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CLIPPERS’ FIRST GAME
COLUMBIANA -- The first game on the new artificial turf field at the Ward Athletic Complex behind Columbiana High School will be held Tuesday.
The Columbiana girls soccer team will host Indian Creek at 5 p.m. A ribbon cutting will be held prior at 4:45 p.m.
The field also hosts junior high football games.
Work is beginning on the new Columbiana baseball and softball full turf fields on each end of the soccer field.
WARRIORS SWEPT
BELOIT -- The West Branch girls tennis team took only one set from Warren JFK in a 5-0 loss Wednesday.
The Warriors (2-4) will host Louisville on Sept. 2.
FIRST SINGLES: Emily Sweeney (JFK) def. Cailyn Brink, 6-0, 6-1.
SECOND SINGLES: Ella Economos (JFK) def. Sydney Lane, 4-6, 6-0, 10-8.
THIRD SINGLES: Emily Poppada (JFK) def. Leah Irey, 6-0, 6-3.
FIRST DOUBLES: Sophia Natale-Lillian Natale (JFK) def. Addison Bloor-Leah Barnett, 6-0, 6-0.
SECOND DOUBLES: Ellie Niemi-Julia Anderson (JFK) Ava Cope-Sophia Hall, 7-5, 7-5.
FANS HAVE FEVER
CHICAGO (AP) -- The Indiana Fever-Chicago Sky game Sunday averaged 3.31 million viewers on NBC and Peacock to make it the most-watched regular-season WNBA game since the league’s inaugural season in 1997.
It also was the third-most watched regular-season game ever and peaked at 3.82 million viewers. That is behind only the June 21-22, 1997 opening weekend games that featured the New York Liberty-Los Angeles Sparks (5.04 million) and Charlotte Sting-Phoenix Mercury (3.59 million), also both on NBC.
Caitlin Clark and the Fever continue to be the league’s top draw. They also have set all-time viewing records this season for games on CBS, ESPN and Amazon Prime Video.
Against the Sky, Clark made a career-high eight 3-pointers and scored 37 points in the Fever’s 113-90 victory. Teammate Kelsey Mitchell added 30.
NO FREEDOM
CHICAGO (AP) -- The Chicago Sky have banned Enes Kanter Freedom from their home games after the former NBA center was ejected from Sunday’s loss to the Indiana Fever.
Owner Michael Alter made the announcement in a rare news conference Tuesday. Alter told reporters Freedom is not allowed inside of Wintrust Arena for Sky games “unless sometime in the future he’s able to prove to us to our satisfaction that he is able to abide by our rules without being a potential threat.”
The 6-foot-10, 250-pound Freedom was removed from Sunday’s game after he was confronted by Sky guard Natasha Cloud late in the third quarter.
Freedom was sitting along the baseline wearing a black shirt that read “WOMAN noun. adult human female.”
DANGER, DANGER!
BEIJING (AP) -- A robot sprinter broke another 100-meter record on Wednesday at a showcase of China’s growing technological prowess.
The record ended China’s five-day World Humanoid Robot Games, in its second year in Beijing, in which more than 2,000 humanoid robots competed in Olympics-style events including soccer, boxing and running.
The winning robot finished the 100 meters in 8.64 seconds, breaking a record for the second straight day. A robot ran 8.86 seconds Tuesday, after another clocked 9.39 seconds four days earlier -- all at the Games.
For comparison, the men’s 100-meter world record is 9.58 seconds, set by Usain Bolt in 2009.
Robots also competed in real-world tasks, including housework, hotel services and emergency response.
TARPS OFF
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- California is taking the tarps off the seats in the south end zone of Memorial Stadium and is trending toward having its biggest home crowd in nearly a decade for its season opener against UCLA.
First-year coach Tosh Lupoi personally removed the tarps in a social media video released by the school Tuesday, and the school plans to keep them off all season. Tickets are already being sold for those sections for the entire home schedule, and Cal is expecting a sellout for the first game against the Bruins on Sept. 5.
The tarps have been up for several seasons as Cal has struggled to fill its home stadium, averaging less than 35,000 fans per home game last season under coach Justin Wilcox. That was down from more than 39,000 fans per game in 2024, when the home schedule featured premium games against Miami and Stanford that drew sellouts of 52,428.
Removing the tarps would add a few thousand seats for the opener. Cal has topped 60,000 fans just four times since the remodeled stadium reopened in 2012.
GOLFER SUSPENDED
(AP) -- Matt Gogel has been suspended for six months for betting on golf. The PGA Tour said Wednesday none of the wagers were for tournaments he was playing.
Gogel, whose best finish on the PGA Tour Champions this year was a runner-up in the Senior British Open, will be eligible to return on Feb. 22, 2027.
Gogel, 55, called it an honest mistake.
“In 2024 and 2025, I unknowingly violated the PGA Tour policy by placing small, recreational wagers on golf,” Gogel said in a statement provided by the tour. “I want to be clear that these wagers were not placed on regular PGA Tour events, PGA Tour Champions events or any tournament in which I participated.”
The tour did not disclose details of his violation, though his statement would indicate the wagers involved major championships.
Gogel, who grew up in Kansas, was best known on the PGA Tour for shooting 40 on the back nine in 2000 when Tiger Woods overcame a seven-shot deficit in the final seven holes at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for his sixth straight victory.
Gogel atoned for that two years later by winning at Pebble Beach, his lone PGA Tour title.