS 2
Mark Canha homered, scored three runs and was a big part of four rallies, leading New York to a win over host Miami.
Canha went 3-for-4 with two RBIs, falling a triple short of the cycle. Miami was led by Luis Arraez, who went 4-for-5, and Nick Fortes, who was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer. Arraez, the 2022 American League batting champ, is off to a .583 start.
Mets starter Tylor Megill (1-0) struck out seven and allowed two runs in five innings. New York’s bullpen pitched four scoreless innings, allowing just four hits and one walk. Marlins starter Edward Cabrera (0-1) lasted just four innings, walking a career-high six batters. He also allowed two hits and two runs.
PADRES 8, ROCKIES 4
Xander Bogaerts hit a first-inning homer and Matt Carpenter laced a two-run double as San Diego held off a late rally from visiting Colorado to win its first game of the season.
Right-hander Michael Wacha (1-0) earned the win in his Padres debut.
Rockies starter Jose Urena (0-1) gave up four runs on five hits and four walks in just 2 1/3 innings to take the loss.
GUARDIANS 2, MARINERS 0
Aaron Civale pitched seven scoreless innings, and Josh Naylor and Andres Gimenez hit solo home runs as Cleveland blanked host Seattle.
Civale (1-0), a right-hander, allowed two hits, walked one and struck out three. Reliever James Karinchak, who allowed the decisive three-run homer in a 3-0 loss in the season opener Thursday, pitched around a one-out double in the eighth, and Emmanuel Clase worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save of the season.
Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert (0-1) went six innings, allowing one run on four hits with one walk and seven strikeouts.
ANTHONY RENDON ‘CAN’T COMMENT’ ON FAN ALTERCATION IN OAKLAND
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Anthony Rendon wasn’t very talkative Saturday, two days after video surfaced of the Los Angeles Angels All-Star appearing to take a swipe at an Oakland fan after a 2-1 opening day loss to the Athletics.
“I’m sorry. I can’t comment,” the third baseman told a throng of reporters Saturday at the end of a news conference on the field at the Oakland Coliseum that lasted fewer than five minutes. MLB said Friday it was looking into the incident.
Rendon went hitless and struck out twice in three at-bats on Thursday. He left the Angels dugout and was on his way to the tunnel leading to the clubhouse when he stopped and apparently confronted a fan sitting near the railing.
Rendon accused the fan of calling him a slur. The man denied it, and Rendon cussed at the fan and took a swipe at him with his left hand before walking away. Someone nearby caught the incident on video and posted it on social media.
“This happens a lot unfortunately,” Angels manager Phil Nevin said. “A lot of times we just don’t see it. You’re going to hear things all the time. You hear a lot. Right now, I just don’t want to comment on the incident involving Anthony or anything that goes along with it.”
When asked why he couldn’t comment, Nevin pointed to MLB’s ongoing investigation. Nevin also did not think the situation would be a lingering distraction to his players.
“For the moment maybe. But no I don’t think so,” Nevin said. “One thing I’ve said all along is we’ve got a great group in there. The one thing that I was most proud of last year and then continuing through the spring is the way this team has bonded and gelled together. And they’re all going to stand together now.”
As Rendon jogged onto the field for pregame warm-ups, he was asked what the climate was between him and the fans.
“Sorry,” Rendon said as he shrugged his shoulders and ran away to work out.
BREWERS’ LUIS URÍAS OUT 6 TO 8 WEEKS WITH HAMSTRING STRAIN
CHICAGO (AP) Infielder Luis Urías was placed on the 10-day injured list by the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday because of a strained left hamstring, and the team selected the contract of outfielder Joey Wiemer from Triple-A Nashville.
“It’s a solid hamstring strain, six to eight weeks, probably closer to eight, so it is significant,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said before Saturday’s game against the Chicago Cubs. “It’s unfortunate, but we will have to fill in around him, get him back in hopefully late May or early June.”
Urías was injured in Thursday’s opener, when he went 0 for 4. In 119 games last season, he hit .239 with 16 homers and 47 RBIs.
Owen Miller, who has been mixing time between the outfield and infield, will spend the majority of his time in the infield in the absence of Urías.
Wiemer was to make his major league debut Saturday, slated to start in center and bat ninth. In 2022, he hit .256 with 21 home runs and 77 RBIs in stints with Nashville and Double-A Biloxi.
JAKE CRONENWORTH GETS $80M DEAL WITH PADRES FOR 2024-30
SAN DIEGO (AP) Two-time All-Star infielder Jake Cronenworth and the San Diego Padres agreed Saturday to an $80 million, seven-year contract coverig 2024-30.
Cronenworth and the Padres reached a one-year deal in January for $4,225,000, and he would have been eligible for free agency after the 2025 season.
He gets a $2 million signing bonus, $7 million next year, $11 million in 2025 and $12 million in each of the following four seasons. Cronenworth receives a limited no-trade provision allowing him to list eight teams he cannot be dealt to without his consent.
Cronenworth was primarily at second base the past three seasons but was moved to first this year after the Padres signed All-Star shortstop Xander Bogaerts to a $280 million, 11-year deal and shifted Ha-Seong Kim from shortstop to second.
Cronenworth, 29, hit .239 with 30 doubles, 17 homers, 88 RBIs and a .722 OPS last year. His 3.4 WAR was fourth on the Padres behind Manny Machado (6.2), Kim (4.8) and Juan Soto (4.7).
He finished tied for second in 2020 NL Rookie of the Year voting and has a .256 career average with 42 homers and 179 RBIs in 364 games.
NHL NEWS
Matt Boldy scored his second hat trick in nine days as the Minnesota Wild defeated the Seattle Kraken 5-1 Monday night in St. Paul, Minn.
Jake Middleton and Ryan Hartman also scored and Marcus Johansson, Jared Spurgeon and Joel Eriksson Ek had two assists apiece for the Central Division-leading Wild, who improved to 15-1-4 in their past 20 games and pulled within three points of Western Conference-leading Vegas. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury made 35 saves.
Jaden Schwartz scored for the Kraken, who lead the West’s wild-card race. Goalie Philipp Grubauer stopped 9 of 13 shots before being pulled early in the third after Boldy scored to make it 4-0. Martin Jones stopped 6 of 7 shots the rest of the way as Seattle had an eight-game road point streak snapped (7-0-1).
Boldy completed the hat trick 50 seconds into the third. Eriksson Ek stole a clearance attempt and passed to Boldy for a one-timer from the slot. Boldy also had three goals in a 5-3 victory against Washington on March 19.
CANADIENS 4, SABRES 3 (SO)
Brendan Gallagher’s 200th career goal tied things up just before the midway point of the third period, and Montreal eventually won in a shootout against host Buffalo.
With the Canadiens down 3-2, Gallagher leveled things when he rang the post via his milestone goal with 11:25 remaining in regulation. Jordan Harris and Alex Belzile also had goals, and Michael Pezzetta’s score in the sixth round of the shootout was the difference for the Canadiens.
Lukas Rousek scored on his first NHL shot and added an assist in his league debut for the Sabres. JJ Peterka and Riley Stillman also scored, while Eric Comrie made 38 saves for Buffalo, which played without star Tage Thompson (upper-body injury).
SENATORS 5, PANTHERS 2
Brady Tkachuk had a goal and an assist, Mads Sogaard made 32 saves and Ottawa scored three power-play goals to beat visiting Florida.
The win moved the Senators closer in their pursuit of an Eastern Conference wild-card spot. The Pittsburgh Penguins, who were idle on Monday, are in the second wild-card slot with 82 points, while the Panthers are just behind them despite being on a season-high, four-game losing streak.
Ottawa’s Alex DeBrincat, Tim Stutzle and Erik Brannstrom all scored on the power play, with each score coming near the end of each period. After its 3-for-4 performance on Monday, the Senators’ streaking power-play unit is 10-for-28 over the past eight games. Gustav Forsling scored both of the Panthers’ goals.
ISLANDERS 5, DEVILS 1
Kyle Palmieri scored twice against his former team for New York, which earned a pivotal victory by beating New Jersey in Elmont, N.Y.
Pierre Engvall scored in the first period and Bo Horvat and Zach Parise each scored empty-netters late in the third for the Islanders, who stopped a two-game losing streak and lengthened their lead in the Eastern Conference wild-card race. Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin made 30 saves.
Erik Haula scored in the second period for the Devils, who lost for the sixth time in eight games (2-4-2) and missed a chance to move within one point of the idle first-place Carolina Hurricanes in the Metropolitan Division. New Jersey goalie Vitek Vanecek recorded 31 saves.
OILERS 5, COYOTES 4
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored a third-period tiebreaking goal, Leon Draisaitl netted the 300th of his career and Edmonton prevailed in Tempe, Ariz.
By scoring in his 630th game, Draisaitl used the fourth-fewest games to reach 300 goals among active players. Evan Bouchard had a goal and an assist, and Zach Hyman and Darnell Nurse scored for the Oilers. Jack Campbell made 29 saves for the win.
