West Branch grads meet at Glass Bowl

TOLEDO — It was a battle of West Branch graduates as Kent State quarterback Dru DeShields took on head coach Jason Candle’s Toledo football team Saturday.

DeShields got the early advantage by throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass to Cade Wolford on the first play of the game and a field goal two drives later gave the Golden Flashes a 10-0 lead.

But the Rockets responded with 45 straight points for a 45-10 win in front of 18,417 fans at the Glass Bowl.

Tucker Gleason threw a career-high four touchdown passes, Trayvon Rudolph caught one and had 119 yards receiving, and Kenji Christian rushed for 113 yards to lead Toledo. Gleason was 21-of-28 passing for 294 yards, distributing each score to a different receiver.

The Rockets had a 552-224 advantage in total yardage, shutting down the Golden Flashes after the first quarter.

DeShields finished 12-of-24 passing for 159 yards with one interception and was sacked sacked twice.

Both teams play Saturday as Kent State (2-5, 1-2 MAC) hosts Bowling Green and Toledo (4-2, 2-2 MAC) travels to Washington State.

Brungard piles up 528 yards, five TDs

NORMAL, Ill. (AP) — Beau Brungard accounted for five touchdowns and a school-record 528 yards of total offense to lead Youngstown State to 40-35 upset, shootout win over Illinois State on Saturday.

Brungard was 23-of-34 passing for 328 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, with another 200 yards and three rushing scores on 30 carries. He entered fourth in the FCS averaging 121.2 yards rushing and tied for sixth in rushing touchdowns with nine.

After Brungard’s 2-yard rushing score in the second quarter, Tommy Rittenhouse threw touchdown passes on three consecutive drives for the FCS No. 9 Redbirds (4-3, 1-2 Missouri Valley Football Conference).

Rittenhouse was 16 of 29 for 206 yards passing with five touchdowns and two interceptions. Wenkers Wright caught two touchdown passes.

Both of Rittenhouse’s interceptions led to scores for the Penguins. Brungard’s lone interception resulted in a touchdown for the Redbirds at the end of the first half.

The win gives the Penguins (4-3, 1-2) a 17-16 lead in the series.

Youngstown State will host Murray State at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Big second half for Mount Union

TIFFIN — The second-ranked Mount Union football team came out after halftime with a vengeance, scoring 24 unanswered points for a 38-6 win over Heidelberg at Hoernemann Stadium on Saturday.

Mount Union led 14-6 halftime before sophomore Kayden Minner scored three touchdowns in the third quarter — on a 5-yard reception, a 15-yard run and a 29-yard run — for a 35-6 lead.

Minner ran for 104 yards on 12 carries and had the touchdown catch was his first career reception.

Freshman quarterback Mikey Maloney finished 16-for-23 passing for 223 yards and two touchdowns. He had his streak of 126 passes without an interception snapped.

Senior cornerback Kosta Thrasivoulou made two interceptions, the most by a Raider in a game since Brandon Yanssens had two picks against Muskingum in 2023.

Mount Union scored twice in the opening 12 minutes on Darnell Williams’ 4-yard run and tight end Wyatt Stiehl’s 1-yard reception.

The Purple Raiders had more yards rushing (204-117) and total yards (427-255).

The Purple Raiders remained undefeated at 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Heidelberg drops to 3-3 and 2-2 in the OAC.

Mount Union will host Ohio Northern at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Briscoe will race for NASCAR championship

TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) — Joe Gibbs Racing was facing an internal mutiny just a month ago when two of its championship-eligible drivers didn’t feel the team owner’s grandson was helping his teammates try to win the Cup title.

Ty Gibbs, grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, raced both Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin hard early in the playoff race at New Hampshire. Gibbs wasn’t eligible for the championship, Hamlin grew frustrated at being held up by his teammate, so he wrecked Gibbs out of his way.

It led to organizational discussions as to what Joe Gibbs expected out of his four drivers the remainder of the playoffs. The payoff came Sunday when Ty Gibbs pushed Chase Briscoe in overtime to the win at Talladega Superspeedway to give JGR two spots in NASCAR’s championship race.

Briscoe is in the winner-take-all finale alongside teammate Hamlin as Toyota claimed the first two of the four berths with one race remaining to set the championship field.

