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Home Blog Page 1305

Otters Looking for gameday staff, announce job fair

03/07/2023
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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The Evansville Otters are looking for individuals to join the gameday staff for the 2023 season.

The Otters franchise is looking for great candidates to help things run all around Historic Bosse Field.

Our gameday staff is vital, as they help create lifelong memories for all who visit Bosse Field for Evansville Otters games!

The current openings for the 2023 season include:
Concession Stand Manager
Cooks
Cashier
Food Prep
In-Stand Waitstaff/Hawkers
Beer Server
Ticket Taker
Ticket Seller
Operations/Cleaning
Ushers
Picnic Attendants
Grounds Crew
Bat Boys
Video Camera Operator

Candidates must be able to meet the following conditions in the work environment:

Have a friendly personality, connecting and assisting fans of all ages.
Be able to walk/stand on their feet for considerable amounts of time between breaks.
Properly take care of their health and stay hydrated during warm, summer months.

If you would like to join us for the 2023 season, please visit evansvilleotters.com/employment and fill out an application. All jobs can also be found and applied for here.

The Otters are also hosting a Summer Job Fair on March 14th from 4-6 PM at Bosse Field where individuals can drop off applications and have on-the-spot interviews for 2023 employment.

Applicants must be 15 years of age or older to apply, and resumes are encouraged but not necessary.

Senate Passes Senator Braun’s Bipartisan Challenge To Biden 401(k) Rule

03/07/2023
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Senate passes Senator Braun’s bipartisan challenge to Biden 401(k) rule in major rebuke of White House

WASHINGTON — Today, Senator Mike Braun’s challenge to President Biden’s ESG rule that puts politics over profits for Hoosiers’ 401(k)s passed the U.S. Senate.

Senator Braun led every Republican Senator and Senator Joe Manchin as cosponsors on this challenge. Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana joined in voting against the Biden rule.

Biden’s rule, which went into effect in February, allows fiduciaries to invest based on ESG factors – which tend to favor President Biden’s political priorities, but produce a lower rate of return. Previously, fiduciaries could only invest based on the best rate of return for their clients. This rule applies to employer-sponsored 401(k)s, meaning 152 million Americans are subject to the new Biden rule.

The Senate passed the measure on a bipartisan vote of 50 to 46. It now goes to President Biden’s desk, where it is anticipated it will be his first veto: a bipartisan, bicameral rebuke of a major policy goal for the president.

Twenty-five states, including Indiana, are suing the Biden administration over this policy.

Senator Braun released this statement following his win on the Senate floor:

“My message to the White House is simple: Keep your hands off Hoosiers’ 401(k)s. President Biden is putting Hoosiers’ retirement savings at risk by changing the rules to allow money managers to invest based on progressive political goals rather than on the best rate of return. So many Americans’ retirement savings are already taking a hit from his inflation crisis,” said Senator Braun. “President Biden will now receive a searing, bipartisan rebuke of his policy that’s going to hurt Americans’ retirement savings.”

FOOTNOTE: Representative Andy Barr led the House version, which passed on a bipartisan vote of 216 – 2014 on Tuesday.

 

Watch out for phone scammers portraying themselves as Indiana State Police

03/07/2023
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Phone scammers are portraying themselves as Indiana State Police to get to unsuspecting Hoosiers.

This is usually an annual problem for the ISP; however, this scam involves the use of the ISP General Headquarters phone number.

ISP Captain Ron Galaviz, chief public information officer, said the perpetrators use ISP’s caller ID, which shows “Indiana State Police” and the phone number “317-232-8248.”

If the call is answered, the scammer says they are an Indiana State Police trooper and that the person they’re calling has drug charges pending in Texas.  The caller then threaten the person with arrest if a payment is not made.

Galaviz released a statement saying, “The ISP would NEVER call and ask for or demand any sort of payment for any reason whatsoever.” He warned the scammers can be “persuasive, convincing, and technically savvy,” and that they can “play” on people’s emotions to learn information.

Galaviz recommends not answering unrecognized numbers and hanging up when an unexpected call feels off.

If you think you have been scammed, immediately report what happened to the police, then alert your bank so the payment can be stopped. Galaviz warned that it’s “nearly impossible” to recover prepaid card or wire transfer transactions.

2 Babies Surrendered In 2 Days At Indiana Safe Haven Boxes

03/07/2023
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INDIANA, Ind. (WANE) — Across the Hoosier state, two newborns were surrendered at Safe Haven Baby Boxes in as many days in the past week. according to Safe Haven Baby Boxes, Inc.

These were the first two babies surrendered in 2023.

