Watch your lunch money

ALLIANCE — A highlight by Mount Union freshman quarterback Mikey Maloney was featured on ESPN’s Get Up! on Tuesday morning.

Maloney received one of former NFL lineman Jeff Saturday’s three pancakes from the weekend.

As the lead blocker, Maloney threw a pancake block on Wilmington defensive back Nathan Nemeth to clear the way for Kayden Minner’s touchdown run that gave the Purple Raiders a 21-0 lead in the first quarter Saturday at Williams Stadium.

“That is for real chin music from a quarterback,” Jeff Saturday said. “I have never seen a quarterback hand off the ball and get downfield, understanding he was going to make somebody feel the pain.”

The panel got a chuckle when they found out the quarterback’s name is Mikey.

“Sounds like a guy who could knock somebody out,” Saturday said tongue in cheek.

“What happened?” host Mike Greenberg said. “Mikey Maloney took my lunch money.”

Sampson tops Salem girls

SALEM — Salem’s girls soccer team got out of the gates of the Div. IV sectional tournament with an 8-0 win over Akron Springfield on Tuesday.

The No. 8 seeded Quakers scored five goals in the first half and three in the second half to cruise past the No. 35 seed Spartans.

Senior Karlie Sampson had three goals for the winners, while Emmy Kemats added two goals. Ava Lee chipped in a goal and two assists. Freshmen Chaya Murray and Maryn McFadden also got into the act with two goals each.

Freshman keeper Kandie Duvall had one save for Salem.

Salem (12-3-3) will host No. 15 seed Fairview at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the district semifinal.

Warren JFK wins third straight golf title

SUNBURY — The Warren JFK golf team had a convincing 23-stroke victory for another Division III state title at NorthStar Golf Club Tuesday.

It was the Eagles’ third straight state title and sixth overall.

Warren JFK shot 309 both days for a two-day total of 618, finishing 23 strokes ahead of Pettisville.

Seniors Andrew Fredenburg (70-78) and Julian Bolino (73-75) both shot 148s to tie for third place, which led the Eagles.

Salem Hills sectional champion Youngstown Mooney was fourth at 648 (332-316).

Mooney senior Alex Eckstein was the state-runner for the second time in three years with a 145 (75-70). He finished five shots behind Kalida sophomore Paul Stechschulte’s 140 (71-69).

Springfield senior Jackson Ensley tied for 15th with a 157 (80-77).

Mooney junior Tyler Guerrieri, the Salem Hills sectional medalist, tied for 49th with a 174 (90-84).

TEAM STANDINGS

1. Warren JFK 618 (309-309); 2. Pettisville 641 (320-321); 3. Berlin Hiland 643 (319-324); 4. Youngstown Mooney 648 (332-316); 5. Van Buren 654 (331-323); 6. Mechanicsburg 653 (331-323); 7. Waterford 661 (335-326); 8. Kalida 665 (323-342); 9. Botkins 671 (349-322); 10. Delphos St. John’s 680 (352-328); 11. New Paris National Trail 687 (353-334); 12. Mogadore 704 (351-353).

Lowry earns MAC honor

KALAMAZOO, Michigan — Western Michigan sophomore quarterback Broc Lowry has been named the Mid-American Conference Offensive Player of the Week.

Lowry had a career day in a 42-0 win over Ball State on Saturday. He completed a 23 passes for 241 yards — both career highs — and two touchdowns. He also rushed for 13 times for a career-high 108 yards and one touchdown.

He became the first Broncos quarterback to surpass 100 yards rushing in a game since Sept. 22, 1973 (Paul Jorgensen vs. NIU).

Lowry led Canfield High School to the Ohio Division III state championship in 2022.

Western Michigan is 4-3 overall and 2-0 in the MAC. The Broncos will play at Miami of Ohio on Sept. 25.

‘Let’s Go Brandon’ shirts ban upheld

SAND LAKE, Mich. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a Michigan school district in a dispute over free speech and “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts, clothing that took a jab at then-President Joe Biden.

