SPORTS digest

Cardinal Mooney announces HOF class

YOUNGSTOWN

Fourteen former Cardinal Mooney athletes will be inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame on Feb. 14.

A buffet dinner will start at 6 p.m., with the induction ceremony to start at 8. Tickets are $75 or $600 for a table of eight, with the proceeds going to the Ron Stoops Scholarship fund. For tickets or more information, call 330-788-5007 or visit the Cardinal’s Nest at cardinalmooney.com. The inductees include: Josh Allegretto (1998), Chris Amill (1994), Erin Barnett Loesch (1999), Colleen Carney Duchon (1998), Kristen Demidovich (2000), Matt Finnerty (2000), Mike Handel (2000), Katie Hardie (2000), Mike Lodyn (1974), Walter Madison (1990), Joe Marzano (1998), Robert Shepas (1969), Robert Sheridan (2000) and Eddie Thomas (1988).

Penguins’ Malkin to miss two games

PITTSBURGH

Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin is dealing with a lower-body injury and will miss a two-game road trip through Florida this weekend.

Coach Mike Sullivan said Thursday that Malkin, the team’s leading scorer, is dealing with a nagging issue. Malkin will remain in Pittsburgh while the surging Penguins visit Tampa Bay today and the Florida Panthers on Saturday. The former MVP will be re-evaluated when the team returns. Pittsburgh hosts Anaheim Monday. Malkin has 23 goals and 26 assists for the Penguins.

Manning’s legal team met with clinic intern

Private investigators working for Peyton Manning visited the source of a report that he and other star athletes had obtained performance-enhancing drugs before the documentary aired late last year, according to a report from The Washington Post on Thursday.

In December, Al Jazeera reported that an intern at an Indianapolis anti-aging clinic was secretly recorded suggesting that Manning’s wife received deliveries of human growth hormone in 2011. Manning, then with the Colts, was rehabbing from neck surgeries. The intern, Charles Sly, recanted his statements, which were recorded without his knowledge. He said they were fabricated in an attempt to impress a potential business partner.

Manning’s lawyers hired investigators to identify, locate and interrogate Sly and sent a lawyer to examine Peyton and Ashley’s medical records at the Guyer Institute of Molecular Medicine in Indianapolis, according to Ari Fleisher, the former White House press secretary and crisis management consultant Manning hired.

Big 12 won’t hold title game next season

IRVING, TEXAS

The Big 12 is unlikely to stage a football championship game this year though the NCAA approved a plan last month that would allow the 10-team league to do so.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby says data presented to league athletic directors Thursday pose questions about whether the league has a better chance to get into the four-team College Football Playoff without a championship game than it would with one.

There were no votes or any formal action taken by athletic directors on a championship game, possible expansion or a league-wide television network.

Brazil minister says games will go on

RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazil’s sports minister says the possibility of canceling the Rio de Janeiro Olympics because of the outbreak of the Zika virus “is not in discussion.”

Sports Minister George Hilton said in a statement Thursday that “the Brazilian government is fully committed to ensure that the 2016 Rio games take place in an atmosphere of security and tranquility.”

Brazil is the epicenter of an outbreak of the Zika virus, which the World Health Organization has called “an extraordinary event and public health threat.”

Staff/wire report