The first baby was dropped off at the Cleveland Township Fire Station in Elkhart. Less than 48 hours later, a baby was taken at the Wayne Township Fire Station in Indianapolis.

Monica Kelsey, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes explained, “We are very blessed that
these mothers chose to lovingly and legally surrender their infant. It is an act of sacrificial
love for the best interest of the infant. These babies are so loved and are an answered
prayer for adoptive families that will eagerly add them to their family. We work tirelessly to
educate citizens on Safe Haven Law and create positive headlines rather than
heartbreaking headlines where lives are destroyed and lost. Our organization is succeeding
at protecting vulnerable women and their infants by being proactive rather than reactive.”

According to the organization, 26 infants have been placed in a Baby Box since November 2017. Nationwide, 125 surrenders have resulted from calling the National Safe Haven hotline.

Safe Haven representatives will share more information on the newborns at a dual press conference Monday morning.

When the world’s most famous cyclist was a Black man and a Hoosier

03/07/2023
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When the world’s most famous cyclist was a Black man and a Hoosier

  • By Jack Sells, TheStatehouseFile.com
  • March 7, 2023

  • At one point, Indiana had a claim on the fastest cyclist in the world. In consecutive years, Marshall Taylor won a world title and U.S. title in bicycle racing.

    The sport at the time was immensely popular—“races attracted more fans than baseball, boxing, and horse racing combined,” according to Marlene Targ Brill’s book, “Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor”—and Taylor was the star.

    There’s nothing probable about becoming the best in the world at something. To reach the heights he reached, Taylor needed a combination of skill, determination and luck.

    And that alone would make a recount of Taylor’s life worthy of writing. But Taylor’s story is about more than a man born in Indianapolis becoming a world champion. It’s about a Black man, born 13 years after the Civil War, defying racism and sticking with his religious convictions—to the detriment of his career—on the way to immense athletic success.

    Who was Major?

    As Andrew Ritchie details in his biography on the cyclist, while Taylor’s grandparents had been slaves, his parents were born free. His father fought in the Civil War and later settled down with his wife and had eight children.

    At a young age, Taylor became locally famous for the tricks he was able to do on a bicycle. He wore a uniform while doing so and thus earned the nickname Major. Ritchie writes that Taylor wore “a soldier’s uniform” as “a publicity gimmick designed by Hay & Willits”—the bicycle store Taylor worked for.

    But how did Taylor, in the 1890s as a Black teenager who lived on a farm, have a bicycle to develop a skill set? And how did he get a job in the state capital?

    A lot of it came down to luck. His dad secured a job as a coachman for a white family, and after going with him to work sometimes, Taylor became close friends with the son, Daniel Southard. In Taylor’s words, he was “employed as his playmate and companion.” He lived with the Southards in Indianapolis and was even educated alongside Daniel.

    “There, at the Southards’, besides learning to read and write from a private tutor, he learned to talk, think and relate to others in ways different from those he would have learned at home or at a simple rural school,” wrote Ritchie.

    Taylor received a better education than he would have and got his start with a bicycle because of his relationship with the Southards.

    His second family eventually moved, and Taylor went back to his home on the farm, but it wasn’t much later that Taylor was once again taken in by someone—professional cyclist Louis “Birdie” Munger—and moved to Massachusetts.

    “He had gone from being a ‘millionaire’s son’ with the Southard family to being all but adopted by the man [Munger] who had been the world’s fastest cyclist,” Michael Kranish wrote in “The World’s Fastest Man.” “Throughout his life, this would be a pattern, as he simultaneously faced the most brutal racism but also was embraced by a series of benefactors who were impressed by his talent and treated him without regard to race.”

    Being a Black professional cyclist at the turn of the century

    Dated from either 1906 or 1907, this was one of many photos of Taylor taken by French photographer Jules Beau (1864-1932). On Taylor’s 1901 trip to Europe, Michael Kranish wrote, “Taylor’s arrival coincided with the introduction of what would be called photojournalism.” Beau took more photos of Taylor than anyone else, according to Kranish.

    This image, now in the public domain, is from the Bibliothèque national de France, France’s national library, and is a scan of the original picture. It was accessed through Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Major_Taylor,_1906-1907.jpg  Photo by Jules Beau.

    Taylor was in uncharted territory when, in 1897, he “became the first black cyclist to enter bicycle racing as a full-time professional,” according to Ritchie.

    Taylor, while aided by fans and an often supportive press, still faced racism while in his sphere as a professional athlete—from competitors, race organizers and some newspapers. And this was on top of what occurred in the more private realm. There are numerous examples of Taylor being refused entry into a restaurant or hotel when traveling to compete.

