OAC award for Mercer

ALLIANCE — Mount Union senior Sydney Mercer has been named the Ohio Athletic Conference Hitter of the Week.

Mercer — a West Branch High School graduate — helped lead the Purple Raiders to an 8-4 record during their spring break trip to South Commons Softball Complex in Columbus, Georgia, including wins over No. 24 Belhaven, No. 13 Emory and No. 7 East Texas Baptist. She finished the week with a .400 batting average and a .550 slugging percentage, with four doubles, a triple and seven RBIs. Mercer also broke a pair of school records last week, becoming the new career leader for both runs and RBIs.

This is the first time this season and the third time in her career that Mercer has won the OAC award.

Geiss races at nationals

BOSTON — Heartland Christian senior Rebecca Geiss finished 98th out of 170 high school girls finishers in the New Balance Indoor Nationals on Friday.

Geiss ran 10:58.73 in the championship 2-mile high school race at the TRACK, which featured six of the eight fastest high school times in the nation this season.

Geiss has placed three times in the 3,200-meter run at the state meet, including a runner-up finish in 2023.

Teays Valley (Ohio) senior and Indiana University signee Katy Zang won with a meet-record time of 9:37.15. She broke the national high school indoor record of 9:38.68 set by Mary Cain in 2013. Cain set that mark in a pro field and finished third.

Zang has had a rapid rise. A week earlier, she became the first Ohio girl to break 10 minutes in the 3200 meters by winning the Ohio high school state indoor meet in 9:42.84, surpassing her previous best by 35 seconds.

Zang followed up Friday’s record race by winning the championship girls mile on Sunday in 4:35.02, the sixth fastest indoor mile in high school history.

Last June, Zang was fifth in the Ohio Division I 3200 meters (10:37.59). She placed 30th at the Division I state cross country meet (18.58.57) in November.

Big week in Dayton

DAYTON — A hectic 11-day schedule continues this week at the University of Dayton Arena.

The arena is hosting the Ohio High School Athletic Association girls and boys state championship games along with the NCAA First Four games.

The NCAA First Four opens tonight with Howard vs. UMBC and NC State vs. Texas and continues Wednesday with Lehigh vs. Prairie View and Southern Methodist vs. Miami (Ohio).

The arena will host two Ohio boys state semifinals on Thursday and two more on Friday and all seven state championship games from Friday through Sunday.

The Ohio girls state tournament also was held at the arena last week with four state semifinal games and all seven state championship finals.

YSU women get WNIT bye

YOUNGSTOWN — After posting one of its best seasons in the last two decades, the Youngstown State women’s basketball team’s 2025-26 campaign will continue in the Postseason WNIT.

The 48-team field for the Postseason WNIT was announced on Sunday night, and the bracket was released on Monday. Youngstown State earned a first-round bye, and it will play the winner between Wake Forest and Maryland Eastern Shore in the second round. The date, time and location for the second-round game have not been announced. The first-round contest between the Demon Deacons and the Hawks will be played at 6 p.m. Thursday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Youngstown State earned the Horizon League’s automatic bid as the conference’s top team that was not selected for the NCAA Tournament or WBIT. This is Youngstown State’s fifth appearance all-time in the WNIT, following previous bids in 2012-13, 2014-15, 2018-19 and 2021-22.

With the WBIT run by the NCAA, the independently run WNIT is a third-tier postseason tournament. Home sites are determined by which teams bid the most.

The Penguins are 24-9 this season, and they finished as the runner-up in the Horizon League tournament for the first time in program history.

Wolverine was offered more

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Yaxel Lendeborg has made more money than he ever dreamed was possible entering March Madness, allowing him to pay his mother’s bills and buy her a new ride.

Lendeborg, though, could be even richer.

Michigan’s 6-foot-9, 240-pound point forward was the top prospect in the transfer portal last year and Kentucky was prepared to make him the highest-paid player in college basketball.

“They started the number with $7 (million) to $9 (million),” Lendeborg said in an interview with The Associated Press. “They were pretty much going off on the route like we’ll pay him anything to get here.”

Instead, he chose to play for Dusty May and the Wolverines even though the former UAB star said he would have earned about three times more money if he suited up for Mark Pope and the Wildcats.

“I was raised without it and I went my whole life without it,” Lendeborg said. “Anything was going to make me super, super happy at the time.

“I was thinking long term. What if I mess up my career because I chased the money instead of a future? Another big reason why I went with Dusty was he didn’t talk about money at all. It was all about making me better and helping me achieve my goals.”

It has certainly worked out so far for him — and Michigan.

He was named the Big Ten Player of the Year as the top player for the one-seeded Wolverines, who will open the NCAA Tournament on Thursday and have a shot to end it with the school’s second national championship and first since 1989.

Matta calls it a career

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Longtime college basketball coach Thad Matta announced Monday he is retiring after a career that included 13 NCAA Tournaments and a national title game appearance with Ohio State.

Matta spent the past four seasons at Butler, his second stint at the helm of his alma mater. The Bulldogs suffered a season-ending 91-81 loss to Providence in the Big East Tournament.

Matta, 58, will remain on staff as a special counselor to President Jim Danko and athletic director Grant Leiendecker. Butler officials said they have begun searching for his successor.