“Ty Gibbs, just incredible teammate there. I mean, I honestly would not have won that race without Ty,” Briscoe said. “This is an amazing team effort. I can’t believe I won a superspeedway race. I haven’t done it at any level.”

Team owner Gibbs, a three-time Super Bowl winning coach and NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner, praised his grandson for getting Briscoe into victory lane. He also explained the intricacies of fielding four separate teams under one banner.

“It’s such a competitive world. I’m kind of used to it in football. You get it,” Joe Gibbs said. “But over here, we got four teams, and the challenge is always trying to get them to work together. If you think about it, each driver has got their own career. They got their own sponsor and it just becomes extremely competitive.

“So sometimes you wind up with issues like that. It’s part of part of sports. Guys are, you know, very competitive and want to make it happen. And so at different times, you may have issues that you got to deal with.”

Briscoe, who raced to his first career superspeedway victory, is in his first season driving for Gibbs. He landed there as Martin Truex Jr.’s replacement when Truex retired and Stewart-Haas Racing shuttered at the end of last year.

He’s now going to race for the Cup title for the first time.

“Ty was the whole reason I won the race, he was extremely committed to me,” Briscoe said. “When I made a move, Ty went with me. He was just really selfless in the fact of he’s going for his first career win and could have easily tried to make a move or done something different. But he just pushed me to the win and just an incredible team effort.”

Briscoe was sixth on the restart — a two-lap sprint in overtime to the finish — and Hendrick Motorsports drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson split the front row and lined up side-by-side for the Chevrolet drivers to control the race.

Byron was getting help from behind from fellow Chevrolet driver Carson Hocevar, a driver for Hendrick aligned Spire Motorsports. Larson’s push was from Toyota driver Bubba Wallace, who did get Larson into the lead.

But Larson appeared to run out of fuel and dropped dramatically off the pace and Daytona 500 winner Byron, who is in danger of playoff elimination, lost his chance at victory when his push from Hocevar was too strong and it caused Byron to spin.

Briscoe, meanwhile, had no problems. He was committed to pushing Wallace, who is not in the playoff picture, to win to preserve the point standings but instead got a boost from Gibbs.

There are two open spots left in the championship field to be determined next week in the finale of the third round of the playoffs. Bell and Larson are above the elimination line but neither is all that comfortable.

“I’d rather have a bigger points cushion heading into next weekend, but we’ll regroup and focus on Martinsville,” said Larson, who is now mired in a 22-race losing streak dating to May.

Bell is 37 points above the cutline, only one point ahead of Larson, while Byron, Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott, and Team Penske drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are below the cutline.

“Plus 37 seems really good, but you expect a winner from the bottom four, even myself, any of the five of us can win Martinsville,” Bell said. “So plus 37 turns into plus one whenever you have a new winner and it’s going to be a battle all day at Martinsville.”

Logano and Blaney have combined to win the last three Cup titles for Penske.

The race went to overtime when Chris Buescher was leading with two laps to go and he was spun from behind by Byron, who was shoved into Buescher by Hocevar. Buescher spun across the front of the pack and slammed hard into an inside wall in a one-car crash that sent the race to overtime.

Todd Gilliland finished a career-best second in a Ford for Front Row Motorsports — the team that alongside Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing is headed to mediation Tuesday in a federal antitrust suit — and Gibbs was third. Wallace, who drives for 23XI, was fourth.

Elliott in early crash

Elliott’s chances to advance into the final four took a hit when NASCAR’s most popular driver was collected in the first crash of the race.

Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR champion, was already below the cutline for elimination when he was caught in an early eight-car crash 52 laps into the race. It sent the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the garage for repairs and dropped Elliott to last in the 40-car field.

Elliott now goes to Martinsville Speedway in a must-win situation to advance to the title-deciding finale at Phoenix for the first time since 2022.

“It is what it is, I can’t change it now,” Elliott said. “Just all eyes on Martinsville and try to go up there and get a win.”

Elliott won Martinsville once before, in 2020, when he parlayed the victory into his only Cup title.

Up next

The final race to set the championship four, next Sunday at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, where Blaney won last year to advance to the title deciding playoff finale.