    Taylor also lost multiple chances to win a U.S. championship or world title. Sometimes this was because of nefarious actions from race organizers and professional cyclist leagues, and other times Taylor chose to take principled stands.

    The cyclist faced a particularly infuriating and demoralizing sequence of events in Missouri in 1898.

    Taylor traveled to St. Louis to race and couldn’t find a hotel that would allow him to stay there, leaving him to seek shelter with a local family. Not wanting to inconvenience them, Taylor would ride his bike to a restaurant at a train station for every meal.

    Or at least he did so until he was told he could no longer eat there. (A Black waiter stood up for Taylor and was fired as a result.)

    Then a race got postponed to a Sunday, but Taylor had been clear before that he wouldn’t compete on that day of the week due to his religious convictions. “Taylor had in fact been promised … that there would be no Sunday racing, and this decision in St. Louis was an obvious and immediate betrayal,” Ritchie wrote.

    Taylor wanted to go home to Worcester, Massachusetts, but was convinced to travel to another race in Missouri by a race promoter who said he owned a hotel where Taylor could stay. And yet the man went back on his word, instead saying there was a Black family Taylor could stay with, and Taylor left town, breaking his contract in the process.

    Prior to this—before Taylor transitioned to cycling professionally—the League of American Wheelmen voted it would no longer accept Black cyclists as members.

    Strongly agreeing with the move, a columnist for The Referee, described as “a weekly cycling trade journal with a large circulation” by Ritchie, lambasted those not in favor.

    The gist of the racist tirade? The inclusion of African Americans in the league was “an evil which would sooner or later have ruined the LAW in the great southland.”

    The columnist made clear he had “no desire to deprecate … the race,” but that was incongruous with almost every other sentence in the column.

    “Were these enthusiastic lovers of the blacks to question those who know, they would learn that the negro has little interest in anything beyond his daily needs, his personal vanity and a cake walk or barbers’ hall now and then,” it read.

    Black men were a monolith, according to the writer—illustrated by him description them in the singular. “He is a lazy, happy-go-lucky animal” with “lack-brain carelessness” and “thievish … proclivities,” he wrote.

    While not directed at Taylor, this columnist’s opinions were mirrored by plenty of others when Taylor was a professional athlete.

    And the onslaught of discrimination led to Taylor attempting to alter his appearance through an extreme measure—or at least, what would be seen as extreme today.

    Kranish’s account includes details of how Taylor and Munger endeavored to change Taylor’s skin color through advertised products.

    “Birdie Munger … tried in various ways to make me white … and on one occasion by the bleaching process,” according to Taylor. “On that occasion, my hair turned red almost by the action of the cream and the skin was nearly burned off me. Then I thought I was going to die.”

    “We told him that we would bleach him and make him white,” Munger said to the Detroit Free Press in 1897. “He took us at our word and submitted to an operation. The mixture was poisonous in the extreme.

    “It was a sort of cream, and for days and days we poured it on the lad. His hair turned a sort of red, and his skin did seem to be turning whiter and whiter. But the solution was working to the detriment to the lad’s health, and we had to stop it. He has never been as dark, though, as he was before the operation.”

    African Americans during the time felt “pressured to take desperate measures they believed were needed in order to survive a Jim Crow society,” wrote Kranish. “Advertisements in African American newspapers showed before and after pictures of how a black person looked white after the treatment, which was claimed to be ‘harmless.’”

    The Journal of Pan African Studies, in 2011, published scholarship on skin bleaching in the 1920s, and said skin bleach “advertisements directed towards men were more likely to emphasize upward mobility than physical attractiveness.”

    This seems to fit with why Taylor underwent the bleaching. Munger said it came down to Taylor being “refused entry to a race owing to his color.”

    Major’s major accomplishments

    Today, the typical American’s knowledge of cycling may be limited to the Tour de France, and while the multi-day, long-distance race was around during Taylor’s heyday, Taylor largely kept to short distances on a track.

    Taylor set so many records ranging in distances from â…• mile to 2 miles, that it would be tiresome to list them. (But Kranish did for those interested.) Maybe most notably, in a two-day span in 1898, Taylor set world records in seven different distances.

    Kranish also broke down Taylor’s first tours through Europe. In 1901, Taylor got first place 42 times—according to Taylor, 39 according to others—second place 11 times, and third three times.

    And the man was similarly dominant the next year, winning 40 races, finishing second 15 times and nabbing third place twice.

    The various racing organizations and ways to win championships can be difficult to follow, but in 1899, Taylor was named the world champion in the mile, and in 1900, he became the American sprint champion.

    As probably expected, Taylor’s career was full of historical firsts and feats.