The mother of two boys, who got the shirts as Christmas gifts, said her sons’ First Amendment rights were violated when they were told to take off the shirts at Tri County Middle School in 2022. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed in 2-1 opinion.

“In the schoolhouse, vulgarity trumps politics. And the protection for political speech doesn’t give a student carte blanche to use vulgarity at school — even when that vulgarity is cloaked in innuendo or euphemism,” said judges John Nalbandian and Karen Nelson Moore.

In 2021, an obscenity directed at Biden was being chanted at a NASCAR race, though a TV pit reporter said it was “Let’s Go, Brandon.” The line suddenly became popular among Biden’s conservative critics.

The school said it wasn’t prohibiting political messages, just vulgar ones. There was evidence that some students wore clothing that said, “Make America Great Again,” or had messages supporting President Donald Trump.

Judge John Bush disagreed with the majority opinion and said the wrong legal standard was applied.

“The phrase at issue here is a euphemism for political criticism. It contains no sexual content, no graphic imagery, and no actual profanity,” he said. “To the extent that it implies an offensive phrase, it does so obliquely — by design.”

Dodgers up 2-0 on Brewers in NLCS

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a three-hitter for the first postseason complete game in eight years as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-1 on Tuesday night to extend their lead in the National League Championship Series.

Teoscar Hernandez and Max Muncy each hit a solo homer as the Dodgers left Milwaukee with a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-seven series, which shifts to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Thursday. Muncy’s 412-foot drive to center field was the 14th homer of his postseason career, breaking the Dodgers record he had shared with Corey Seager and Justin Turner.

Yamamoto allowed a home run to Jackson Chourio on the first of his 111 pitches but shut down the Brewers the rest of the way. The $325 million right-hander struck out seven and walked one during his first complete game in two major league seasons.

The previous postseason starter to go the distance was Justin Verlander when he tossed a five-hitter with 13 strikeouts for Houston against the New York Yankees in Game 2 of the 2017 ALCS on Oct. 14, 2017 — eight years ago to the day.

Yamamoto’s complete game was the first for Los Angeles since Gavin Stone’s gem on June 26 last year. The last Dodgers pitcher to throw a complete game in the postseason was Jose Lima against St. Louis in Game 3 of their 2004 NL Division Series.

This is the first time since 1970 that both LCS road teams started 2-0. The Seattle Mariners own a 2-0 lead over Toronto in the ALCS heading into Game 3 on Wednesday in Seattle.

Twenty-four of the previous 27 teams that took the first two games on the road in a best-of-seven series with a 2-3-2 format have gone on to win. The three teams to come back after losing Games 1 and 2 at home all came in World Series: the 1985 Kansas City Royals against the St. Louis Cardinals, the 1986 New York Mets against the Boston Red Sox, and the 1996 New York Yankees against the Atlanta Braves.

The Brewers pulled out all the stops Tuesday as they tried to avoid that 2-0 deficit. Former slugger Eric Thames got on the field to exhort fans just before the game and popped open his jersey to reveal his bare chest.

The 21-year-old Chourio then delighted a sellout crowd by sending Yamamoto’s first pitch over the right-center wall for his fourth career postseason homer, tying Orlando Arcia and Prince Fielder for the Brewers record.

That seemed like a foreboding start for Yamamoto, who lasted just two-thirds of an inning in an 8-1 loss the previous time he pitched in Milwaukee. But he bounced back and silenced the Brewers the rest of the way.

The Brewers have five hits in the series. Los Angeles left-hander Blake Snell limited them to one hit and no walks over eight innings during the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory in Game 1.

Los Angeles became the first team to have consecutive postseason starts of at least eight innings in the same series since San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum did it in Games 4 and 5 of the 2010 World Series against Texas.

After Chourio’s homer, Los Angeles wasted no time coming back against Brewers ace Freddy Peralta.