Arizona got two goals apiece from Matias Maccelli and Barrett Hayton. Lawson Crouse dealt three assists and Jack McBain and Nick Schmaltz each had two.
AVALANCHE 5, DUCKS 1
Nathan MacKinnon and Bowen Byram each had a goal and an assist as visiting Colorado cruised past Anaheim for its third consecutive win.
Valeri Nichushkin, Jack Johnson and Samuel Girard also scored goals and Cale Makar added two assists for Colorado, which is one point behind first-place Minnesota in the Central Division ahead of a Wednesday game vs. the Wild in Denver. Jonas Johansson stopped 29 of 30 shots.
Derek Grant scored for Anaheim, which took its fifth straight loss. John Gibson made 39 saves for the Ducks, who finished an eight-game homestand with just a 1-6-1 record to fall to 12-22-3 at the Honda Center this season.
MEN’S GOLF NEWS
PATRICK RODGERS TAKES 1-SHOT LEAD INTO TEXAS OPEN FINALE
SAN ANTONIO (AP) Patrick Rodgers shot a 1-under 71 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead into the final round of the Valero Texas Open, with his first PGA Tour title and Masters spot at stake.
Making his 235th tour start, the 30-year-old Rodgers had a 12-under 204 total at the Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio.
Canadian Corey Conners, the 2019 Texas Open winner, was second after a 69.
Matt Kuchar was a shot back on the 18th tee, but he made a double bogey for a 69 to end up third at 9 under.
“I think we all know what’s at stake out here with a win,” Rodgers said. “There’s a lot of guys chasing, and great players out here. There’s no better place to be than to have an advantage, but it’s going to take a great round in order to get it done.”
Chris Kirk (69) and Sam Stevens (68) were 8 under.
Kuchar was one of three notable names to crawl up the leaderboard Saturday. Three-time major champion Padraig Harrington, at age 51, parred his first 10 holes, then shot a back-nine 32 for a 68. He was 7 under.
Former Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama was 6 under after a 68.
Rodgers led by three coming into the third round. Rodgers and Conners each birdied the drivable 331-yard 17th hole when they chipped close with their second shots.
That left Rodgers up by two, but he pushed his tee shot at 18 behind a tree and made bogey from a greenside bunker. Conners could have tied, but missed an 8-foot birdie putt.
“I like a lot of the things I did today,” said Conners, who has not won since his Texas Open trophy from four years ago. “I made some birdies on the back nine today and have some good momentum from that.”
Rodgers has a 54-hole lead for the fourth time on the tour. He has three second-place finishes.
Kuchar was one shot back after driving the par-4 17th green and almost holing a 37-foot eagle putt. It was a stretch of three birdies in six holes, but on the 18 tee, Kuchar pulled his drive shot into a cactus bush. He lost a stroke with an unplayable lie and finished with the double bogey on the par 5.
“I paid the price with a poor tee shot on the last,” Kuchar said. “This is tough golf course, one that it’s easy to go wayward, easy to make some big numbers.”
Along with Harrington, Byeong Hun An (68), Harry Higgs (72), Lee Hodges (69), Augusto Nunez (69) and Sam Ryder (68) were five behind Rodgers.
“It was a decent day,” Harrington said. “Maybe a low one tomorrow will get us in the hunt.”
WOMEN’S GOLF NEWS
CHINA’S RUONING YIN OPENS 2-SHOT LEAD IN LPGA TOUR’S LA OPEN
PALOS VERDES ESTATES, Calif. (AP) Ruoning Yin shot a 4-under 67 on Saturday to take a two-stroke lead in the LPGA Tour’s DIO Implant LA Open.
The 20-year-old Chinese player Yin had four birdies in a four-hole stretch on the back nine at Palos Verdes Golf Club and closed with two pars for a 14-under 199 total.
“After 8, which I made a bogey with a three-putt, I just told myself and I told my caddie, I said, `We just got to trust the line and putt it. We’ll make some putts,’” Yin said.
She opened with rounds of 68 and 64 in her bid to win her first LPGA Tour title.
“That means a lot, and not just for me, but also China Golf,” Yin said about winning. “I think, yeah, it’s going to be a big day.”
Hyo Joo Kim, tied with Yin for the second-round lead, was second after a 69.
“Hopefully, the shots tomorrow will be better than today’s,” said Kim, from South Korea.
Georgia Hall was third at 10 under after a tournament-record and career-best 62. The English woman is coming off a playoff loss Sunday to Celine Boutier in Arizona.
“I’ve been playing well pretty much all year,” Hall said. “It really gave me a lot of confidence last week, although I lost in the playoff, I hit some really good shots. Just really pleased with the way I’m playing and just trying to keep it going.”
Hall played the front nine in 7-under 29 with two eagles and three birdies and added two birdies on the back nine.
“I was just trying to stay really patient and I knew that I could take advantage of the front nine,” Hall said. “I managed to get a couple eagles in there, which I was very happy about.”
Nasa Hataoka, the Japanese player who won last year at Wilshire Country Club, had a 66 to join Danielle Kang (65), Atthaya Thitikul (66) and Perrine Delacour (67) at 9 under. Megan Khang (70) and Maude-Aimee Leblanc (71) were 8 under.
AUTO RACING NEWS
CHANDLER SMITH EARNS FIRST NASCAR XFINITY SERIES WIN
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) Chandler Smith outran John Hunter Nemechek out of a restart with six laps to go Saturday at Richmond Raceway to win for the first time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Nemechek chose the inside lane on a restart with 12 laps left, relegating Smith to the outside. When another caution came for a crash at the back of the field, Smith had taken the lead and chose the outside for the sprint to the finish.
Smith won in just his 10th career start in the series. Nemechek was second, followed by Josh Berry, Kaz Grala and Cole Custer.
“It feels great,” Smith said. “Here we are at Richmond, my favorite race track, and we’re sitting in victory lane. This is unbelievable.”
Nemechek raced side-by-side with Smith for the first few laps after the final green flag, but figured he was the underdog by the finish.
“We were a long-run speed car,” he said. “(Smith) had the best car on the short run. It was going to be hard to hold him off.”
Justin Allgaier, one of four drivers contending for the Dash 4 Cash $100,000 bonus, gambled by stopping under green for his last set of tires with about 40 laps to and was cruising through the field.
But when another caution came with 28 to go, the rest of the leaders pitted, leaving him on older tires and basically defenseless. The other bonus contenders – Sammy Smith, Daniel Hemric and Sam Mayer – had more difficult days and Allgaier won despite finishing 13th.
“It’s weird to be finishing 13th and still standing here holding this check,” Allgaier said. “It was like none of us wanted to win it.”
Mayer finished 17th, Sammy Smith 19th and Hemric 24th.
The race, delayed nearly an hour at the start after periodic morning rain, was run without practice or qualifying, started nearly an hour late under cloudy skies and finished in sunshine.
ROUGH FINISH
The finish was harsh for Riley Herbst and Brandon Jones, who were both running in the top five and had been up front all day until they crashed with 20 laps to go. Jones wound up 21st, Herbst 23rd.
MIXED RESULTS
When the competition caution flag flew after 35 laps, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Nemechek and Sammy Smith opted to stay on the track while everyone else got fresh tires. It backfired for Smith.
Smith led one lap under caution, but was running seventh by the time the first green-flag lap was complete. Nemechek dropped back faster and was 32nd when the stage ended with Smith 33rd, a lap down.
While Nemechek was seventh at the end of the 75-lap second stage and nearly won, Smith never found his way near the front and finished 19th.
INDYCAR ACTION PICKS UP ON, OFF TRACK 1 MONTH INTO SEASON
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) IndyCar champion Will Power has a new contract with Team Penske, and reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson wants an extended deal from Chip Ganassi.
Colton Herta split with his race strategist – who happens to be his father – as Andretti Autosport moved Bryan Herta to second-year driver Kyle Kirkwood.
Callum Ilott is frustrated by only a minimal offseason increase in speed from his small IndyCar team, which could jump-start talks between the young British racer and larger organizations.
It’s been nearly a month since IndyCar’s sloppy season-opener on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, and with Sunday’s race looming, the action on and off the track is already booming.
The Texas Motor Speedway is the first oval race of the season, a warmup of sorts for next month’s Indianapolis 500. It’ll also be the season debut for oval specialists Ed Carpenter and two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato.
Team owner A.J. Foyt is also at his first race of the year after skipping the IndyCar opener as he had a pacemaker installed two days after St. Pete, where both his cars were involved in a race-ending crash in the third turn of the first lap.
CONTRACT TALKS
Power, who won his second IndyCar title last season, said at the season-opener that his future with Team Penske was secure and the two sides were hammering out the final details on an extension.
By the time he got to Texas, the multi-year deal was done and the Australian will likely close his career with Roger Penske and longtime sponsor Verizon. Power’s new deal is likely through 2025, when he will be 44 years old.
“I’ve been at Team Penske a long time and feel bloody fortunate to be able to drive for Roger Penske for that long,” Power said. “The older you get, the more you realize how blessed you are to be in this situation.”