    Ritchie lays it out: “He was one of the first black athletes to be a member of an integrated professional team, the first to have a commercial sponsor, the first to establish world records. He was the second African-American world champion in any sport, preceded only by George Dixon, the bantamweight boxer. He was the first black athlete to compete regularly in integrated competition for an annual American championship.”

    Taylor’s legacy

    During his lifetime, the cyclist reached a level of popularity that meant famous people from other fields followed his career.

    Kranish wrote about two separate examples of this. Before Taylor’s 1902 tour in Europe, Booker T. Washington—about a year removed from being invited to the White House by President Teddy Roosevelt—took some students to see Taylor before he got on a boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

    And in 1916, Roosevelt himself visited Taylor.

    “Taking into consideration all the millions of human beings on the face of the earth, whenever I run across an individual who stands out as peer over all others in any profession or vocation it is indeed a wonderful distinction, and honor and pleasure enough for me,” Taylor recalled the former commander-in-chief saying.

    “He had become the most prominent black American athlete, and one of the most celebrated black Americans,” Ritchie said, referring to the end of the 1898 season.

    Taylor reached some high highs during his life but he faced tough times towards the end of his life. At the end of his career, Taylor turned back on his promise not to race on Sundays. After retiring, he got involved in multiple business ventures that failed and put him in an unfortunate spot financially.

    In 1932, Taylor died in Chicago at the age of 53, impoverished and estranged from his wife and daughter.

    Because of this, and aided by the fact that cycling’s popularity waned, Taylor’s death went largely unnoticed for a long time. Then, in 1948, a group called the Bicycle Racing Stars of the Nineteenth Century gave Taylor, in Kranish’s words, “a proper memorial.”

    Since then, there have been efforts to tell Taylor’s story to the public. The Major Taylor Association is a nonprofit that raises money to preserve a statue of the cyclist in Worcester, Massachusetts, as well as “to educate people about Major Taylor’s life and legacy.”

    Forty-one years ago, the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis was built and is now home to the Major Taylor Racing League and Marian University’s 47-time national champion cycling team.

    And in June, the Major Taylor International Cycling Alliance will be hosting a convention named after Taylor in Indianapolis.

    Taylor’s legacy to those who know of him is likely the success he had as a Black cyclist, and as Kranish noted, Taylor wrote in his autobiography that he hoped Black kids would “carry on in spite of that dreadful monster prejudice, and with patience, courage, fortitude and perseverance, achieve success for themselves. I trust they will use that terrible prejudice as an inspiration to struggle on to the heights in their chosen vocations.”

    Taylor’s own “patience, courage, fortitude and perseverance” make up the bedrock of how he was able to become the fastest man in the world and why he can now serve as an inspiration to anyone willing to learn about him almost 150 years after he was born.

    Taylor, in a letter that he sent back to a fan who had applauded him for continuing to not race on Sundays, expresses his overarching attitude toward life:

    “I am laboring under the greatest temptation of my life, and I pray each day for God to give me more grace and more faith to stand up for what I know to be right. … I have no fear for the future, for I feel that I will be taken care of, although things seem very cloudy at present. … Yours in Christ, Major Taylor.”

    Footnote: Quotes from Taylor, whether from his autobiography or newspapers covering him, as well as quotes from his contemporaries, came from the three books referenced in the article: “The World’s Fastest Man” by Michael Kranish, “Major Taylor” by Andrew Ritchie, and “Marshall “Major” Taylor” by Marlene Targ Brill.

 

Pole Vaulters Headline Big Weekend For VU At Indoor Nationals

03/07/2023
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Pole Vaulters Headline Big Weekend For VU At Indoor Nationals

TOPEKA, Kan. – Vincennes University freshman Julia Do Armaral Salvi (Sao Paulo, Brazil) continued the Trailblazers’ storied tradition of pole vaulting Friday at the 2023 NJCAA Indoor National Championships, coming away with the Individual National Championship after besting the field with a height of 3.80 meters.

Fellow freshman Ysnaira Dos Santos Vieira (Brazil) joined Salvi on the podium after placing third, reaching a height of 3.50 meters.

“The VU Track Program had an incredible meet at the National Championships this weekend,” VU Head Track and Field Coach Marty Rogier said. “We had a lot of highlights, with an individual National Champion, eight athletes earning All-American honors and two VU schools records.”

“Julia and Ysnaira le the way on Friday with a first and third place finish in the pole vault,” Rogier added. “I was very happy with the girls because they have had to really battle through a lot of changes since arriving here in January from Brazil. I’m proud of Julia because she has raised her PR by over a foot in two months and has trusted in a lot of changes to make that happen. She also did a great job of handling the pressure of a championship meet, coming from behind to win the meet with a 3.8 clearance on her second attempt, moving her into third on the All-Time VU list.”