“The love my wife, my daughters and I have for Butler is what brought us back four years ago, and it feels especially meaningful that I conclude my coaching career here,” he said in a statement. “Butler has always meant more to us than just basketball — and that connection is why I’m grateful to continue working with the university and offering my help in any way I can. I want this program to compete at the highest levels of the Big East and national landscape, and I am excited to be part of what we continue to build here.”

Matta finishes his head coaching career with a 502-223 record, winning eight conference regular-season titles at three different stops — Butler, Xavier and Ohio State. He led the Buckeyes to two Final Fours, losing to Florida in the 2007 title game. He is Ohio State’s winningest coach, compiling 337 wins over 13 seasons.

He was named the 2000-01 Midwestern Collegiate Conference Coach of the Year in his first season at Butler. The Bulldogs went 24-8 that season, breaking the school’s single season record for victories and winning the program’s first NCAA Tournament game since 1962.

Matta went 63-69 in his second tenure with Butler, compiling a 39-55 mark in league play. He couldn’t guide Butler back to the NCAA Tournament in this new era of college sports.

Instead, the Bulldogs settled for playing in the NIT following his only winning season (18-15) in 2023-24 and reached the quarterfinals of last year’s College Basketball Crown tournament.

Butler has struggled to keep up with NIL and the transfer portal in an increasingly stronger Big East. Matta couldn’t recreate the script that thrust the program into national prominence more than two decades earlier — relying on overachieving post players, consistent 3-point shooters and player development over multiple seasons.

Matta was selected as Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year once during his three-year tenure at Xavier and three times was named Big Ten Coach of the Year with the Buckeyes. In June 2017, he left Ohio State because of health reasons. He returned to the college circuit when he joined coach Mike Woodson’s staff at Indiana in 2021-22 before returning to the sideline at Butler.

Before becoming a head coach, Matta also served twice as an assistant coach with the Bulldogs. The Illinois prep star began his college career at Southern Illinois but eventually transferred to Butler, where he became a two-year starter and found a home he could always return to.

“Thad has made the thoughtful decision, together with his family, to step away from coaching and begin a new chapter in his remarkable career,” Danko said. “He has built a Hall of Fame-worthy legacy in college basketball and has been a valued member of our campus community since he first arrived at Butler as a student-athlete in the 1980s. Butler has always been a special part of his story, and we are grateful that he chose to return and finish his coaching career where it all began.”

Guardians say Ramirez feels better

GOODYEAR, Ariz. (AP) — Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez was feeling much better Monday after the seven-time All-Star left a spring training game the previous day because of a sore shoulder, according to manager Stephen Vogt.

“We’re going to reassess him day by day. He should be just fine in a few days,” Vogt said Monday. “He knows himself really well. … He came up from the on-deck circle and said, ‘I’m done.’ And that was really all I heard until later in the game.”

After Sunday’s game, Vogt said Ramirez had a sore left shoulder after jamming it while sliding into third for a stolen base. That came in the second inning after his double, and he was lifted for a pinch hitter in the fourth.

The 33-year-old Ramirez has played his entire 13-year career in Cleveland and is a lifetime .279 hitter with 285 home runs and 949 RBIs in 1,609 games. The $175 million, seven-year contract he signed during the offseason is the largest in franchise history.

Ramirez finished third in AL MVP voting last season after batting .283 with 30 homers and 85 RBIs.

USA faces Venezuela tonight for WBC title

MIAMI (AP) — Ronald Acuna Jr., Maikel Garcia and Luis Arraez hit run-scoring, two-out singles in a seventh-inning rally that led Venezuela over Italy 4-2 on Monday night and into its first World Baseball Classic championship game.

Venezuela overcame a 2-0, fourth-inning deficit after rebounding from a three-run hole to beat defending champion Japan in a quarterfinal and reached the final for the first time after losing to South Korea in its only previous semifinal appearance in 2009.

It meets the United States for the title on Tuesday night and appears likely to start Eduardo Rodriguez against the Americans’ Nolan McLean. Because both teams are 5-1, a coin toss was held earlier Monday to determine the home team, and the U.S. won.

Italy, the first European nation to reach a WBC semifinal, had been 5-0 in the tournament and sparked attention with an espresso-sipping ritual after home runs and victory celebrations featuring Italian wine.

But a team with three Italy-born players, a handful of major leaguers and many from the minors couldn’t hold a late-inning lead against a batting order that got three straight RBIs from All-Stars as a pro-Venezuelan sellout crowd at loanDepot park roared.

Italy went ahead in the second when Keider Montero forced in a run with three straight walks, the last to J.J. D’Orazio. Dante Nori hit into a run-scoring forceout against Ricardo Sanchez, the first of six relievers who combined to finish a five-hitter.

Eugenio Suarez’s fourth-inning homer off Aaron Nola started the comeback, and winner Angel Zerpa escaped a bases-loaded jam in the sixth when he threw a sinker on the outside corner past Sam Antonacci.

Gleyber Torres walked leading off the seventh against loser Michael Lorenzen, and Jackson Chourio’s two-out single put runners at the corners.

Acuna grounded to the shortstop hole and beat Antonacci’s throw from the outfield grass as pinch-runner Andres Gimenez scored. Garcia lined a 2-0 fastball to left, driving in Chourio with the go-ahead run, and Arraez chased Lorenzen when he singled on a full-count fastball.

Daniel Palencia got three outs for the save, striking out Antonacci to end the game.