SPORTS digest

Christian Youth League to host Championship

AUSTINTON

The Alpha Christian Youth League is hosting its first annual championship football game at Austintown Fitch High School on Saturday. Games start at 11 a.m. and admission is $2 for teenagers and adults and $1 for kids 10 years old and under. For more information, call 330-812-4945.

Eleven elected to Ebony Hall of Fame

YOUNGSTOWN

Eleven individuals are slated for induction on Friday night ats the 20th annual Ebony Lifeline All-Sports Hall of Fame banquet at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Social Hall.

The inductees are DeAndrey Abron (boxing), Priscilla Abron (softball/bowling), Shareef Ali (track), Jalada Asalam (community service), Dr. Dorothy Bowers-Collins (basketball), John Bullock (bowling/football), William Dallas (basketball/softball), James Grubbs (bowling), Marvin McWilson (martial arts/football/basketball), Robert Morales (community service) and Randy Richardson (boxing).

Tickets are $30 and can be purchased by calling Bob Thomas at 330-261-1825 or Pat Traylor at 330-792-0234. Tickets are also available at the door, which opens at 6:30 p.m.

NFL tweaks concussion protocol

NEW YORK

The NFL will require the athletic trainer in the press box to stay in contact with on-field doctors to help determine if a player has a concussion.

The requirement, announced Wednesday, is an enhancement made to prevent confusion that occurred in the season opener, when Carolina’s Cam Newton was allowed to return after getting hit in the head.

Under the league’s concussion protocol, the NFL’s athletic trainer wasn’t allowed to call a “medical timeout” after being contacted by personnel on the field. In Newton’s case, the team physician and an unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant asked the trainer for video of the hit, but a technology glitch delayed the video.

After getting the replay and observing Newton on the sideline, the physician and neurotrauma consultant said no further evaluation of the quarterback was necessary.

Under the new protocol, the trainer in the booth would be able to stay in contact with doctors on the field until receiving word that a concussion evaluation has occurred.

Jury rules in favor of Derrick Rose

LOS ANGELES

A federal jury in Los Angeles on Wednesday ruled that NBA star Derrick Rose and two friends did not rape a woman, handing the men a victory in a high-stakes civil trial.

Rose, 28; Randall Hampton, and Ryan Allen had been accused of breaking into the woman’s Los Angeles apartment and having sex with her when she was incapacitated from a night of drinking and, she claimed, being drugged by the men.

After roughly three hours of deliberations, the panel of six women and two men rejected those claims. They found instead that the evidence showed the woman, who had been in a relationship with Rose, consented to the late-night encounter in 2013.

The eight-person jury alerted U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald at about 12:45 p.m. local time Wednesday that it had reached unanimous decisions on an array of allegations that a former girlfriend of the New York Knicks player had leveled against the men.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

U.S. women’s soccer blanks Switzerland

SANDY, Utah

Lynn Williams scored about 50 seconds into her national team debut, and Tobin Heath, Christen Press and Samantha Mewis added goals to lead the U.S. over Switzerland 4-0 in an exhibition game Wednesday night.

U.S. coach Jill Ellis gave five players debuts as the Americans retool ahead of the 2019 World Cup.

Staff/wire report