Ericsson, who earned the fourth win of his IndyCar career with a late pass of Pato O’Ward in St. Petersburg, brings sponsorship to Chip Ganassi Racing and is in a contract year. Ganassi said before Ericsson’s season-opening win he wants to retain the Swede.
“It’s up to him,” said Ericsson, the points leader headed into Sunday’s race. “He needs to give me an offer for ’24 onward. The ball is in his corner. I really enjoy it at Ganassi, and we’ve done a lot of great things together and would love to continue … He knows very well what I want.”
Ilott, meanwhile, finished an IndyCar-best fifth at St. Pete for Juncos Hollinger Racing, which has expanded to two cars this season and had a decent opening race. But he was hugely disappointed in the pace of his car and felt the Juncos organization just doesn’t have the speed to compete for podiums and wins.
But he was vague on the length of his contract with Juncos, and signed an extension last year to return for a second season.
“I’m quick enough to be on the front end a lot of these weekends,” Ilott said. “It’s pretty obvious that I’m quite interested (in bigger teams). People are interested in me as a driver, but I need to focus on the job that I’ve got here. I’m confident whether it’s in one year, two years, three years, four years – if I’m wanted now, I’ll always be wanted. I’m a good enough driver that I don’t need to learn confidence.”
HERTA’S SPLIT
Andretti Autosport made an internal personnel change after the season-opening in switching the strategists for Herta and Kirkwood. Both drivers said Saturday they did not request the change, nor were they given a reason for the swap.
Herta’s strategist has been his father, who is also his manager, since 2021. Although the two occasionally sniped at each other, Herta was adamant he did not request the change. He’s now paired with Scott Harner, a former longtime Ganassi executive who spent half of last season as Kirkwood’s strategist and moved to Andretti from A.J. Foyt Racing with Kirkwood.
“I don’t know why they changed it, but do I think a needed change would have changed the result of the race? No,” Herta said. “It was a team decision, that’s all I’m going to say.”
The four Andretti cars were fast in the season-opening race and capable of contending for the win, but all four drivers ended up crashed out.
Kirkwood said he asked why the strategist change was being made but was not given an answer. There’s some speculation that Andretti believes Kirkwood can have a breakout season and would benefit from Bryan Herta’s steady leadership.
Herta was the winning strategist on two Indianapolis 500 wins. Colton Herta, although he just turned 23 on Friday, is the most veteran Andretti driver on the roster in his fifth season. He’s also the youngest driver on the team.
“It’s really good for me because (Bryan Herta) is a driver, right?” Kirkwood said. “He knows exactly what a driver wants to hear and what he doesn’t want to hear. To have him on the stand is a huge asset for me.
“I don’t what it is with the family deal, I don’t know if they want to separate that, but they just said this was best for the team and they think it’s going to be really good for me, and they feel Colton is ready for Scott.”
ODDS AND ENDS
Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren won the pole for the second consecutive year. He was followed by Scott Dixon, new McLaren teammate Alexander Rossi, defending race winner Josef Newgarden and Pato O’Ward, the third driver in the McLaren lineup. Sato qualified sixth for his season debut. The Japanese driver currently only has Texas and the Indy 500 guaranteed with Ganassi. … IndyCar held a Saturday afternoon “high line practice” in which all 28 drivers were sent out on the track to attempt to create a second lane for passing on the top of the speedway. … O’Ward bought three suites and sold out all 191 ticket packages he presented to fans for a two-day experience at the track. He also gave away 600 grandstands seats to anyone who purchased a single item from his merchandise store. O’Ward is from Monterrey, Mexico, but grew up in San Antonio and considers Texas Motor Speedway his home track.
WOMEN’S TENNIS
KVITOVA UPENDS RYBAKINA FOR WOMEN’S MIAMI OPEN TITLE
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) Twelfth-seeded Petra Kvitova won the Miami Open in her 13th appearance, beating seventh-seeded Elena Rybakina with a marathon tiebreaker in a 7-6 (14), 6-2 victory Saturday.
The 33-year-old Kvitova, 10 years older than her opponent, snapped Rybakina’s 13-match winning streak and halted her bid to win the Sunshine Double (Indian Wells and Miami Open).
In winning with will, stalwart defense and one sensational forehand winner on the dead run that electrified the crowd in the second set, the lefty Kvitova captured her 30th WTA singles title.
After Rybakina hit a forehand long on match point, Kvitova raised her arms and put her hands to her head. She was broken just once in the match. It was her 41st career WTA Finals appearance but first final in Miami.
Kvitova, who is from the Czech Republic, disagreed with the announcement Wimbledon would accept Russian players this year. Rybakina, the reigning Wimbledon champion, is from Moscow but represents Kazakhstan.
A past Wimbledon champion, the 6-foot Kvitova won the first-set epic tiebreaker 16-14 on her fifth set point. A suddenly shaky Rybakina hit a forehand long to end the 22-minute tiebreaker; she had been undefeated at 7-0 in tiebreakers in 2023.
The set lasted 66 minutes during which each player held serve until 4-4 then exchanged service breaks. Rybakina finished with 10 aces for the first set while setting the record for most aces in a WTA Tournament, smashing Madison Keys’ mark. Rybakina, who had 12 aces total for the match, finished the tournament with 69 for the tournament.
Kvitova broke Rybakina in second game of the second set with a backhand winner on the service return to go up 2-0.
The men’s singles final is Sunday and pits Jannik Sinner, coming off his semifinal upset of defending Miami Open champion Carlos Alcaraz, against Daniil Medvedev.
Medvedev has won 23 of 24 matches and beat Sinner in the Finals last month in Rotterdam. Sinner, the 10th seed from Italy, is 0-5 against Medvedev and coming off a physical, three-set, three-hour war with Alcaraz that ended late Friday night.
In the men’s doubles finals, Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin beat Austin Krajicek and Nicolas Mahut 7-6 (4), 7-5. —
SPORTS EXTRA
NBA STANDINGS
| Eastern Conference | ||||||||||||
| Atlantic Division | ||||||||||||
| W | L | Pct | GB | Home | Road | Div | Conf | Last 10 | Streak | |||
| x-Boston | 54 | 24 | .692 | — | 29-9 | 25-15 | 9-4 | 31-17 | 7-3 | 2 W | ||
| x-Philadelphia | 51 | 26 | .662 | 2.5 | 28-11 | 23-15 | 8-6 | 31-16 | 6-4 | 2 W | ||
| New York | 45 | 33 | .577 | 9.0 | 22-17 | 23-16 | 8-8 | 30-19 | 6-4 | 3 W | ||
