Sports briefs
Girls soccer
Third-seeded Steel Valley forged an early three-goal lead and went on to a 6-2 victory over Chartiers-Houston in the WPIAL Class A girls soccer quarterfinals Wednesday night at Campbell Field in Munhall.
It was battle of section rivals as the teams split a pair of 4-3 contests durign the regular season. In this one, Steel Valley built a 4-1 lead by halftime.
Leix Dukacs scored both goals for Chartiers-Houston (15-5) and Kayla Brose assisted on each tally.
Steel Valley (16-3) advances to the semifinals.
Men’s soccer
California University sued a pair of second-half goals to defeat Slippery Rock 2-0 Wednesday in PSAC West action at the Phillipsburg Soccer Facility.
Cal took a 1-0 lead at the 56:20-mark when redshirt sophomore Kobe Norfleet, a Ringgold graduate, took a pass from junior Evan Blunkosky and was able to put a sliding kick into the top right corner of the net. The Vulcans made it 2-0 in the 84th minute as Trevor Zabilowicz put a header into the left side of the net for his third goal of the season.
Who are the real Cleveland Guardians?
A roller derby team that has called itself the Cleveland Guardians since 2013 sued the city’s Major League Baseball team in federal court in Cleveland on Wednesday alleging that the switch from Indians to Guardians infringes on its trademark.
“A Major League club cannot simply take a smaller team’s name and use it for itself,” the lawsuit said. “There cannot be two ‘Cleveland Guardians’ teams in Cleveland, and, to be blunt, Plaintiff was here first.”
The Cleveland Indians announced in July that it would assume the name Guardians for the 2022 season after years of criticism that the Indians name and Chief Wahoo logo were racist. The new name, the team has said, was influenced in part by the two large Art Deco statues that appear to stand guard on a bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River.
The all-gender roller derby team is based in the Cleveland suburb of Parma. It formally registered the name Cleveland Guardians in 2017 with the Ohio secretary of state and has been selling team merchandise since 2014.
In a statement Wednesday, the Indians said, “We have been and continue to be confident in our position to become the Guardians. We believe there is no conflict between the parties and their ability to operate in their respective business areas.”
In April, the baseball team filed a trademark application for the Guardians name in the East African island nation of Mauritius, “effectively hiding the application unless one knew where to look,” the lawsuit said.
The baseball team contacted the roller derby team in June, telling team officials it was considering using the name Guardians.
When the roller derby team offered to sell the rights to the Guardians name to the baseball team, the Indians offered to pay a “nominal amount” that the roller derby team rejected, the lawsuit said.
Series TV ratings up
Atlanta’s 6-2 victory over Houston in Game 1 of the World Series drew an average of 10,811,000 viewers on Fox, up 17.5% from the record low of 9,195,000 for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ opening 8-3 win over Tampa Bay last year.
The Braves-Astros number was the second-lowest total to start a Series.
Fox said Tuesday night’s game averaged 11,077,000 viewers. The game was the most-streamed World Series opener at 273,619, an increase of 82%.