Hernandez, whose baserunning mistake contributed to the Brewers’ unusual 8-6-2 double play in Game 1, sent a 3-2 curve over the left-field wall for his fourth homer of this postseason. Two outs later, Kike Hernandez singled and scored on Andy Pages’ double.

Pages had been 1 for 27 in the postseason before delivering his shot into the right-field corner.

Muncy extended the lead to 3-1 with his two-out homer in the sixth, which came on Peralta’s 97th and final pitch. The Dodgers added two more runs on RBI singles by Shohei Ohtani in the seventh and Tommy Edman in the eighth.

Mariners in driver’s seat

SEATTLE (AP) — With his team holding a 2-0 lead over Toronto in the American League Championship Series after winning twice on the road, Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson wasn’t about to belabor the obvious.

“It’s a very advantageous position,” Wilson said Tuesday. “We’re excited about that. But there’s work to do here.”

That starts with Game 3 on Wednesday in Seattle, where the Mariners can clinch their first AL pennant by winning two of three potential home games. Seattle is the only major league team that’s never reached the World Series. Much went right for the Mariners in Toronto: right-hander Bryce Miller was excellent on short rest in Game 1, and Seattle’s bats sprung to life in Game 2.

Stellar starting pitching and clutch hitting have been hallmarks of this Mariners squad that became just the fourth in franchise history to win the AL West.

Both characteristics have caused difficulty for the Blue Jays, who initially appeared to have the early advantage going into this series considering the Mariners needed to outlast the Detroit Tigers in 15 innings to win their AL Division Series in a 4-hour, 58-minute Game 5 thriller. Rather than arriving sluggish in Toronto, the Mariners came out firing, which hardly surprised Blue Jays reliever Jeff Hoffman.

“I think when teams are kind of up against it like that,” Hoffman said, “where they have had some things that they can’t control kind of happen and it affects their arrival time and all that, it affects their sleep — you do see teams rise to the occasion.”

Now, it’s the Blue Jays’ turn to go against the grain. They will start 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber on Wednesday, then trot out three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer for Game 4 in an effort to reverse the tide.

The Mariners, meanwhile, will turn to right-handers George Kirby and Luis Castillo in Games 3 and 4, both of whom played prominent roles in closing out the ALDS. Even so, Blue Jays manager John Schneider is confident his AL East champions can bounce back.

“I like our chances really any day, anywhere, against anyone,” Schneider said. “I think (the) off day was good for us today to kind of reset. I think the guys are going to come out knowing exactly what they have to do.”

What the Blue Jays have to do, of course, is defy historical precedent. Of the 27 teams that lost the first two games at home in a best-of-seven postseason series with a 2-3-2 format, only three have rallied to win: the 1985 Kansas City Royals, the 1986 New York Mets and the 1996 New York Yankees — all in the World Series.

Hoffman found himself on the wrong side of a comeback in 2023 with the Philadelphia Phillies, as the Arizona Diamondbacks stormed back from an 0-2 deficit to win the NL Championship Series.

“They totally just zeroed out our offense at that time,” Hoffman said. “We were chasing at an unbelievable rate and they used that to their advantage. They didn’t throw us any strikes, and they won those games, and they did what they had to do to get to the World Series.”

The Blue Jays certainly have the disciplined bats to make it a competitive series. Four different Toronto players smacked at least 20 home runs in the regular season. Three of them — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer and Daulton Varsho — have gone deep twice in the postseason.

“The series is not over until it’s over,” Hoffman said. “We’ve just got to go out and play our game and focus on the now and execute our game plan, and we’ll be in a pretty good spot.”

Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo, on the ALCS roster after missing the Division Series against Detroit with pectoral tightness, is eager to make his postseason debut — whenever that may be. Even with Seattle closing in on its first World Series appearance, Woo couldn’t help but second Hoffman’s assessment.

“I think everybody knows that we still have a job to do,” Woo said. “This series is long from over.”