LOCAL
LOCAL
Mooney-Fitchgirls basketball
AUSTINTOWN -- Today's varsity girls basketball game between Mooney and Fitch is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. The junior varsity game is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
Ursuline changesbasketball date
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Cleveland South-Ursuline High boys basketball game scheduled for Feb. 17 has been changed to Friday. The junior varsity game will tip off at 6 p.m. in the Ursuline gymnasium.
NATION
Missouri football teamfighting illness
EL PASO, Texas -- The cold and flu season is something Missouri probably thought it was escaping when it left for the Sun Bowl just before Christmas.
Instead, the bug might have followed the Tigers. More than 20 players were held out of practice Tuesday, with only three days to go before their game against Oregon State. No starters appeared to be affected on a warm day, although coach Gary Pinkel said some of his assistant coaches were hurting.
"It was unhealthy," Pinkel said. "We had coaches out, we had players out. I've never been through anything like this before."
Players said the same thing.
"I didn't really realize it until this morning when I walked into the training room and Rex (Missouri sports medicine director Rex Sharp) said the list was so long he was forgetting people's names," tight end Martin Rucker said. "Then I came out here and there was nobody at practice."
Missouri (8-4) and Oregon State (9-4) are practicing on well-appointed high school fields about a half-hour drive apart on Interstate 10. But they were together at a dinner function Monday and were scheduled to appear together again at the Sun Bowl barbecue dinner Tuesday night.
Oregon State hasn't had any widespread sickness problems. After hearing of Missouri's woes, coach Mike Riley gave his team some sage advice.
"I told them to stay away from those guys tonight," Riley said. "That's the last thing you need at this stage. That's not good."
Pinkel, who has led Missouri (8-4) to its third bowl in four seasons, appeared confident the bug would be short-term. That would be good news for wide receivers coach Andy Hill and tight ends coach Bruce Walker, both of whom had to sprint off the field for unscheduled pit stops during practice. Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus's 14-month-old daughter spent time in the hospital Monday night receiving IV fluids for dehydration.
Pinkel said he was not ill.
"Not yet, I'm not," he said. "I'd better not."
Just in case he took steps to avoid a similar fate, getting a flu shot and buying "everything I could to stick in my body so I wouldn't get sick."
Missouri players said it will not be a distraction.
"The show must go on," tight end Martin Rucker said. "That's what you do, and you've got to get used to it, because in the game you still may be sick and you've just got to go."
His strategy for avoiding the bug: "I don't eat anybody's eggs by my mom's," Rucker said. "Whenever you walk up to somebody, you say, 'Are you sick?' If they say yes, then you walk away."
Quarterback Chase Daniel, who was feeling fine, said despite the situation Missouri seems to be peaking for the game.
"Overall, we've had two of the best practices of the year, in my mind," Daniel said. "So we just need to keep going, fight through the sickness and hopefully get better by gametime."
WORLD
Injured sailors flown out by helicopter
SYDNEY, Australia -- Three injured sailors were airlifted by helicopter from maxi yacht Maximus and another crew abandoned their sinking vessel Wednesday in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Six crew members were injured on Maximus when it was dismasted in heavy seas and 30 knot winds overnight and three of them were evacuated to a hospital in Canberra.
A spokeswoman for the helicopter rescue service said the crew members had chest, pelvic and back injuries.
ABN Amro, winner of the Volvo Ocean Race, was also dismasted and was among the seven yachts that have already retired from the annual race. Both Maximus and ABN Amro had been leading at stages overnight.
Eight crew members had to be rescued from a life raft after sending out a distress call when 1968 Sydney-Hobart winner Koomooloo started sinking about 60 nautical miles off the coast.
Two helicopters were sent out to the site and helped the crew of Adventure, a race entrant from Britain, take the sailors onboard. Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Commodore Geoff Lavis said the Koomooloo crew could not find where the water was getting into the hull and sinking it was the safest option.
Vindicator staff/wire reports