| Brooklyn | 42 | 35 | .545 | 11.5 | 21-16 | 21-19 | 7-8 | 28-21 | 4-6 | 2 W | ||
| Toronto | 38 | 39 | .494 | 15.5 | 26-14 | 12-25 | 4-10 | 23-24 | 6-4 | 1 L | ||
| Central Divison | ||||||||||||
| W | L | Pct | GB | Home | Road | Div | Conf | Last 10 | Streak | |||
| xy-Milwaukee | 55 | 22 | .714 | — | 30-8 | 25-14 | 10-5 | 32-16 | 7-3 | 1 L | ||
| x-Cleveland | 48 | 30 | .615 | 7.5 | 30-9 | 18-21 | 12-3 | 31-17 | 6-4 | 2 L | ||
| Chicago | 37 | 40 | .481 | 18.0 | 20-18 | 17-22 | 6-8 | 26-23 | 6-4 | 1 W | ||
| Indiana | 34 | 44 | .436 | 21.5 | 20-19 | 14-25 | 7-7 | 23-25 | 3-7 | 1 W | ||
| Detroit | 16 | 61 | .208 | 39.0 | 9-30 | 7-31 | 1-13 | 7-40 | 1-9 | 8 L | ||
| Southeast Division | ||||||||||||
| W | L | Pct | GB | Home | Road | Div | Conf | Last 10 | Streak | |||
| Miami | 41 | 37 | .526 | — | 26-14 | 15-23 | 9-5 | 21-27 | 5-5 | 1 W | ||
| Atlanta | 38 | 39 | .494 | 2.5 | 22-16 | 16-23 | 7-8 | 24-24 | 4-6 | 1 L | ||
| Washington | 34 | 43 | .442 | 6.5 | 18-20 | 16-23 | 7-7 | 20-28 | 3-7 | 1 L | ||
| Orlando | 33 | 44 | .429 | 7.5 | 19-19 | 14-25 | 7-8 | 19-28 | 6-4 | 1 W | ||
| Charlotte | 26 | 52 | .333 | 15.0 | 13-25 | 13-27 | 7-9 | 14-35 | 4-6 | 1 L | ||
| Western Conference | ||||||||||||
| Northwest Division | ||||||||||||
| W | L | Pct | GB | Home | Road | Div | Conf | Last 10 | Streak | |||
| xy-Denver | 51 | 26 | .662 | — | 32-7 | 19-19 | 10-5 | 32-15 | 5-5 | 2 L | ||
| Minnesota | 39 | 39 | .500 | 12.5 | 21-18 | 18-21 | 8-7 | 27-22 | 5-5 | 2 L | ||
| Oklahoma City | 38 | 40 | .487 | 13.5 | 23-16 | 15-24 | 8-7 | 23-25 | 5-5 | 1 L | ||
| Utah | 36 | 41 | .468 | 15.0 | 22-16 | 14-25 | 5-9 | 23-25 | 4-6 | 1 L | ||
| Portland | 32 | 45 | .416 | 19.0 | 17-23 | 15-22 | 6-9 | 22-25 | 1-9 | 5 L | ||
| Pacific Division | ||||||||||||
| W | L | Pct | GB | Home | Road | Div | Conf | Last 10 | Streak | |||
| x-Sacramento | 47 | 30 | .610 | — | 23-16 | 24-14 | 9-6 | 31-16 | 7-3 | 2 W | ||
| Phoenix | 42 | 35 | .545 | 5.0 | 26-12 | 16-23 | 9-5 | 27-20 | 5-5 | 4 W | ||
| Golden State | 41 | 37 | .526 | 6.5 | 32-8 | 9-29 | 6-9 | 27-21 | 6-4 | 2 W | ||
| LA Clippers | 41 | 38 | .519 | 7.0 | 21-18 | 20-20 | 7-7 | 24-25 | 5-5 | 2 L | ||
| LA Lakers | 39 | 38 | .506 | 8.0 | 21-18 | 18-20 | 5-9 | 23-24 | 6-4 | 2 W | ||
| Southwest Division | ||||||||||||
| W | L | Pct | GB | Home | Road | Div | Conf | Last 10 | Streak | |||
| xy-Memphis | 49 | 28 | .636 | — | 34-6 | 15-22 | 13-2 | 29-20 | 8-2 | 1 W | ||
| New Orleans | 40 | 38 | .513 | 9.5 | 25-13 | 15-25 | 10-5 | 28-21 | 7-3 | 2 W | ||
| Dallas | 37 | 41 | .474 | 12.5 | 22-16 | 15-25 | 9-6 | 27-23 | 3-7 | 2 L | ||
| San Antonio | 19 | 58 | .247 | 30.0 | 13-26 | 6-32 | 2-13 | 7-40 | 2-8 | 6 L | ||
| Houston | 19 | 59 | .244 | 30.5 | 13-26 | 6-33 | 4-12 | 11-39 | 3-7 | 1 W | ||
X – Clinched Playoff Spot, Y – Clinched Division, Z – Clinched Conference
NHL STANDINGS
| Eastern Conference | ||||||||||||
| GP | W | L | OTL | Pts | ROW | GF | GA | Home | Road | L10 | ||
| 1 xyz-Boston Bruins | 76 | 59 | 12 | 5 | 123 | 56 | 282 | 163 | 31-4-3 | 28-8-2 | 9-1-0 | |
| 2 x-Carolina Hurricanes | 75 | 48 | 18 | 9 | 105 | 44 | 246 | 195 | 25-10-3 | 23-8-6 | 5-4-1 | |
| 3 x-New Jersey Devils | 76 | 48 | 20 | 8 | 104 | 46 | 265 | 210 | 21-13-4 | 27-7-4 | 4-4-2 | |
| 4 x-Toronto Maple Leafs | 75 | 45 | 20 | 10 | 100 | 44 | 256 | 206 | 25-7-6 | 20-13-4 | 5-3-2 | |
| 5 x-New York Rangers | 76 | 44 | 21 | 11 | 99 | 40 | 256 | 205 | 22-12-4 | 22-9-7 | 7-2-1 | |
| 6 x-Tampa Bay Lightning | 77 | 45 | 26 | 6 | 96 | 42 | 267 | 231 | 27-7-5 | 18-19-1 | 6-4-0 | |
| 7 New York Islanders | 77 | 39 | 29 | 9 | 87 | 38 | 226 | 212 | 22-13-3 | 17-16-6 | 5-4-1 | |
| 8 Florida Panthers | 77 | 39 | 31 | 7 | 85 | 37 | 272 | 260 | 21-12-4 | 18-19-3 | 6-4-0 | |
| 9 Pittsburgh Penguins | 76 | 37 | 29 | 10 | 84 | 36 | 244 | 247 | 21-12-5 | 16-17-5 | 3-7-0 | |
| 10 Buffalo Sabres | 75 | 37 | 31 | 7 | 81 | 36 | 270 | 276 | 15-20-4 | 22-11-3 | 5-3-2 | |
| 11 Ottawa Senators | 76 | 37 | 34 | 5 | 79 | 35 | 241 | 247 | 22-14-3 | 15-20-2 | 4-5-1 | |
| 12 Washington Capitals | 76 | 34 | 33 | 9 | 77 | 32 | 238 | 238 | 17-14-6 | 17-19-3 | 3-5-2 | |
| 13 Detroit Red Wings | 75 | 33 | 33 | 9 | 75 | 30 | 221 | 250 | 19-15-4 | 14-18-5 | 4-6-0 | |
| 14 Philadelphia Flyers | 75 | 29 | 33 | 13 | 71 | 27 | 205 | 249 | 17-17-5 | 12-16-8 | 5-3-2 | |
| 15 Montreal Canadiens | 77 | 30 | 41 | 6 | 66 | 25 | 219 | 284 | 16-19-3 | 14-22-3 | 4-6-0 | |
| 16 Columbus Blue Jackets | 75 | 23 | 44 | 8 | 54 | 22 | 199 | 300 | 14-21-2 | 9-23-6 | 3-6-1 | |
| Western Conference | ||||||||||||
| GP | W | L | OTL | Pts | ROW | GF | GA | Home | Road | L10 | ||
| 1 x-Vegas Golden Knights | 76 | 47 | 22 | 7 | 101 | 43 | 253 | 217 | 23-15-1 | 24-7-6 | 7-2-1 | |
| 2 Minnesota Wild | 76 | 44 | 23 | 9 | 97 | 37 | 229 | 205 | 24-11-3 | 20-12-6 | 6-2-2 | |
| 3 x-Edmonton Oilers | 77 | 45 | 23 | 9 | 99 | 45 | 306 | 254 | 22-12-6 | 23-11-3 | 9-0-1 | |
| 4 Los Angeles Kings | 76 | 44 | 22 | 10 | 98 | 38 | 262 | 241 | 25-9-4 | 19-13-6 | 6-2-2 | |
| 5 Colorado Avalanche | 75 | 45 | 24 | 6 | 96 | 39 | 252 | 207 | 21-13-5 | 24-11-1 | 8-2-0 | |
| 6 Dallas Stars | 76 | 41 | 21 | 14 | 96 | 38 | 262 | 212 | 18-10-9 | 23-11-5 | 5-4-1 | |
| 7 Seattle Kraken | 75 | 41 | 26 | 8 | 90 | 41 | 259 | 240 | 17-16-4 | 24-10-4 | 4-4-2 | |
| 8 Winnipeg Jets | 76 | 42 | 31 | 3 | 87 | 41 | 227 | 214 | 23-12-2 | 19-19-1 | 5-5-0 | |
| 9 Calgary Flames | 76 | 35 | 26 | 15 | 85 | 33 | 242 | 236 | 18-15-4 | 17-11-11 | 6-2-2 | |
| 10 Nashville Predators | 75 | 38 | 29 | 8 | 84 | 33 | 212 | 220 | 19-14-4 | 19-15-4 | 4-5-1 | |
| 11 St. Louis Blues | 76 | 35 | 35 | 6 | 76 | 32 | 248 | 282 | 16-16-5 | 19-19-1 | 6-3-1 | |
| 12 Vancouver Canucks | 75 | 34 | 34 | 7 | 75 | 29 | 259 | 278 | 17-18-2 | 17-16-5 | 6-2-2 | |
| 13 Arizona Coyotes | 77 | 27 | 37 | 13 | 67 | 24 | 215 | 274 | 20-14-4 | 7-23-9 | 3-5-2 | |
| 14 San Jose Sharks | 76 | 22 | 39 | 15 | 59 | 21 | 223 | 291 | 8-20-10 | 14-19-5 | 3-4-3 | |
| 15 Anaheim Ducks | 76 | 23 | 43 | 10 | 56 | 20 | 191 | 312 | 12-22-3 | 11-21-7 | 1-8-1 | |
| 16 Chicago Blackhawks | 76 | 24 | 46 | 6 | 54 | 22 | 186 | 277 | 14-22-3 | 10-24-3 | 2-8-0 | |
Eight teams in each conference qualify for the divisional playoff format. The top three teams from each division make up the first six spots. The two remaining teams with the highest points, regardless of division, qualify for the final two wild card spots.
X – Clinched Playoff Spot, Y – Clinched Division, Z – Clinched Conference
TODAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1931 Thought by some to be a belated April Fools’ Day hoax, Chattanooga Lookouts’ relief pitcher Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old girl, strikes out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in the first inning of an exhibition game. According to legend, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis will void the teenager’s professional contract, declaring women are unfit to play baseball as the game is “too strenuous.”