“Julia earned the 10th National Pole Vault Title for the women’s program at VU,” Rogier said.

The first day was also a big day for the Trailblazers runners, with the VU men’s Distance Medley Relay team of freshmen Isaac Stanford (Flora, Ill.), Desroy Jordan (Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) and sophomores Trent Faulkner (Wheatland, Ind.) and Mathew Keitany (Kenya) placed sixth overall with a final time of 10:01.17, setting a new Vincennes University school record.

Freshman Daisie Kinnett (Wheatland, Ind.) placed 11th in the 5000 meters with a time of 19:05.98 and sophomore Ian Boit (Kimilili, Kenya) placed 25th in the 3000 meters at 8:56.60.

Freshman Olegs Kozjakovs (Riga, Latvia) got off to a slow start in the men’s Heptathlon, starting the weekend with a 15th place finish in the 60 meter sprint with a time of 7.55 seconds, before quickly bouncing back to place sixth in the long jump at 6.42 meters, first in the shot put at 14.06 meters and seventh in the high jump at 1.81 meters.

Kozjakovs finished day one of the Heptathlon in fifth place overall with 2,744 points.

The Trailblazers returned to the track on Saturday to close out the two-day Championship event and got off to a great start with Isaac Stanford placing 16th in the mile at 4:15.72 and Keitany placing 27th at 4:20.08.

Keitany joined with Trent Faulkner, Desroy Jordan and sophomore Ernest Momodu (Indianapolis, Ind.) to compete in the 4×800 relay, placing fifth as a team with a final time of 7:46.84, setting a new school record in the process.

Freshman Madison Davis (Chesterton, Ind.) placed 16th in the shot put at 11.26 meters and sophomore Brittany Page placed 12th in the 800 meters with a time of 2:33.44.

Olegs Kozjakovs closed out the Heptathlon Saturday with an eighth place finish in the 60 meter hurdles at 9.03 seconds before taking the top spot in the pole vault at 4.38 meters and ending with a 13th place finish in the 1000 meters at 3:02.81.

Kozjakovs placed fourth overall in the Heptathlon, scoring 4,845 points in the events, good for third most in VU history.

“The men delivered another outstanding performance Friday in the Distance Medley Relay,” VU Assistant Track and Field Coach Tyler Steigenga said. “Isaac led off the DMR by running a brilliant 1200 leg in 3:01. He handed off in third place to Desroy, who ran the fastest leg of all the 400 runners in the race at 47.2 seconds and moved VU into second. Trent ran a 1:57 in the 800 and gave the baton to Mathew in fourth place. Mathew finished off the DMR running a 4:15 in the 1600 crossing the line at 10:01.17 and breaking the previous school record by five seconds and earning the relay team All-American status.”

“Shortly after the DMR, Daisie ran the 5000m in a new PR of 19:05,” Steigenga added. “She ran an even and steady race as she always does and moved up throughout the race to finish 11th.”

“Brittany Page put herself into position to PR and qualify for the final in the 800m prelims, but finished a few seconds off her PR at 2:33,” Steigenga said.

“Desroy ran what would have been the second fastest 400 in VU history but was disqualified for running a couple of steps on the lane line. It was a tough break for such a big event,” Rogier said. “Olegs competed Friday and had a very good first day of the Heptathlon. He was in fifth position at the end of day one. I felt like he might have left a few points on the table with a couple big jumps in the long jump that he barely fouled on and maybe had a bigger high jump in him. He was really under a lot of pressure to try and complete the last event of the day and then try to turn around and compete in the open Pole Vault. He actually was seeded fifth in the pole vault but there just wasn’t enough time to get ready after already competing in four events of the Heptathlon.”

“Madison competed Friday but had a tough day in the shot put,” Roger added. “She was attempting to use a new technique that she just wasn’t quite ready for. But I still believe it will serve as a good experience as she prepares for the outdoor season.”

“The second ay was also very exciting,” Rogier said. “Olegs completed the second day of the Heptathlon, finishing fourth and earning an All-American. He made up a lot of points by easily winning the pole vault and shot put events.”

“In the 4×800 relay the men improved on their finish from the previous day in the DMR,” Steigenga said. “They placed fifth and ran a six-second school record of 7:46.84. Mathew anchored his second relay to earn All-American status and had another great kick to hold off the sixth and seventh place teams.”

“An hour and a half after the relay, Mathew came back in the second heat of the mile and finished with a three-second PR,” Steigenga added. “It was an impressive effort after having to put a lot of his energy into his first two races.”

