Sports briefs 10/20
Girls soccer
Playoff-bound Waynesburg (5-3-4, 9-4-4) concluded Class 2A Section 1 play with a 1-0 victory over Ringgold (2-9-1, 2-14-1) Monday night. Kolby Rastoka had the goal for the Warriors, which was assisted by Ava DiAlessandro. Madi Price earned a shutout in goal.
N Brielle Dillon had a hat trick and Megan Keturakis scored twice to help Bentworth (7-1, 14-2) clinch a share of the Class A Section 2 title with a 7-0 win over Beth-Center (1-6-1, 3-11-2). Bella Moyer and Madelyn Johns added a goal apiece for the Bearcats, who split the section title with Brownsville at 7-1. Bentworth, the defending WPIAL Class A champs, led 6-0 at the half and concluded a third consecutive regular season in which it went unbeaten at home.
Football
The Indianapolis Colts missed the playoffs five straight years and missed out on finding their next franchise quarterback in the 2023 NFL draft.
On Monday, general manager Chris Ballard paid the price for both.
Team co-owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon announced she had fired Ballard, who had been making the personnel decisions since 2017. The move comes one day after the hometown fans booed resoundingly throughout the second half of Sunday’s game, chanted “Fire Ballard” and left early as the Colts blew a 13-point halftime lead and lost 26-20 to previously winless Tennessee.
Irsay-Gordon issued a statement, saying the decision couldn’t wait until the offseason.
“Our standard is to compete for championships, and I believe a change in leadership is necessary to meet that standard,” she said. “Making this change during the season was a deliberate decision. Waiting would only delay the important work that needs to begin now.”
She said a “thorough search” for Ballard’s successor has already begun. In the meantime, assistant general manager Ed Dodds is next in line to make the personnel moves.
N New Orleans Saints tight end Juwan Johnson said some of his family members are “very undecided” about whether to travel to Paris for New Orleans’ game against the Pittsburgh Steelers amid civil unrest in France.
The Saints arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport Monday morning and addressed questions during a virtual news conference about the rioting that is making headlines and flooding social media.
The NFL said Sunday that “preparations continue as scheduled for NFL events and the game” at Stade de France.
“Just being safe is obviously the biggest thing,” Johnson said. “Some guys have family here. Some guys have their parents, their kids and things like that.”
The NFL’s statement added: “There’s been no disruption or impact at league sites.”
The Steelers plan to arrive in Paris later this week. Pittsburgh safety Jaquan Brisker said, “It looks crazy out there.”
The Steelers held a virtual meeting with the NFL on Monday to go over security, which is standard for all international games.
“We feel like we have a really good plan,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “We’re aware of the situations over there and have a lot of confidence in our plan.”
Baseball
The price of a qualifying offer for this year’s major league free agents rose 5.1% to $23.15 million from $22,025,000.
The figure is determined by the average of the top 125 major league contracts this year. The price dropped by $100,000 to $17.8 million in 2019, then rose to $18.9 million in 2020, fell $500,000 in 2021 and rose to $19.65 million in 2022, $20,325,000 in 2023 and $21.05 million in 2024.
Qualifying offers began after the 2012 season, and only 18 of 157 offers have been accepted.
A free agent can be made a qualifying offer only if he has been with the same team continuously since opening day and has never received a qualifying offer before.
Among the top players who can become free agents after the World Series and are eligible to receive qualifying offers are Seattle outfielder Randy Arozarena, New York Yankees left-hander David Bednar, Minnesota catcher Ryan Jeffers, Pittsburgh second baseman Brandon Lowe, San Diego left-hander Adrian Morejon, Baltimore left-hander Trevor Roger and Chicago Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki.
College basketball
Kansas has added All-Big Ten forward Trey Kaufman-Renn, who played four seasons at Purdue before getting picked by Minnesota in the second round of the NBA draft, filling its biggest perceived hole on the eve of the college basketball season.
Jayhawks coach Bill Self announced his transfer Monday. The 24-year-old Kaufman-Renn has enrolled in classes at Kansas and began practicing with the team on Sunday.
“He reached the national championship game, the Elite Eight and the Sweet 16 at Purdue, and has been extremely well-drilled and well-coached,” Self said in a statement. “Even though it’s late in the process, because of his basketball IQ, we think his transition will be quicker than most put in the same circumstance.”
The 59th overall pick in the June draft, Kaufman-Renn intends to play another season of college basketball after the NCAA’s sudden and chaos-inducing rule change designed to allow student-athletes to play five seasons over a five-year span.
The rule was not intended to include players who had finished their careers this past season. But the gray area it created has led to a wave of lawsuits across the country, as athletes in all sports seek another year of eligibility. Kaufman-Renn was granted a preliminary injunction earlier this month, making the 6-9 power forward eligible to play for Kansas for the time being.