1947 The Indians purchased 26-year-old outfielder George Metkovich from the Red Sox. According to legend, Oakland Oaks’ skipper Casey Stengel, who will manage the Californian next season in the PCL, coins the nickname ‘Catfish’ after the southpaw flycatcher injures himself trying to extract a hook from the bottom-dweller.
1952 In Denver, Giants’ Monte Irvin breaks his ankle sliding into third base during an exhibition game against Cleveland. The future Hall of Fame outfielder will appear in 46 games this season, mainly as a pinch-hitter, batting .310.
1962 The Indians trade Gold Glove first baseman Vic Power and left-handed pitcher Dick Stigman to the Twins for 20-game loser Pedro Ramos, who will compile a 26-30 record during his 2+ seasons with the Tribe. Power will contribute 2+ solid seasons with Minnesota, batting .278, and their new southpaw will post a .702 winning percentage, the best in the American League this season, winning 12 of 17 decisions.
1969 After Donn Clendenon refuses to report to his new team when traded to the Astros, the Expos resign their reluctant first baseman. Montreal will send Jack Billingham, Skip Guinn, and $100,000 to the Astros to complete the deal that brings Rusty Staub north of the border.
1972 After playing a round of golf in West Palm Beach with his coaches on Easter Sunday, Mets manager Gil Hodges, two days shy of his 48th birthday, suffers a fatal heart attack. The club will name the current first-base coach and former Yankee skipper Yogi Berra to run the team when the strike-delayed season begins.
1972 Hank Aaron, Rico Carty, and Orlando Cepeda start in an exhibition game, marking the first time the trio of sluggers, sidelined with various injuries over the past two seasons, has appeared together in the Braves lineup since 1970. Atlanta will finish in fourth place, posting a disappointing 70-84 record in the NL West.
1976 In a blockbuster trade a week before the season starts, the Orioles deal Don Baylor, Paul Mitchell, and Mike Torrez to the A’s in exchange for Ken Holtzman, Reggie Jackson, and Bill Van Bommel. A month will pass before Jackson will report to his new team, accounting for Baltimore’s slow start in April.
1982 During an exhibition contest at Jack Murphy Stadium, Steve McCatty steps to home plate with a 15-inch toy bat as instructed by A’s manager Billy Martin, furious that a DH isn’t being allowed because the meaningless game is taking place in an NL park. After plate umpire Jim Quick refuses to let the Oakland starter use the prop, the right-hander takes three called strikes with a real bat.
1984 For the first time in ten years, the Mets lose on Opening Day, bowing to the Reds, 8-1. The last time the team dropped a season opener was in 1974, when Mike Schmidt hit a two-run walk-off home run off Tug McGraw, giving the Phillies a 5-4 victory over New York at Veterans Stadium.
1992 The Phillies acquire right-hander Curt Schilling from Houston for Jason Grimsley, who will never throw a pitch in an Astros uniform. ‘Schil’ plays nine seasons in the City of Brotherly Love, compiling a 101-78 (.564) record and a 3.35 ERA during his 242 appearances with the team.
1995 Having the first 23 days of this season canceled and 252 games of the last season lost, the owners accept the players’ March 31 unconditional offer to play a 144-game schedule. The players decide to return to work when a U.S. District judge issues an injunction restoring the expired agreement’s terms and conditions.
1996 With an Opening Day 7-1 victory over the Indians at Jacobs Field, Joe Torre wins the first of his 1,173 victories as the Yankees manager. During his 12-year tenure, the Bronx Bombers will reach the postseason each year, winning ten American League East Division titles, six American League pennants, and four World Championships.
1996 Tiger first baseman Cecil Fielder steals the first base of his eleven-year career in his 1,097th major league game, establishing the most extended duration a player has ever gone without recording a stolen base. The feat is so unexpected that the Metrodome crowd gives ‘Big Daddy’ a standing ovation, to which he responds with a good-natured tip of the helmet.
1996 On Opening Day, Derek Jeter hits a home run off Dennis Martinez in New York’s 7-1 victory over the Indians at Jacobs Field. The 22-year-old infielder becomes the first Yankee rookie to play shortstop at the start of the season since 1962 when Tom Tresh filled in for Tony Kubek, who reported to duty to his recently federalized National Guard unit.
1996 In a Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference game against Robert Morris, the St. Francis Fighting Saints, a Division II team, sends 30 batters to the plate in the first inning, scoring an NCAA-record 26 runs, before adding another 22 runs in the second, four in the third, and 19 in the fourth in the team’s 71-1 victory in Joliet (IL). Eagles’ coach Gerald McNamara, who will watch his team finish the season with a 0-32 record, asked for the contest to be called after four frames.
1997 Gary Sheffield (.314, 42, 120) and the Marlins agree to a six-year, $61 million contract extension. The deal is the largest in total dollars in baseball history but is only the third-highest annual salary, behind Albert Belle’s (1996-2000 White Sox – $11 million) and Barry Bonds’ (1993-98 Giants – $11,131,157).
1997 For the first time in major league history, one player’s salary is more than a whole team’s payroll. The White Sox will pay Albert Belle $10 million for the season, $928,333 more than the entire Pirate payroll.
1998 With the help of Jeromy Burnitz’s grand slam in the top of the frame, the Brewers record their first National League victory when they beat Atlanta in 11 innings, 8-6. The franchise, which started in Seattle in 1969 before moving to Milwaukee a year later, played in the American League for the first 29 years before switching circuits, a move necessitated by restructuring each league from two divisions into three.
2001 On Opening Day, Yankee fireballer Roger Clemens becomes the all-time AL career strikeout leader, moving ahead of Walter Johnson when he whiffs Royals’ Joe Randa for his 3,509th Junior Circuit victim. Passing the ‘Big Train,’ the ‘Rocket’ now takes over the seventh spot in major league history.
2001 For the first time in major league history, a Japanese-born position player participates in a regular-season major league game. Hitless in his first three at-bats, Ichiro Suzuki singles in the seventh inning to ignite a two-run rally and bunts for a hit in the eighth in his Mariner debut at Safeco Field.
2002 In his major league debut, right-hander Jon Rauch of the White Sox pitches a perfect 1.1 innings in a 7-4 loss to the Mariners at Safeco Field. The 6′ -11″ Louisville, Kentucky native, a member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic team, becomes the tallest pitcher to appear in a big-league game, surpassing by an inch six other hurlers, most notably Hall of Famer Randy Johnson.
2003 Mike Bordick’s record streak for games and chances without an error by a shortstop ends when Yankee outfielder Bubba Trammell’s third-inning grounder tips off his glove. After converting a fielder’s choice in the first inning, the Blue Jay infielder misplays his second opportunity, establishing 544 chances and 110 consecutive games without an error, a new major league mark for shortstops.
2003 According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Tigers become the first major league team to have four pitchers make their big league debut during the same game. Twenty-year-old starter Jeremy Bonderman, who gives up six runs on nine hits in four innings, is followed by rookies Wilfredo Ledezma, Chris Spurling, and Matt Roney in the 8-1 loss to the Twins.
2003 Todd Zeile homers in his first at-bat as a Yankee, becoming the only major leaguer to hit a home run for ten different teams, surpassing Tommy Davis, who went deep for nine big-league clubs. In addition to homering with the Bronx Bombers, the infielder has also gone deep for the Cardinals, Cubs, Phillies, Orioles, Dodgers, Marlins, Rangers, Mets, and Rockies.
2003 At the age of 27 years, 249 days of age, Alex Rodriguez becomes the youngest player in major league history to hit 300 home runs. The Ranger shortstop’s fifth-inning three-run blast off Anaheim’s Ramon Ortiz in the Rangers’ 11-5 loss at Edison Field surpasses the mark established in 1935 by Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx, who had accomplished the feat when being 79 days older than A-Rod.
2007 During the Royals’ Opening Day ESPN telecast, commentator Joe Morgan announces the team will honor the late Buck O’Neil by placing a fan who best exemplifies his spirit in a special seat during every home game at Kauffman Stadium. The first person to sit in the Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat, easily identified by its red color in a sea of blue behind home plate, is the Negro League legend’s younger brother, Warren.
2007 Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory’s ceremonial first pitch before the Reds’ home opener lands thirty feet up the first baseline from home plate, widely missing its intended target, a bewildered Eric Davis. The terrible toss will receive national media attention, including the politician receiving a second chance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, an opportunity in which His Honor will also widely miss the mark.
2007 In his first big-league at-bat, rookie third baseman Alex Gordon, the Royals #1 pick and second overall in 2005, receives a standing ovation from the Kauffman Stadium crowd when he steps to the plate. The former Golden Spikes Award is the fourth player in franchise history to make his major league debut on Opening Day.
2007 Josh Hamilton, the Reds’ 25-year-old rookie, who has overcome a nearly career-ending history of substance abuse, receives a 22-second standing ovation from the fans at Great American Ball Park as he makes his major league debut. The former number one draft choice lines out pinch-hitting for pitcher Kirk Saarloos in the eighth inning and then plays left field for the remainder of the 5-1 Opening Day victory over Chicago.