“Isaac ran I the third and fastest heat of the day,” Steigenga said. “After his fantastic opening leg of the DMR Friday, he had very high expectations of himself in the mile. He didn’t quite meet them, but he’s got a lot to be proud of this season. His training and racing potential were limited this season as he was dealing with illness for six weeks. The fact that he was able to accomplish what he did is amazing. He has a bright future ahead of him.”

The VU Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field teams greatly improved on their NJCAA rankings heading into the National Championships with the VU women’s team placing 13th overall with 16 total points and the VU men coming in 17th with 12 points.

The 2023 NJCAA Indoor Team National Championships were captured by New Mexico Junior College on the women’s side and South Plains Community College on the men’s side.

“Coach Steigenga and myself are very proud of how this group performed,” Rogier said. “We are very excited for the coming outdoor season to try and build on the success we had during the indoor season.”

The VU Track and Field teams will have a little bit of time to rest, recover ad celebrate a tremendous Indoor season before switching gears and heading outdoors, kicking off the 2023 Outdoor season Saturday, March 25 when VU hosts the Bill Smith Challenge.

RESULTS

TEAM RESULTS

MEN’S RESULTS

VU – 17, 12 points

WOMEN’S RESULTS

VU – 13, 16 points

INDIVIDUAL RESULTS

MEN’S RESULTS

DMR

Stanford, Jordan, Faulkner, Keitany – 6, 10:01.17

3000m

Ian Boit – 25, 8:56.60

Mile

Isaac Stanford – 16, 4:15.72

Mathew Keitany – 27, 4:20.08

4×800 Relay

Faulkner, Jordan, Momodu, Keitany – 5, 7:46.84

Heptathlon

Olegs Kozjakovs – 4, 4845 points

WOMEN’S RESULTS

5000m

Daisie Kinnett – 11, 19:05.98

Pole Vault

Julia Do Armaral Salvi – 1, 3.80m

Ysnaira Dos Santos Vieira – 3, 3.50m

800m

Brittany Page – 12, 2:33.44

Shot Put

Madison Davis – 16, 11.26m

 

No. 14 Trailblazers start postseason with Region 24 tournament win over Lake Land

03/07/2023
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INA, Ill. – The No. 14 ranked Vincennes University Trailblazers earned the No. 2 seed in this year’s Region 24/Central District Tournament and began tournament play Monday night with a 79-67 win over Lake Land College.

The Trailblazers broke away earlier in the first half, quickly building a 19-8 lead.

VU would maintain this double-digit lead throughout the rest of the opening half of play, growing as large as 15 before the Lakers scored the final four points of the half to cut the Vincennes lead down to 39-28 at the break.

Vincennes came out of the locker room in the second half looking to pull away but the Lakers had other ideas.

Lake Land used a 14-2 scoring run to cut the VU lead down to just four points midway through the final period.

This would be as close as Lake Land would get however as VU immediately followed up with a 7-0 scoring run of their own and would build their lead to 16 points for their largest lead of the night.

The Lakers would attempt another late comeback but were unable to put together another scoring run as VU closed out the game at the free throw line to pick up the 79-67 win over Lake Land College.

”It just is what it is when it’s the first day of the tournament,” VU Hall of Fame Head Coach Todd Franklin said. “There were some good things and some bad. You just try to find who is going to be comfortable and play and who is going to have a little bit of anxiety and can’t function. That typically affects you on the offensive end and I felt like we had some of that at times tonight. But we made enough plays that we were able to get it done.”

“I thought we had a chance to get a big lead at the half,” Franklin added. “We were up 11, which is solid, but I thought we should have been up by about 20 to 25 points and the opportunity was definitely there. Then to start the second half I thought we should have put it away. But I knew when we didn’t that they were eventually going to go on a little bit of a run. We got a little tight because everybody is looking around and nobody is doing it and we don’t have the guy that has done it before.”

The Trailblazers were led offensively by sophomore Caleb Johnson (N. Preston, Nova Scotia) who tied his season-high with 27 points on just 15 shots. Johnson would also grab four rebounds and lead the Blazers with a pair of blocks.

Sophomore Tasos Cook (Columbus, Ohio) helped put the game away late at the free throw line, connecting on all eight of his free throw attempts on his way to 21 points and a team-high nine assists.

Sophomore Shilo Jackson (Indianapolis, Ind.) had another tough assignment on the low block and finished his night with seven points and six rebounds.

Freshman Ryan Oliver (Antioch, Tenn.) came off the bench to add six points and dish out four assists, while freshman Michael Osei-Bonsu (Bolingbrook, Ill.) led the Blazers with eight rebounds.

