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Buckeyes promote Siciliano to QB coach

COLUMBUS — The Ohio State University football program has promoted Fitch High graduate Nick Siciliano to assistant coach working with quarterbacks.

A 1999 Youngstown State graduate who has been on the football staffs at YSU, Oklahoma, Urbana and North Carolina A&T, Siciliano has been a part of the Buckeyes program since 2005, serving in the offensive quality control role.

Stewart, Johnson win at Sharon

HARTFORD — Sprint Cup driver Tony Stewart and New York Modified Ace Jack Johnson added their names to the Sharon Speedway history book on Tuesday when a record-breaking crowd watched them capture the feature events of the inaugural Lou Blaney Memorial Classic.

Stewart, who was coming off of a victory at Daytona, dominated the second half of the 30-lap feature event to capture his first Sharon Speedway victory.

West Virginia youngster Cale Conley was runner-up while Lee Jacobs, Steven Lines and Dale Blaney rounded out the top five. NASCAR drivers Dave Blaney and Kasey Kahne finished sixth and ninth, respectively.

Johnson dominated the Modified portion of the event as he led the entire 30-lap distance to garner his first Sharon Speedway victory.

Rob Curtis, Sharon Speedway Modified Points Leader, was runner-up.

Flag football teams do well at Ohio event

COLUMBUS — Four teams from the Youngstown Youth Flag Football Association competed in last weekend’s Ohio Youth Flag Football Association Super Bowl championship.

YYFFA sent one 4-6-year-old team, one 7-9 team and two 10-12 teams.

All four reached the title games of their divisions, with the 4-6 team finishing as co-champions.

Tickets on sale for WEC event

YOUNGSTOWN — Tickets for the Sept. 2 Cerrone-Henderson WEC card go on sale today at 10 a.m. at the Covelli Centre. Prices are $25, $45, $75 and $125.

Tickets may be purchased by calling Ticketmaster at 1-800-745-3000 or by visiting the Covelli Centre Box Office or Ticketmaster outlets at area Giant Eagle and Macy’s stores.

Harford wins golf event

SOLON — Haylee Harford of Leavittsburg and Ryan Rao of Medina won the 2009 Northern Ohio Section Junior PGA Championship Wednesday at Hawthorne Valley Country Club.

Harford and Rao qualified for the 34th Junior PGA Championship, July 28-31, at TPC River’s Bend in Cincinnati.

Harford, 12, had a final-round 74 for a two-day total of 152 and a 6-stroke victory over Tiana Jones of Alliance.

Rao, 18, posted a final-round 68 for a two-day total of 41 and a 6-stroke victory over Andrew Bailey of Rocky River. For boys 16-18, Mark Olbrych of Boardman tied for 11th and Zachary Fortunato of Poland was 21st.

For boys 13-15, Boardman’s Jake Fait was seventh and Champion’s Thomas Lydic was eighth.

For girls ages 13-15, Maria Mancini was second to Harford and Kelsie Teaberry of Warren tied for third. For girls 16-18,North Lima’s Ariel Witmer was fourth, Poland’s Allison Mitzel was 10th and Youngstown’s Jackie Evans was 17th.

OSU alumni crash website

COLUMBUS — Ohio State University’s alumni association says its Web site crashed when it was overwhelmed by people checking how they fared in an annual football tickets lottery.

The site went down for a few hours Tuesday morning because of what association spokesman Steve Proctor describes as “server issues.” It appeared to be operating fine on Wednesday.

Thousands jammed the site as soon as they received an e-mail announcing they had been awarded two tickets to one of this season’s home games. Alumni were instructed to log on to the Web site to find out which game they got.

Proctor says tickets went to about 90 percent of the people who participated in the lottery, or nearly 36,000 alumni association members.

Staff/wire reports