Sports Digest: Swenson keys baseball win over Butler

ysu

Swenson keys baseball win over Butler

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Youngstown State sophomore pitcher Aaron Swenson tossed a complete game and scattered eight hits over nine innings to lead the Penguins to a 2-1 victory over Butler in the second game of a Horizon League doubleheader Saturday.

The Penguins lost the opening game of the twinbill 4-1.

Swenson, who didn’t walk a batter and struckout four, allowed the Bulldogs a single run in the first inning and then blanked them the rest of the way.

YSU scored both of its runs in the eighth inning.

Freshman David Leon singled home one run and senior Sean Lucas followed with an RBI double.

The Penguins were out hit 8-to-5.

In the opener the Penguins managed just three hits off Butler starter Ryan Eruszka, who went seven innings and could get nothing at all off reliever Joe Oche, who pitched the final two frames.

Butler built a 3-0 lead off senior starter Chuck Schiffhauer, who allowed eight hits in five innings.

Corey Vukovic allowed just one hit the rest of the way for YSU.

Joe Pauley had three hits, including two doubles for Butler (3-11, 2-1 Horizon).

YSU (4-12, 1-2) is scheduled to open its home schedule Tuesday at Cene Park at 3 p.m. against Indiana Univ. od Pa.

Softball loses pair in Miami tournament

OXFORD — The YSU bats came alive with 11 hits, but seven errors led to 11 unearned runs as the Penguins softball team (0-9) dropped a 14-9 decision to Toledo at the Best Western Miami Invitational.

The Penguins also lost to Miami, 4-1 in the tournament.

With the Toledo game tied, 2-2, after two-and-a-half innings, the Rockets scored eight runs on four Penguin errors in the bottom half of the third inning to take a 10-2 lead.

The Penguins plated seven runs in the top of the fifth to cut the deficit to one, 10-9.

Freshman Katy Potokar and senior McKenzie Bedra hit back-to-back home runs to begin the rally.

Sophomore Autumn Grove’s bases-loaded two-run single plated Kim Klonowski and Kristen McDonnell to cut the lead to 10-6.

Potokar’s two-out, base-loaded single scored Bethany Hafley to make the score, 10-7.

Grove and Becky Hibner also scored to bring YSU within one.

Toledo, though, scored one in the bottom of the fifth and three more unearned runs in the bottom of the sixth to put the game away.

In the opener against Miami, freshman Rochelle Vanyi went 2-for-4 and belted her third home run of the season in the 4-1 loss.

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Curbstone Coaches

BOARDMAN — The Curbstone Coaches Association takes on a seasonal flavor Monday when its noon luncheon will feature an Internal Revenue Service official.

James Glenn will be a guest of the Curbstoners and will speak on cases involving testimony and investigation of tax fraud in the sports world.

The luncheons are open to the public.

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Van Pelt in control

RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico — Bo Van Pelt understands many careers could be changed forever today, including his own.

Van Pelt maintained his one-stroke lead at the Puerto Rico Open, heading a leaderboard of players old and young searching for that breakthrough PGA Tour win or battling to regain past success.

Van Pelt, at 32, is among the former.

He’s earned better than $1.3 million on tour each of the past few season but has never won.

He shot a 71 at Trump International Golf Club on Saturday to move to 13 under.

Right behind him were 43-year-old Greg Kraft (69), who’s only win came in 1993, and 35-year-old Briny Baird (69), who’s never done better than second.

Another stroke behind were Brenden Pappas and Jerry Kelly.

Pappas has never won on tour, while Kelly’s two career victories came in 2002.

Wimmer is winner

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. — Scott Wimmer passed Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer with 21 laps to go and held on to win the Nationwide Series’ Pepsi 300 on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway.

The Childress cars took the top two spots, six days after the team swept the top three positions in the Sprint Cup series race at Bristol.

Wimmer edged Bowyer by 0.578 seconds for his sixth victory in 149 Nationwide Series starts and first since 2003. Carl Edwards was third, followed by Brad Keselowski and Kelly Bires. Bowyer took the series points lead from Kevin Harvick, the fellow Childress Sprint Cup driver who skipped the Nashville race.

“I felt like we let three or four races get away from us last year, including this one, so it was nice to get the job done today,” Wimmer said.

Kyle Busch started on the pole and was the class of the field, leading a race-high 125 laps before spinning out with 62 laps left. The Sprint Cup points leader grazed Bowyer, who was passing on the inside, and was forced to pit for repairs. Busch finished 16th.

“It was just driver error,” Busch said. “I just messed up and lost it. I’m sure it’s going to bother me all week.”

It was the first stand-alone Nationwide race of the year and Wimmer became the first non-Sprint Cup regular to win in the series.

“I’ve raced in the Sprint Cup Series but not a lot lately,” Wimmer said. “Sitting down and running a partial Nationwide schedule is not what I want to be doing, but those are the cards that are dealt to me now and I’m with a great team.”

The race extended a streak for Bowyer and ended one for Edwards. Bowyer finished second for the fourth consecutive time at Nashville, while Edwards’ three-race winning streak on the 1.3-mile oval came to an end.

Adriano wins Grade 2 Lane’s End Stakes

FLORENCE, Ky. — Adriano, an A.P. Indy colt trained by Graham Motion, raced to the biggest win of his career Saturday, winning the $500,000 Lane’s End Stakes at Turfway Park after taking control at the top of the stretch. Jockey Edgar Prado put Adriano in contention going into the far turn, after running in mid-pack, then held off challengers down the lane to win without urging.

Adriano finished 21‚Ñ2 lengths ahead of Halo Najib. Medjool was third.

Adriano ran 1 1-8 miles in 1:50.20 — nearly 2 seconds off the track record on Turfway’s Polytrack synthetic surface.

Adriano paid $11.60, $6.40 and $4.60. Halo Najib returned $5.40 and $4, and Medjool paid $4.80 to show.

Vindicator staff/wire reports