“We tried to get some isolation situations for Caleb,” Franklin said. “He attacked and made a few plays. I thought Devawn gave us some good minutes during that stretch when we pulled it away again. Tasos is fighting out there and he’s having to play big minutes. I thought Ryan Oliver gave us some good things during that time.”

“The job that Ryan has done defensively against Johnny Close this season is phenomenal,” Franklin added. “Our fans might not know this, but Johnny Close has been lighting it up all year and in the three games we’ve played them, Ryan has locked him down and done a tremendous job of chasing through screens and staying on task. That’s a big factor in the game. That’s worth about 25 points, probably more. The ability for Ryan to do that. It’s like if somebody scored 25 points, we’d say he had a great game, Ryan scored 25 tonight by not letting Johnny Close get any.”

“At different times, different guys stepped up,” Franklin added. “We don’t have anybody back that’s done it, so we are learning as we go and hoping that we can survive long enough to learn enough to get comfortable in it. Hopefully we will be a lot more comfortable in here Wednesday night and if we are then we will play better. The truth of the matter is it’s about these players getting through that line and figuring it out. Once they’ve done it and have been through it, most of the time your good players will start to get comfortable in it. I hope that’s what happens Wednesday.”

Vincennes advances to the Region 24 Semi Finals Wednesday, March 8 and will face the winner of No. 3 seed Southwestern Illinois and No. 6 seed Wabash Valley. Tip-off time Wednesday is set for 8 p.m. eastern.

Other scores from the Quarterfinals of the Region 24 tournament include No. 1 seed John A. Logan winning over No. 9 seed Lewis & Clark 86-61 and No. 4 seed Olney Central winning over No. 5 seed Kaskaskia College 72-71.

“We’ve just got to get through it,” Franklin said. “Sometimes you can really get one or two guys to step through that line and it makes it more comfortable for everybody else. We haven’t known who that was going to be. Caleb came through pretty big offensively when we needed it and we really needed it when they were getting back closer to us.”

“I just told them in the timeout, ‘guys, do you really want it’,” Franklin added. “I told them to just play Lake Land. Don’t play being in the playoffs, just play Lake Land for these last 10 minutes and if we do that, then I think we’ll be okay. You never really know if anything is going to work or how anyone will respond. It’s kind of up to the players and I’m never going to claim any different and at that point we had some players step up and that was the difference. We pushed them back away and held them off at the end.”

“I’m proud of them,” Franklin said. “They got through it tonight. Basically led wire-to-wire against a hot ball club who is very talented. But we did the things that you don’t always notice, but were tremendous. Locking up Johnny Close like we did, we kept the guards out of the lane most of the night. They were just blowing by Lincoln Trail on Saturday in a dominant performance and we knew we had to stop that. We kept Kuljuhovic off of the glass for the most part. He’s a tremendous offensive rebounder. When you stop those things, everybody takes it for granted. Keeping those big guys off of the offensive glass is pretty hard. Keeping Johnny Close from getting those shots off is really hard. We let Hussein get too many, but we were playing him one-on-one and not giving up the offensive glass to the other big guys and not helping off of guys like Close. But there were a lot of things that we did well tonight that are not the most spectacular and that’s why we won and we were able to lead pretty much wire-to-wire.”

VINCENNES BOX SCORE

VINCENNES (79): Tasos Cook 6-13 8-8 21, Trenton Johnson 2-7 2-3 6, Caleb Johnson 10-15 4-5 27, Michael Osei-Bonsu 2-2 0-0 4, Shilo Jackson 3-7 1-3 7, Devawn White 1-2 0-1 2, Kale Gaither 0-0 0-0 0, Kris King 2-10 0-1 4, Ryan Oliver 2-7 1-3 6, Kent King 0-0 0-0 0, Karyiek Dixon 1-1 0-0 2, Team 29-64 16-24 79.

Lake Land – 28   39 – 67

VU (27-4, 15-4) – 39   40 – 79

Three-point goals: VU 5 (C. Johnson 3, Cook, Oliver). Rebounds: VU 30 (Osei-Bonsu 8). Assists: VU 22 (Cook 9). Steals: VU 6 (Kr. King 3). Blocked Shots: VU 4 (C. Johnson 2). Turnovers: VU 13. Personal Fouls: VU 18. Fouled out: None.

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The No. 14 VU Trailblazers improve to 27-4, with a 15-4 record against Region 24 opponents.

BASEBALL ACES WIN SEVENTH-STRAIGHT, SWEEP SERIES FROM BOWLING GREEN 

03/07/2023
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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The University of Evansville baseball team extended its winning streak to seven games on Sunday by completing a four-game series sweep of the visiting Bowling Green State Falcons with 8-4 and 13-3 victories at German American Bank Field at Charles H. Braun Stadium in Evansville.