2007 Mike Hampton, who signed the richest contract ever given to a pitcher, makes his Rockies debut, getting the victory when the team beat the Cardinals, 8-0. The $123.8-million southpaw will get off to a quick 9-2 start for Colorado but will finish his stay in the mountains 21-28 along with an ERA of 5.75 over the next one and half seasons before being dealt to the Braves.
2007 In a 9-5 loss to New York, Elijah Dukes of the Devil Rays becomes the 99th major leaguer to homer in his first official at-bat. The 22-year-old rookie center fielder is the first to accomplish the feat at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day.
2007 For only the fourth time in major league history, a hurler under the age of 21 wins an Opening Day assignment when 20-year-old Venezuelan right-hander Felix Hernandez pitches eight strong innings in the Mariners’ 4-0 victory over the A’s at Safeco Field. Fernando Valenzuela of the Dodgers was the last pitcher ‘not of age’ to accomplish the feat, beating the Astros, 2-0, in 1981.
2007 Tony Pena Jr.’s two Opening Day triples help the Royals rip the Red Sox at Kauffman Stadium, 7-1. The rookie shortstop, the son of a Yankee coach, is the first major leaguer to hit a pair of the three-baggers on Opening Day since Tommy Henrich did it for the Bronx Bombers in 1950.
2008 In the sixth inning of the Dodgers’ 3-2 victory over the Giants, Ed Montague tosses Larry Bowa for not staying in the third-base coaching box after warning him to obey the new rule following the tragic death of Tulsa Drillers first-base coach Mike Coolbaugh. LA manager Joe Torre and bench coach Bob Schaefer need to restrain the former infielder and skipper during his “inappropriate and aggressive” behavior towards the umpires, leading to a three-game suspension.
2008 Kevin Youkilis establishes the longest errorless streak by a first baseman, playing the field flawlessly for 194 games. The Red Sox infielder, who hasn’t committed an error at first base since July 4, 2006, breaks Steve Garvey’s mark set with the Padres from 1983-85.
2011 Ian Kinsler leads off the bottom of the first with a round-tripper off Red Sox’ Jon Lackey to become the first major leaguer ever to hit leadoff homers in each of his team’s first two games. On Opening Day, the Texas second baseman also took Boston’s Jon Lester deep as the Rangers’ first batter of the season.
2011 Ichiro Suzuki breaks the Mariner’s franchise record with an infield single off A’s reliever Brian Fuentes in the team’s 5-2 victory over Oakland. The Seattle right fielder, beginning his 11th season with the M’s, surpasses the 2,247 hit total established by Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez, Seattle’s designated hitter from 1987 to 2004.
2011 David Ortiz breaks the major league record for RBIs by a designated hitter, established by Seattle’s Edgar Martinez. ‘Big Papi,’ who hit a two-run homer in the second to tie the mark, drives in Alex Gonzalez for his record-setting 1,004th career run batted in as a DH with a fourth-inning groundout to first base in the Red Sox’ 12-5 loss to Texas.
2012 Matt Cain, the longest-tenured Giant, comes to terms with the team on a five-year extension that keeps the 6’5″ Tennessean with San Francisco until 2017. The 27-year-old right-hander has been the staff’s workhorse, averaging 32 starts during the last six seasons.
2013 Marwin Gonzalez’s two-out, ninth-inning single, a grounder that goes through the box between the pitcher’s legs, spoils Yu Darvish’s bid for a perfect game. The 26-year-old Ranger starter is removed from the Minute Maid Park contest after giving up the hit and watches reliever Michael Kirkman close the Texas 7-0 victory over Houston.
2014 With the score tied 3–3 in the bottom of the 13th inning and the bases loaded with no outs, the Cubs turned a 7-2-3 double play against the Pirates. Left fielder Junior Lake, playing in the infield near the third baseline, fields Clint Barmes’ grounder throwing home for one out, with the catcher relaying the ball to first base to complete the unusual twin-killing in the Pirates’ eventual 4-3 walk-off victory three innings later at PNC Park.
2014 Rookie catcher Tony Sanchez, pinch-hitting in the bottom of the 16th inning, singles in the winning run to end the 5-hour and 55-minute marathon, now the longest game in Pittsburgh history by time. The 4-3 victory over Chicago took six minutes longer than when the Bucs beat the Astros, 8-7, in an 18-inning contest in 2006.
2017 In the Diamondbacks’ 6-5 Opening Day walk-off victory over the Giants, Madison Bumgarner becomes the first pitcher to hit two home runs in the first game of the season. The 27-year-old southpaw retires the first 16 batters he faces, striking out 11 with no walks in seven innings of work at Chase Field.
2019 The Braves and Ronald Acuna Jr. come to terms on an eight-year, $100-million extension, keeping the 2018 Rookie of the Year under contract through the 2026 season. The 21-year-old All-Star outfielder becomes the youngest player in baseball history to sign a deal worth at least $100 million.
2021 In his second game and first in the starting lineup, White Sox DH Yermín Mercedes goes 5-for-5, collecting his first five career hits, in the team’s 12-8 victory at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The 28-year-old catcher, who stroked four singles and a double, becomes the third major leaguer to get five hits in his first major league start, joining Cecil Travis (1933 Senators) and Fred Clarke (1894 Louisville Colonels).
BASEBALL’S BEST
MAX CAREY
Many Hall of Famers made it to the big leagues with their bats or their arms. Max Carey did it with his legs.
Carey, nicknamed “Scoops”, set a National League record with 738 career stolen bases and led the NL in steals 10 times.
“He was just as fast between the ears as he was with his feet,” said sportswriter Joe Williams. “That’s what made him harder to stop than a run in a silk stocking.”
Born on Jan. 11, 1890, Carey was on track to become a minister at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Mo., but after playing baseball in college, he signed with South Bend of the Central League in 1909.
He became a switch hitter and joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1910. By 1913, at age 23, Carey led the NL in plate appearances (692), at bats (620), runs (99) and (61) stolen bases while hitting .277. It was the first of six seasons Carey would steal over 50 bases.
“The secret is getting a good jump,” said Carey. “I’d watch the pitcher’s motion and then be at full speed after two steps. I think stealing third can sometimes be easier than stealing second. It all depends on the pitcher.”
In 1922, Carey stole 51 bases in 53 attempts. He kept his legs in good shape in the off season but believed base stealing was more about timing than pure speed.
“Base stealing is a battle of wits between the runner and the pitcher,” Carey said.
In 1926, Carey had an argument with management and was waived by the Pirates. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he finished his career in 1929.
Carey not only excelled on the bases but led the National League in outfield putouts nine times and established a then-career record of 6,363 putouts. He hit over .300 six times for a lifetime batting average of .285 while recording 2,665 hits, 159 triples and 1,545 runs scored.
In 1930, Carey returned as a coach for the Pirates and also managed the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1932-33. He stayed active in baseball as a scout for the Orioles and managed several minor league teams.
In 1944, he became a skipper in a different league. He managed the Milwaukee Chicks of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. He was president of the AAGPBL from 1945-49 and managed the Fort Wayne Daisies from 1950-51.
Carey was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1961. He passed away on May 30, 1976.
STEVE CARLTON
Baseball players, especially pitchers, work hard to stay in shape during the off-season with cardio conditioning. But running just wasn’t for Steve Carlton.
Instead, Carlton, nicknamed “Lefty”, used martial arts and weight lifting as part of his conditioning program and propelled himself to a fitness level that allowed him to throw for 24 seasons in the big leagues. A focused competitor, Carlton used his biting slider and a great fastball to achieve excellence on the mound.
“Lefty was a craftsman, an artist,” said Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn. “He was a perfectionist. He painted a ballgame. Stroke, stroke, stroke, and when he got through it was a masterpiece.”
Born on Dec. 22, 1944 in Miami, Fla., Carlton signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963. He made the big league club in 1965. He appeared in both World Series appearances for the Cardinals in 1967 and 1968, earning a ring in 1967. In 1971, he had his first 20-win season and requested a contract of $60,000 for the following year.
“Augie Busch traded me to the last-place Phillies over a salary dispute,” Carlton said. “I was mentally committed to winning 25 games with the Cardinals and now I had to re-think my goals. I decided to stay with the 25-win goal and won 27 of the Phillies 59 victories. I consider that season my finest individual achievement.”
His first season in Philadelphia, Carlton led the league in wins, ERA, innings pitched and strikeouts. It earned him his first Cy Young Award.
In 15 seasons with the Phillies, Carlton led the league in wins four times, winning 20-or-more games five times. The 10-time All-Star would go on to win a total of four Cy Young Awards and a Gold Glove Award in 1981. On Sept. 24, 1983, he became just the 16th pitcher to win 300 games.
“Lefty has a hard time being human as a pitcher, so he became superhuman, and did things that were superhuman,” said his long-time Philadelphia battery-mate Tim McCarver.
He signed with the San Francisco Giants in 1986 and finished out his career with the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins. He finished his career with 329 wins – second to only Warren Spahn among lefties – and 4,136 strikeouts.
