Jets live up to their name

BELMONT — The Union Local High School Jets are living up to their nickname.

A retired U.S. Air Force F-16 Thunderbird jet arrived at Union Local High School on Thursday and wll be displayed in front of the school after it is rebuilt by a crew from Worldwide Aircraft.

Officials said the Air Force gifted the jet to the state and a dedication will be held in the future.

The Jets nickname was selected by the first graduating class of the consolidated school during the 1959-1960 school year, a mascot symbolizing speed and progress.

It will not be the first high school in Ohio with a jet in the front yard. The Alliance Aviators have had a Navy A-7 Corsair Jet out front along Glamorgan Street since 1991.

Mount Union golfers to nationals

WEST LAFAYETTE — Mount Union won the 2025-26 Ohio Athletic Conference Men’s Golf Championship after the final round at River Greens Golf Course on Sunday afternoon.

Mount Union freshman Jase Libb, a West Branch High School graduate, was the Purple Raiders’ fifth golfer and finished 20th in the 40-golfer field with a three-day total of 9-over-par 225. He shot rounds of 73-72-80.

The Purple Raiders finished with a team score of 871 (294-293-284), which was tied with Otterbein for first place but won the championship after winning the second playoff hole. Mount Union was third entering the final round and trailed by eight strokes before coming back to win their first team championship since 2011.

The Purple Raiders earn the automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Men’s Golf Championship at Mission Resort and Club in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla., on May 12-15.

Bazzana called up by Guardians

CLEVELAND (AP) — Travis Bazzana, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 amateur draft, will be called up by the Cleveland Guardians and could make his major-league debut during Tuesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, a person familiar with the move told The Associated Press on Monday night.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the Guardians have not announced the roster move.

The 23-year-old second baseman is the top prospect in the Guardians’ organization. He is batting .287 with two home runs and 10 RBIs in 24 games for Triple-A Columbus.

Juan Brito, who is expected to be sent down to make away for Bazzana, is batting only .176 in 15 games and has 17 strikeouts in 51 at-bats.

Brito was called up from Columbus on April 7 after Gabriel Arias was placed on the injured list due to a strained left hamstring.

Bazzana showed his potential during the recent World Baseball Classic, when he had two hits and a home run for Australia in its 3-0 win over Chinese Taipei.

Bazzana missed two months last season due to an oblique strain. He had a .239 batting average with nine home runs, 39 RBIs and 12 stolen bases with Double-A Akron and Columbus.

Draft first round averages 13.2 million viewers

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The first round of the NFL draft averaged 13.2 million viewers across television and digital platforms, according to the league and Nielsen.

It was the third-most watched first round on record, behind 2020’s audience of 15.5 million and last year’s 13.6 million.

The draft was televised on ESPN, NFL Network, ABC and ESPN Deportes as well as streaming on the ESPN app, Disney+, Hulu, NFL+ and YouTube.

The league also said there was record attendance of 805,000 in Pittsburgh across the three days of the draft, including a record 320,000 for Thursday’s first round.

Crosby delivers for Penguins

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The sequence might as well have served as a metaphor of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ season.

There was Sidney Crosby, his left knee throbbing after absorbing a blistering shot from the point by teammate Ryan Shea, limping off the ice and disappearing down the tunnel in the second period of Game 5 on Monday night against Philadelphia.

A few minutes later, with the Penguins’ longtime captain still out of sight, the Flyers tied it. Suddenly, a contest Pittsburgh had controlled for significant stretches was gone. The young Flyers, many of them experiencing the cauldron of playoff hockey for the first time, were surging. A quick playoff exit for a team that spent six months defying expectations loomed.

And just like that, Crosby’s familiar No. 87 returned to the bench. And just like that, he was over the boards and on the ice. And just like that, he was finishing off a shift by flipping the puck to Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang at the top of the Flyers’ zone.

Crosby’s back was to the play when Letang’s somewhat innocent shot from the point sailed wide of the Philadelphia net. Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar kept his eyes forward, expecting a big rebound. It never came.

The puck instead glanced off the back of Vladar’s left leg, then his right and trickled across the goal line to provide the goal that turned out to be the game-winner as Pittsburgh fended off elimination and forced maybe more than a little doubt into the mind of the Flyers, whose once-comfortable 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series no longer feels quite so comfortable after Pittsburgh’s 3-2 victory.

Game 6 is in Philadelphia on Wednesday, and the Penguins will head across the state not only with momentum, but also with their unquestioned leader starting to look like his old self after an uncommonly quiet start.

Save for his brief retreat to the trainer’s room, Crosby was everywhere. He assisted on Connor Dewar’s goal in the second period, got another primary assist on Letang’s second goal in as many games and nearly added a goal himself when his diving flick toward the Flyers’ open net in the final minutes clanged off the left post.

So much for looking every bit of 38. Monday night was vintage Crosby.

“When things get hard and your back is against the wall, there is no doubt in my mind that he’s going to lead the charge in terms of elevating and finding a way to do everything possible to help us win this game,” first-year Penguins coach Dan Muse said.

Crosby has 21 points in 24 games in his career when facing elimination. His 100th career playoff victory looked an awful lot like the 99 that came before it, with Crosby doing a little bit of everything, including taking a wallop off his left knee, then returning a few minutes later as if nothing happened.

“I feel good,” he said. “I mean, that’s stuff that happens sometimes and you try to go to the front of the net and it’s just one of those ones that found its way. Sometimes they hit you, sometimes they go by.”

Crosby absorbed a direct hit, albeit from friendly fire, and bounced back immediately. It’s been that way all season for the Penguins, whose surprising season has been marked by righting themselves just when it looked like things were about to get sideways.

What they’re trying to pull off now would trump everything that came before it by a wide margin. The odds remain slim — only four teams have ever rallied after losing the first three games of a series — but they’re not as slim as they were when the puck dropped for Game 4.

Crosby will take it. So will his team.

“I think the last couple games we found our stride a bit,” he said. “We should feel good about that … we’re playing good hockey and we’ve got to go in there and find a way to win again.”

Oak Glen wins three events

WELLSBURG, W.Va. — The Oak Glen track team captured three first places in the Brooke Relays on Friday.

Oak Glen’s Lacey Cameron won the girls 1600-meter run (2:32.83) at Brooke Memorial Stadium.

Two Oak Glen boys won field events — Orien Bone the shot put (53-feet-5) and Logan Murray the long jump (21-feet-11).

Seven schools competed.