Local Sports Headlines: June 24, 2022

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Indiana Cutters host Cin City Buccaneers Saturday night
The Indiana Cutters Semi Pro football team is back in action Saturday Night as the host the Cin City Buccaneers at 6pm at Martinsville HS. The Cutters lost to the Kentucky Cardinals 24-20 a week ago, but the Cardinals had to forfeit the win to the Cutters after it was discovered the Cardinals had two ineligible players who played in the game that played for another team in another league which is a violation of Blue-Collar Football League by Laws. The Cutters are 2-1 on the season and looking for a big home win before the league heads into the 4th of July holiday break.

Isaiah Moore has caught 4 touchdown passes on the season 2 from Travis Griffey and 2 from Kenny Martin, Marquise Holt has 3 rushing touchdowns and Torrell Williamson has two. This will be the first of two meetings this season between the Cutters and Buccaneers. The teams will meet in Cincinnati on August 13, which is a reschedule from May 21, which was canceled due to severe weather. Saturday’s game will mark the first meeting ever between these two teams.

The Buccaneers are 2-1 on the season and have scored 34 points and given up 26. The Buccaneers are the defending league champions and have beaten the Tuscarawas County Warriors 27-6 and Indiana Tornados 7-2 with their lone loss coming last week to the Southern Ohio Blaze 18-0.

Lilly King wins Gold at World Aquatics Championships
Former Indiana University swimming and diving standout Lilly King won her first-ever 200-meter breaststroke world title at the 19th FINA World Championships on Thursday in Budapest Hungary and made American swimming history while doing so. Per Braden Keith, editor-in-chief of the swimming and diving news website SwimSwam, “King is the first American swimmer, male or female, to win a career treble of golds in the 50-100-200 [meter] of any stroke at the long course world championships.”

The Evansville, Indiana native earned her 15th-career world championship medal and 13th gold. She previously doubled as the 50-and-100-breaststroke winner at both the 2017 and 2019 championships. King completed the triple Thursday, swimming the 200-meter race in 2:22.41. She blazed through the final 50 meters in 36.36 to pass Australian Jenna Strauch (2:23.04) and fellow American Kate Douglass (2:23.20). The 200-meter breaststroke victory is King’s second gold of this year’s championships after she swam in the preliminary of Team USA’s 4×100-meter mixed medley relay on Tuesday. King placed fourth in the 100-meter breaststroke on Monday, finishing in 1:06.07, and will swim the preliminary of her final event, the 50-meter breaststroke today. King competed at IU from 2016-19 and won all eight NCAA titles combined in the 100-and-200-yard breaststroke events during that span. She is also a four-time Olympic medalist between the 2016 and 2020 games.

IHSAA changes format to State Basketball Tournaments
The Indiana High School Athletic Association executive committee Thursday approved a significant change to the high school boys’ and girls’ basketball tournaments. By a 15-2 vote, the executive committee approved changing the regional round to a single game and the Semi-state round to a two-game format. That move essentially flip-flops a format that had been in place for 20 years. IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig said earlier this week that the move was made after a poll of the state’s athletic directors, boys and girls basketball coaches and principals showed 73.4% of the 781 respondents in favor of the move with all four groups at least 70% in favor. Basketball tournament host sites will be approved by the executive committee in the fall.

The IHSAA executive committee also modified the 300-mile travel limit. Member schools will now be allowed to compete against schools from farther away than 300 miles from the state border as long as the contest is played within the 300-mile limit and those out-of-state schools are a member of their state association. Indiana schools may also host out-of-state schools that are in good standing with their state association. The executive committee fully approved full membership for Dugger Union, Evansville Christian and Purdue Polytechnic. Those three schools are eligible to participate in IHSAA tournaments beginning this fall. A proposal to raise ticket prices in several sports, including football and basketball games from $6 to $7 was approved, along with raising pay for officials by $10 at all levels and bumping mileage rates for officials from 25 cents per mile to 50 cents. 

Indiana University Athletics establishes new academic achievement awards for Student Athletes
Beginning with the start of the 2022-23 academic year, Indiana University’s Department of Intercollegiate Athletics will initiate a program to provide its scholarship student-athletes with newfound benefits for their academic achievements. IU’s student-athletes will soon be eligible to receive up to $5,980.00 per year as an academic achievement award. The IU Athletics Academic Achievement Award comes in response to the 2021 Supreme Court decision in Alston vs. NCAA, which granted universities the opportunity to provide their student-athletes with education-related financial awards up to a maximum of $5980.00 per year.
 
“Indiana University Athletics continues to be a national leader in this new era of intercollegiate athletics, and we are pleased to be able to enhance our students’ experience by offering this opportunity to our student-athletes,” said IU Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Scott Dolson in Press Release. “Supporting our students’ effort to excel academically and earn an Indiana University degree is our top priority, and I’m excited that this new program supports our efforts to achieve that ultimate goal.”
 
To be eligible for an academic achievement award, the student-athlete must be on either a full or partial athletic scholarship at Indiana University and earn the Academic Progress Rate (APR) retention point as well as the APR eligibility point for the applicable semester. They also must not be facing any university-related conduct issues as detailed in the IU Athletics Academic Achievement Award Policy. Awards will be given for the fall and spring semesters only and will be proportionate to the percentage of athletic scholarship funding that a student-athlete receives. The maximum that a full scholarship student-athlete is eligible to receive is $2,990.00 during both the fall and spring semesters.

Indianapolis Indians Coverage

Memphis Beats Indianapolis

Major league rehabber Yoshi Tsutsugo went 3-for-3 but the Indianapolis Indians dropped Game 3 of the six-game series against the Memphis Redbirds on Thursday night, 4-3. The teams will wrap up the three-game series this weekend. playing at 7:05 this evening and tomorrow along with a 1:35 pm first pitch Sunday Afternoon.

Indians Record: 34-33 (LP: Cristofer Melendez 2-4) / Memphis Record: 39-30 (WP: Blake Parker (1-2) SV: Jacob Bosiokovic 3)

The Pittsburgh Pirates announced that outfielder Ben Gamel has been assigned to Indianapolis to begin a rehab assignment. He will be the 10th major league rehabber to appear with the Indians this season, following infielders: Josh VanMeter, Yoshi Tsutsugo, and Kevin Newman; outfielder Anthony Alford; and, pitchers Heath Hembree, Sam Howard, Max Kranick, Nick Mears, and Duane Underwood Jr. VanMeter, Newman, Tsutsugo, and Mears are currently on Indy’s roster.

For more local news . . .
Check out our archived episodes of What’s Happenin’ and Talkin’ Sports with Nick Jenkinson here