Carlton was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1994.
BASEBALL YEAR IN REVIEW
1929 AMERICAN LEAGUE
Off the field…
One February evening in north Chicago, seven well-dressed men were found riddled with bullets inside the S.M.C Cartage Company garage. All had been lined up against a wall, with their backs to their executioners (who were disguised as policemen) and shot to death. The men were mobsters working under the leadership of gangster and bootlegger, “Bugs” Moran and were casualties of what would become the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”. Ordered by rival gang leader, Al “Scarface” Capone, the notorious attack was carried out by Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn who had organized the hit. Thanks to prohibition, Capone had become the crime czar of Chicago, running gambling, prostitution and bootlegging rackets while continuously expanding his territories by getting rid of rival gangs.
Stock market prices plummeted from November to December and U.S. securities lost $26 billion, marking the first financial disaster of the Great Depression. The American depression produced severe effects abroad, especially in Europe, where many countries had not fully recovered from the aftermath of World War I. In Germany, the economic disaster and resulting social dislocation contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Although it shared the basic characteristics of other such crises, the Great Depression was unprecedented in its length and in the wholesale poverty and tragedy it inflicted on society.
In the American League…
The first-place Philadelphia Athletics scored a whopping eight runs off of Boston Red Sox pitcher Milt Gaston on the way to an embarrassing 24-6 massacre at Fenway Park on May 1st. The twenty-four runs matched a franchise record previously set in the “Ty Cobb protest game” in 1912, and the twenty-nine hits set another franchise mark.
The Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers set a major league “marathon” record on May 24th after going twenty-one innings (three hours and thirty-one minutes) for the longest game ever seen to date at Comiskey Park. George Uhle emerged the 6-5 winner, after going twenty innings, with Vic Sorrell finishing in relief. The loser, Ted Lyons, went the distance giving up a respectable twenty-four hits (over twenty-one innings).
In the National League…
On April 29th, Brooklyn Dodgers relief pitcher Clise Dudley became the first player ever to hit a home run against the first pitch he saw. Claude Willoughby of the Philadelphia Phillies gave up the inaugural round-tripper en route to an 8-3 victory. Amazingly Dudley would go on to hit only two more home runs in his four Major League years.
The Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds turned an amazing nine double plays on July 3rd to tie the Major League double-play mark previously set in 1925 by Detroit and Washington.
The St. Louis Cardinals answered back after losing 10-6 in the opener of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies with a magnificent 28-6 victory on July 6th. The “Redbirds” came out swinging in game two and collected ten runs in the first and ten more in the fifth. Their twenty-eight hits and twenty-eight runs set a National League record and both teams combined to tie a Major League title with seventy-three hits in a doubleheader.
Around the League…
The New York Yankees announced that they were adding numbers on the backs of their uniforms. Initially, continuous numbers were distributed based upon a player’s position in the batting order (Combs #1, Koenig #2, Ruth #3, Gehrig #4, Meusel #5, Lazzeri #6, Durocher #7, Grabowski #8). Several weeks later, the Cleveland Indians agreed to follow suite and by 1931 all American League teams were utilizing the new identification technique. However, some National League players still remained numberless until 1933.
On August 3rd, the Chicago Cubs voiced their complaint about the ragged sleeve on the pitching arm of Brooklyn Dodger ace Dazzy Vance (an old trick to distract the hitter). Soon after, a Major League rule was passed that required all pitchers to maintain neat attire. The mandate would expand over the years to include caps, gloves, glasses and other visual deterrents.
The New York Giants used the first public address system in a big-league ballpark during a July 5th game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
On September 25th, New York Yankees manager Miller Huggins died from accidental blood poisoning at New York’s St. Vincent Hospital at the age of forty-nine. On the day of his funeral in Cincinnati, the American League canceled all games. Yankees coach Art Fletcher remained, as interim skipper, and Bob Shawkey was brought in as the official manager for the 1930 season.
FOOTBALL HISTORY
THE BEST
RONDE BARBER
A list of adjectives used to describe Rondé Barber accurately would grow long. And that would be fitting for a player whose many career highlights starts with his longevity: 241 regular-season games played, an NFL-record streak of 215 consecutive starts at cornerback (224 counting playoffs) and the distinction of being the only defensive back since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 to start every game for 13 consecutive seasons.
Barber didn’t merely fill a spot in the lineup. He made plays that shaped the outcomes of games at a time when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers consistently ranked among the NFL’s top defenses and made several trips to the postseason, including a victory in Super Bowl XXXVII.
Barber finished his career with 47 interceptions and 28 sacks, leaving him as the only player in NFL history with at least 45 and 25, respectively, in those categories. He’s the NFL’s all-time sack leader for cornerbacks and also made 88 tackles for loss. Twice he intercepted three passes in a game, and six times he forced at least two turnovers in a game. He scored 14 touchdowns on returns: eight interceptions, four fumbles and two deflected punts.
He played big on big stages. In the 1999 NFC Championship Game, Barber made eight tackles, two behind the line, in an 11-6 loss to Rams. In the 2003 NFC title game, he returned an interception 92 yards for a touchdown to seal the 27-10 win over the Eagles and added a sack, forced fumble and four passes defensed. In the Super Bowl win over Oakland, he contributed five tackles.
Barber’s breakout season came in 2001. He led the NFL with 10 interceptions, leading to the first of his three All-Pro honors and first of five Pro Bowl invitations. Twice that year he was named Defensive Player of the Week. He would earn that honor nine times in his career, matching the NFL record shared by RAY LEWIS,(Opens in a new window) LAWRENCE TAYLOR,(Opens in a new window) CHRIS DOLEMAN(Opens in a new window) and BRUCE SMITH(Opens in a new window) — all members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Barber was voted to the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 2000s (second team) and was the Buccaneers’ winner of the Ed Block Courage Award in 2011, given across the NFL to a player from each team who demonstrates courage, sportsmanship and dedication to his hometown community.
APRIL 2 BIRTHDAYS OF THE HOF FOOTBALL PLAYERS
April 2, 1871 – Clifton, New Jersey – The great tackle of Harvard University from 1890 to 1893 Marshall Newell was born.
April 2, 1880 – Oyster bay, New York – Harold Weekes Columbia University’s halfback from 1899 to 1902 arrived to celebrate his birth. The NFF says Weekes was like a bullet, as he took part in a very dangerous play called the “flying hurdle.” According to his bio from the NFF Weekes would get on the shoulders of his offensive teammates and they would launch him catapult -style, head-long across the line of scrimmage, landing on his feet and streaking away from the stunned defenders. That had to put defenders in shock to see something like that attempted! Harold was often credited with long gainers such as in his freshman season of 1899, he broke away from the pack and streaked 55 yards to a touchdown that proved the winning points in a 5-0 upset of previously unbeaten Yale. It was Columbia’s first win over the team from New Haven in 18 years. Weekes befuddled opposing defenses for three more seasons, earning All-America honors each one. Walter Camp claimed Weekes “was powerful and fast, and had that certain burst of speed at just the right moment.” Harold Weekes was honored with induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954 after the National Football Foundation tallied their votes.
April 2, 1910 – Arnie Herber the outstanding early quarterback of the Green Bay Packers franchise was born. The website Packer.com shares that Arnie was a Green Bay native who joined the Packers only two years after graduating from Green Bay West High School, Herber developed into pro football’s first great long-ball passer. He also was part of the game’s first famous passing combination: Herber to Hutson. It is interesting how the Herber-to-Don Hutson combination started. It was unleashed like gang busters on Sept. 22, 1935, in a 7-0 victory over the Chicago Bears. On the first play from scrimmage, Herber hit Hutson, a rookie playing his second game, on an 83-yard bomb to account for the game’s only touchdown.He is credited with being the first NFL thrower to pass for more than 1000 yards in a season when he racked up 1239 yards in the 1936 season alone. Herber was the leader of the offense on the Green Bay Championship teams of 1932, 1934 and that special season of 1936. Arnie Herber was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1972.
April 2, 1917 – Detroit, Michigan – The great Stanford Cardinal halfback of 1938 to 1940, Hugh Gallarneau was born. His friends called him “Duke” and he was a very well rounded athlete according to the FootballFoundation.org but he never played football until he attended Stanford. The first two seasons that Hugh played for Stanford the team suffered through horrible losing seasons but that all changed in 1940. A new head coach, Clark Shaughnessy, joined the team and he brought with him the powerful T-formation offense. Stanford went 10-0 in 1940 and Gallarneau was co-captain and was selected as an All-American halfback. Gallarneau scored two touchdowns, on a 10-yard run and a 40-yard pass reception to aid Stanford in defeating Nebraska 21-13 in the Rose Bowl. Hugh Gallarneau received the great honor of being selected for inclusion into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982. Gallarneau played with the Chicago Bears 1941-1942. He joined the Marines in World War II and rose to the rank of major. He was in 7 island invasions by Marines in the Pacific theater. He rejoined the Bears 1945-1947.