“What a way to cap a great overall weekend for our ballclub,” said UE head coach Wes Carroll.  “I thought that we played well in all three facets of the game this weekend.  Our offense had a great approach all weekend and really grinded out at-bats, and I thought top to bottom, our lineup competed well.

“Chase Hug and Simon Scherry are really hot right now at the plate, while Eric Roberts and Danny Borgstrom continue to have good days at the yard.  On the mound, I thought that our starters had great starts as well today.  The next four games on the road will be a challenge, but we are a confident team right now.”

In the opener, UE jumped to a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a run-scoring wild pitch, before scoring two runs in the third inning on a two-run opposite-field home run by Roberts, his second of the year.

Bowling Green would answer back with two unearned runs in the fourth inning to cut the UE lead to 3-2, but Evansville would respond with an RBI single by Scherry in their half of the inning.  Then, UE exploded for four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to put the game away.  Junior second baseman Kip Fougerousse started the four-run rally with a sacrifice fly, before Hug delivered a two-run triple and scored on another sacrifice fly by Scherry to move the lead to 8-2.

Junior starter Donovan Schultz (1-1) earned the victory for UE on the mound by scattering two unearned runs on one hit in 5.0 innings of work, while striking out five.  Hug went 2-for-3 with two runs scored and two RBI, while Scherry and Roberts drove in two runs each.

In the nightcap, Evansville used back-to-back four-run frames in the first two innings to grab control of the contest.  The Purple Aces sent 10 men to the plate in the first inning, with Hug and Borgstrom coming through with RBI base hits to build a 4-0 lead.  Then, Evansville doubled the lead in the second inning with four more runs, highlighted by a two-run single by Roberts and another RBI single by Borgstrom.

Evansville would add single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings, as Hug would add an opposite-field solo home run to left field in the fifth inning to help build an 11-1 lead.  The two teams would then trade two-run innings in the sixth inning to provide the final score of 13-3, with Hug plating an RBI double and senior third baseman Brent Widder producing an RBI single in the sixth.

Hug and Scherry both had four-hit games for UE, with Hug finishing a triple shy of the cycle.  Borgstrom also went 3-for-3 with two runs driven in, while Widder went 2-for-3 with two RBI.

With the victories, Evansville improves its overall record to 7-5.  Bowling Green, meanwhile, drops to 2-8 with the two losses.  Evansville will now hit the road for four games this week, beginning on Wednesday, when the Purple Aces travel to Nashville, Tennessee to take on #7 Vanderbilt in a mid-week contest.  First-pitch is set for 4:30 p.m. and Wednesday’s game can be seen live on the SEC Network-Plus streaming service.

EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT

03/07/2023
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EPD

EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORTED

 

DAILY ACTIVITY REPORTFOOTNOTE:  EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT  information was provided by the EPD and posted by the City-County-County Observer without opinion, bias, or editing.

UE’S HUG EARNS SECOND-STRAIGHT MVC PLAYER OF THE WEEK AWARD

03/07/2023
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EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Evansville fifth-year first baseman Chase Hug (Indianapolis, Ind./Pike/Olney Central) earned his second-straight Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Week Award on Monday, after continuing his torrid pace at the plate last week while helping Evansville win five-straight games.

Hug slashed .647/1.000/.739, while collecting a double, a triple, a home run, driving in eight runs, and scoring 10 more to help UE to a perfect 5-0 week.  He collected multi-hit and multi-run games in four of UE’s five contests, while having three multi-RBI games.

Hug opened the week going 3-for-5 with two runs scored to help Evansville to a 14-8 victory over preseason Ohio Valley Conference favorite Southeast Missouri State.  He then went 8-for-12 in a four-game series sweep of Bowling Green, and capped the series by going a perfect 4-for-4 with a double, a home run, three runs scored and three RBI in UE’s 13-3 seven-inning mercy-rule win over the Falcons.  He finished a triple shy of the cycle in the contest, which marked the second weekend in a row in which he just narrowly missed hitting for the cycle.

Overall, Hug is now hitting .463 to rank 42nd in NCAA Division I baseball, and he has hit an amazing .680 (17-for-25) over the last seven games to help Evansville to a seven-game winning streak.  Evansville (7-5) will put that winning streak on the line on Wednesday, as the Purple Aces will travel to Nashville, Tennessee to take on #7 Vanderbilt (8-4) in a mid-week contest.  First-pitch is set for 4:30 p.m. and Wednesday’s game can be seen live on the SEC Network+ streaming platform.

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