YSU

YSU
Football
YOUNGSTOWN -- The deadline for Penguin Club members, 2006 football season-ticket holders and current YSU students to purchase tickets for the Penn State game is Thursday.
Tickets are $55. For more information, contact the YSU Athletic Ticket Office at (330) 941-1978.
Volleyball
AKRON -- Akron defeated YSU, 30-16, 30-20, 30-25, Wednesday, handing the Penguins their third straight loss.
Freshman Kaitlin O'Hara led the Penguins with 11 kills and three blocks, while setter Karla Everhart had 30 assists.
STEELHOUNDS
Two signed
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Youngstown SteelHounds signed defenseman Stephen Margeson and center Brad Patterson to one-year contracts Wednesday.
Margeson, 24, played for the Memphis RiverKings last season, scoring two goals with three assists and 42 penalty minutes. He missed a large portion of the season due to a broken jaw suffered in late January.
Patterson, 25, has played in the CHL with Colorado, Wichita and New Mexico. He has league career totals of 20 goals, 44 assists and 85 penalty minutes.
LOCAL
Scrappers rained out
AUBURN, N.Y. -- The Mahoning Valley Scrappers' game against the Auburn Doubledays game Wednesday was postponed due to rain and wet playing conditions.
The teams will conclude the New York-Penn League regular season today with a doubleheader, scheduled to start at 5:05 p.m.
Chaney tickets
YOUNGSTOWN -- Chaney High will sell tickets for Friday's football game at Boardman.
Tickets will be sold today from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Chaney gym.
Judge deniesClarett's request
COLUMBUS -- A judge Wednesday denied Maurice Clarett's request for a survey to determine if the former Ohio State tailback can get a fair trial in the city that once cheered him as a star running back.
Clarett's attorneys asked the county to finance a poll to determine if an impartial jury could be seated in Clarett's trial on charges accusing him robbing two people of a cell phone outside a bar early on New Year's Day.
Judge David W. Fais of Franklin County Common Pleas Court said he might be willing to move the trial to a different county if it became clear during juror selection that Clarett could not get a fair trial.
Fais partially granted a request by Clarett's attorneys to see case materials -- including questions posed by a doctor determining Clarett's mental fitness for trial.
Fais ordered the evaluation last month following a separate arrest in which Clarett was caught with four guns after a highway chase on Aug. 9.
The court also asked Clarett and his attorneys to reveal the identity of any alibi witnesses to prosecutors by Sept. 8.
Clarett's trial is scheduled for Sept. 18.
NATION
Marion Jones cleared
The backup drug test for sprinter Marion Jones came back negative, clearing the five-time Olympic medalist of doping allegations that have dogged her for the past month, her attorneys said Wednesday night.
"I am absolutely ecstatic," Jones said in a statement released by her lawyers. "I have always maintained that I have never ever taken performance enhancing drugs, and I am pleased that a scientific process has now demonstrated that fact."
Jones tested positive for the banned endurance enhancer EPO on June 23. She withdrew from a meet in Switzerland hours before reports of the test result were revealed.
The backup, or 'B,' test, conducted at the same UCLA lab using the same sample, came back negative, however, meaning the 30-year-old sprinter has been cleared of any wrongdoing. She faced a minimum two-year ban.
WNBA finals
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Katie Smith scored 22 points, Cheryl Ford had 13 points and 10 rebounds, and the Shock disappointed a Sacramento crowd anticipating a championship celebration with a 72-52 victory in Game 4 Wednesday night, sending the series back to Detroit for the deciding Game 5.
Vindicator staff/wire reports