April 2, 1930 – San Diego, California – Another Stanford player, Bill McColl arrived into this life and he later went on to play end for the Cardinal football team from 1949 to 1951. Bill is described as being one of the top gridiron players ever to put on the Cardinal uniform as he finished fourth in the Heisman vote of 1941 and then signed a contract with the Chicago Bears so that he could pay his way through Graduate school at the University of Chicago to train to become a doctor. Bill McColl was honored with induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973 after the National Football Foundation tallied their votes. He became an orthopedic surgeon and then soon decided to leave the comfort of the U.S. and serve as a missionary physician in Korea serving the country’s leper and deformed children.
April 2, 1947 – Chicago, Illinois – Arizona State running back Ron Pritchard was born. Ron led the Sun Devils in tackles and interceptions in the season of 1968 and earned the team’s MVP award. The National Football Foundation selected Ron Pritchard for entrance into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003. He was the 15th player selected in the 1969 NFL draft by the Houston Oilers. His nine-year pro career with the Oilers and Cincinnati Bengals was cut short by a knee injury.
April 2, 1965 – Brooklyn, New York – The great Syracuse QB Don McPherson arrived into this life. According to the National Football Foundation McPherson won over 18 national Player of the Year honors during his collegiate career. McPherson’s many honors included the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award, the Maxwell Player of the Year and the inaugural Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. He also garnered unanimous First Team All-America laurels and finished second in the 1987 Heisman balloting. Don McPherson received the great honor of being selected for inclusion into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008. played four years in the NFL and three seasons in the Canadian Football League. He later founded the Sports Leadership Institute at Adelphi University and created the John Mackey Award, which annually recognizes college football’s most outstanding tight end.
NUMBERS IN SPORTS
22 – 9 – 30 – 20 – 24 – 99
April 2, 1969 – Forbes Kennedy, Number 22 the center for the Toronto Maple Leafs set a very dubious Stanley Cup playoff record has he recorded the most penalties in one game with 8. You can tell it was mostly frustration as the Boston registered thei first playoff win in a decade as the Bruins cruised to a 10-0 lopsides victory.
April 2, 1976 – There was a big trade in the MLB on this day, that changed the dynamics of the game. The defending World Series Champion Oakland A’s, traded away key players Reggie Jackson, Number 9 and pitcher Number 30, Ken Holtzman to Baltimore Orioles in exchange for outfielder Don Baylor, Number 20 and pitchers Mike Torrez, Number 24 and Paul Mitchell, Number 36. It is ironic that after one season Torrez left the A’s and Mitchell who remained swapped his Number 36 in green and yellow for Torrrez’s vacated Number 24.
April 2, 1980 – Year one in the NHL, the Great One, Number 99, Wayne Gretzky scored a lamp lighter for Edmonton in a 1-1 tie with Minnesota North Stars to become the youngest player to reach 50 goals at 19 years and 2 months of age.
TV SUNDAY
| COLLEGE BASKETBALL – WOMEN’S | TIME ET | TV |
| NCAA Women’s Championship | 3:30pm | ABC |
| GOLF | TIME ET | TV |
| PGA: Valero Texas Open | 2:30pm | GOLF |
| LPGA: DIO Implant LA Open | 6:00pm | GOLF |
| MLB REGULAR SEASON | TIME ET | TV |
| Detroit at Tampa Bay | 1:10pm | Bally Sports |
| Atlanta at Washington | 1:35pm | MLBN Bally Sports MASN/2 |
| Baltimore at Boston | 1:35pm | MASN/2 NESN |
| San Francisco at NY Yankees | 1:35pm | NBCS-BAY YES |
| NY Mets at Miami | 1:40pm | MLBN SNY Bally Sports |
| Pittsburgh at Cincinnati | 1:40pm | Bally Sports ATTSN-PIT |
| Chi. White Sox at Houston | 2:10pm | ATTSN-SW NBCS-CHI |
| Minnesota at Kansas City | 2:10pm | Bally Sports |
| Toronto at St. Louis | 2:15pm | Sportsnet Bally Sports |
| Milwaukee at Chi. Cubs | 2:20pm | Bally Sports MARQ |
| LA Angels at Oakland | 4:07pm | NBCS-CA Bally Sports |
| Colorado at San Diego | 4:10pm | Bally Sports ATTSN-RM |
| Arizona at LA Dodgers | 4:10pm | MLBN Bally Sports Sportsnet |
| Cleveland at Seattle | 4:10pm | MLBN Bally Sports Root Sports |
| Philadelphia at Texas | 7:00pm | ESPN NBCS-PHI Bally Sports |
| MOTORSPORTS | TIME ET | TV |
| Formula One: Australian Grand Prix | 1:00am | ESPN |
| IndyCar: PPG 375 | 12:00pm | NBC |
| NASCAR Cup: Toyota Owners 400 | 3:30pm | FS1 |
| NBA REGULAR SEASON GAMES | TIME ET | TV |
| Toronto at Charlotte | 1:00pm | Sportsnet Bally Sports |
| Utah at Brooklyn | 3:30pm | ATTSN-RM YES |
| Memphis at Chicago | 3:30pm | NBCS-CHI Bally Sports |
| Portland at Minnesota | 3:30pm | Root Sports Bally Sports |
| Dallas at Atlanta | 6:00pm | NBATV Bally Sports |
| Washington at New York | 6:00pm | NBCS-WSH MSG |
| Detroit at Orlando | 6:00pm | Bally Sports |
| San Antonio at Sacramento | 6:00pm | Bally Sports NBCS-CA |
| LA Lakers at Houston | 7:00pm | Spectrum ATTSN-SW |
| Phoenix at Oklahoma City | 7:00pm | Bally Sports |
| Philadelphia at Milwaukee | 8:00pm | NBCS-PHI Bally Sports |
| Indiana at Cleveland | 8:00pm | Bally Sports |
| Golden State at Denver | 8:30pm | NBATV NBCS-BAY ALT |
| NHL REGULAR SEASON GAMES | TIME ET | TV |
| NY Rangers at Washington | 1:00pm | TNT |
| Boston at St. Louis | 3:30pm | TNT |
| NY Islanders at Carolina | 6:00pm | MSGSN Bally Sports |
| Ottawa at Columbus | 6:00pm | Sportsnet Bally Sports |
| Philadelphia at Pittsburgh | 6:00pm | NBCS-PHI ATTSN-PIT |
| New Jersey at Winnipeg | 7:00pm | NHLN MSGSN Sportsnet |
| Detroit at Toronto | 7:00pm | Sportsnet Bally Sports |
| Anaheim at Calgary | 8:00pm | Sportsnet Bally Sports |
| Los Angeles at Vancouver | 8:00pm | Sportsnet Bally Sports |
| SOCCER | TIME ET | TV |
| Serie A: Bologna vs Udinese | 6:30am | Paramount+ |
| Ligue 1: Lille vs Lorient | 7:00am | beIN Sports |
| La Liga: Celta de Vigo vs Almería | 8:00am | ESPN+ |
| English Premier League: West Ham United vs Southampton | 9:00am | USA |
| Serie A: Spezia vs Salernitana | 9:00am | Paramount+ |
| Serie A: Monza vs Lazio | 9:00am | Paramount+ |
| Ligue 1: Nantes vs Reims | 9:00am | beIN Sports |
| Ligue 1: Clermont vs Ajaccio | 9:00am | beIN Sports |
| Ligue 1: Brest vs Toulouse | 9:00am | beIN Sports |
| Bundesliga: Köln vs Borussia M’gladbach | 9:30am | ESPN+ |
| La Liga: Real Madrid vs Real Valladolid | 10:15am | ESPN+ |
| Ligue 1: Monaco vs Strasbourg | 11:05am | beIN Sports |
| Bundesliga: Werder Bremen vs Hoffenheim | 11:30am | ESPN+ |
| English Premier League: Newcastle United vs Manchester United | 11:30am | USA |
| Serie A: Roma vs Sampdoria | 12:00pm | Paramount+ |
| La Liga: Villarreal vs Real Sociedad | 12:30pm | ESPN+ |
| Liga MX: Toluca vs Tigres UANL | 2:00pm | Univision |
| Serie A: Napoli vs Milan | 2:45pm | Paramount+ |
| Ligue 1: PSG vs Olympique Lyonnais | 2:45pm | beIN Sports |
| La Liga: Atlético Madrid vs Real Betis | 3:00pm | ESPN+ |
| Argentina Primera División: Instituto vs Talleres Córdoba | 3:30pm | Paramount+ |
| NWSL: Orlando Pride vs Angel City | 5:30pm | Paramount+ |
| Argentina Primera División: Colón vs Atlético Tucumán | 6:00pm | Paramount+ |
| Liga MX: Atlético San Luis vs Mazatlán | 7:00pm | TUDN |
| Argentina Primera División: Banfield vs Platense | 8:30pm | Paramount+ |
| Liga MX: Querétaro vs Pumas UNAM | 9:05pm | TUDN |
| XFL | TIME ET | TV |
| St. Louis at Houston | 2:00pm | ESPN |