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■ Sports Editor Josh Brown (937) 440-5251, (937) 440-5232 jbrown@tdnpublishing.com
JOSH BROWN
TROY DAILY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM
TODAY’S TIPS
June 18, 2012
■ Major League Baseball
• GOLF: The Troy Men’s City Championship golf tournament will be held June 23-24 at Miami Shores Golf Course. The registration deadline for the tournament is at 6 p.m. Wednesday. • GOLF: The Troy Football Alumni Association is sponsoring a golf tournament July 21 at the Troy Country Club. It is a four-man scramble with a 2 p.m. shotgun start. The cost is $75 per person, with proceeds from the event to go to the Troy Football Alumni Association scholarship fund. Spaces are limited. For more information or to register, contact Chris Madigan at madigan-c@troy.k12.oh.us or (937) 332-3805. • SOFTBALL: The Troy Fastpitch Fall Ball League, including doubleheaders for five weeks, begins Sept. 9 at Duke Park. The cost is $50 and the signup deadline is Aug. 13. Travel teams are welcome. For more info and registration, see www.miamicountyblaze.com or call Curt at (937) 8750492. * SOFTBALL: The Milton-Union Fall Ball League, including doubleheaders for five weeks, begins Sept. 9 at the Lowry Complex. The cost is $50 and the signup deadline is Aug. 13. Travel teams are welcome. For more info and registration, see www.miamicountyblaze.com or call Curt at (937) 8750492. • TENNIS: West Milton will host tennis camps at the junior high, junior varsity and varsity levels this summer, with two sessions apiece. The junior high camp sessions will be from 11 a.m. to noon June 18-21 and June 2528 for the first session and July 9-12 and July 16-19 for the second, with both sessions costing $45. The junior varsity camp will run from 9:30-11 a.m. June 18-21 and June 25-28 for the first session and July 9-12 and July 16-19 for the second, with both costing $60. The varsity camp will run from 7:309:30 a.m. June 25-28 for the first session and July 16-19 for the second, and both will cost $60. Registration forms can be found at Milton-Union Middle School, the Milton-Union Public Library or from any of the high school coaches. The deadline to register is the Wednesday before the session being registered for. For more information, contact Sharon Paul at (937) 6983378 or Steve Brumbaugh at (937) 698-3625. • COACHING SEARCH: Troy Christian High School is looking for a girls head varsity basketball coach. Interested parties can contact Athletic Director Mike Coots at mcoots@troychristianschools.org.
SPORTS CALENDAR TODAY No events scheduled
WHAT’S INSIDE Scoreboard ............................15 Television Schedule..............15 Major League Baseball.........16 National Football League .....16 NBA......................................16 College Baseball...................16
Heat takes 2-1 lead on Thunder in finals The Oklahoma City Thunder had their chance.They were up 10 in the third quarter of the NBA Finals and then it all slipped away. By the end of the period, their lead was gone. And even a late flurry wasn’t enough to save the Thunder, as the Heat escaped with a 91-85 victory Sunday night to take a 2-1 lead in the championship series. See Page 16.
Dragons Lair EASTLAKE — The Dayton Dragons scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning to snap a 3-3 tie on the way to a 5-3 victory over the Lake County Captains on Sunday.
■ Auto Racing
AP PHOTO
Dale Earnhardt Jr. lifts the trophy after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday in Brooklyn, Mich.
Drought snapped Earnhardt Jr. wins 1st race since 2008
AP PHOTO
Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Johnny Cueto delivers in the first inning against the New York Mets during their baseball game Sunday at Citi Field in New York.
Johnny on the spot Defense helps Cueto pick up 3-1 win NEW YORK (AP) — Brandon Phillips loves to fool around in the field during batting practice, trying all sorts of “crazy” stuff with his glove. It’s fun and besides, someday it might come in handy. As in the sixth inning Sunday. The star second baseman made a between-the-legs flip to start a flashy double play and also hit a tiebreaking single, leading Johnny Cueto and the Cincinnati Reds over the New York Mets 3-1 for their sixth straight win. “It just happened,” the threetime Gold Glove winner said. “It just came naturally.” Naturally, said Reds manager Dusty Baker. “Anything you see him do out there, he’s practiced,” Baker said. “Bare hand, behind-the-
back.” The NL Central leaders completed their first three-game sweep in New York since 2001 and matched their longest winning streak of the season. The Reds also finished 6-2 this year in visits to Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. Cueto (8-3) overcame an early bout of dizziness and struck out a season-high eight in seven innings. He also doubled for the first extra-base hit of his career. The only run against Cueto came when he issued a basesloaded walk to pitcher Chris Young at 6-foot-10, the Mets starter has a strike zone as large as anyone in the majors. Sean Marshall got four outs for his ninth save in 10 chances. It was 3-1 in the sixth when Lucas Duda led off with a single
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BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) — Dale Earnhardt Jr. raced to his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory in four years, ending a 143race winless streak Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. The victory came almost exactly four years to the day after his last trip to Victory Lane in a Cup race. That also was in Michigan on June 15, 2008. He led for 36 laps last weekend at Pocono but made a late stop for gas instead of trying to stretch the fuel to the end.
■ See NASCAR on 16
■ MLB
Pirates blow past Indians
and Ike Davis followed with a hard grounder up the middle that Phillips backhanded. While in full stride, the All-Star tossed the ball with his bare hand between his legs to shortstop Zack Cozart, who made the DP relay. Phillips broke into a big smile after his latest highlightreel play. “I’d probably give it an 8,” Phillips said. Phillips’ single capped a three-run rally in the fifth, helped by Duda’s wild throw from right. There was plenty of wildlife on the field, too a squirrel scampered into the Reds’ dugout in the ninth, and several pigeons spent part of the game wandering around the infield dirt. Phillips noted that the birds
CLEVELAND (AP) — Asdrubal Cabrera’s defense has been something the Indians could count on. That’s why it was so surprising when he committed a careerhigh three errors two on one play that led to four unearned runs in Cleveland’s 9-5 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates Sunday. The Indians lost for the fifth time in six games. Pittsburgh scored three runs in the fourth following Cabrera’s first error and five of the six runs in the fifth came after Cabrera’s double error. “It was a bad day for me,”
■ See REDS on 16
■ See INDIANS on 16
■ Golf
Simpson wins 1st U.S. Open crown SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Webb Simpson won the U.S. Open and put two more names into the graveyard of champions. Overlooked for so much of the week, Simpson emerged on a fogfilled Sunday at The Olympic Club with four birdies around the turn and a tough chip out of a hole to the right of the 18th green that he converted into par for a 2-under 68. He finished at 1-over 281, and it was enough to outlast former U.S. Open champions Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell. Furyk bogeyed two of his last three holes. McDowell had a 25foot birdie on the 18th to force a playoff, but it never had a chance. “Oh, wow,” Simpson said,
watching from the locker room. Olympic is known as the “graveyard of champions” because proven major winners who were poised to win the U.S. Open have always lost to the underdog. One of those was Arnold Palmer in 1966, when he lost a sevenshot lead on the back nine. Perhaps it was only SIMPSON fitting that the 25year-old Simpson went to Wake Forest on an Arnold Palmer scholarship. “Arnold has been so good to me,” Simpson said. “Just the other day, I read that story and thought about it. He’s meant so
much to me and Wake Forest. Hopefully, I can get a little back for him and make him smile.” No one was beaming like Simpson, who followed a breakthrough year on the PGA Tour with his first major. No one was more disgusted than Furyk, in control of the U.S. Open for so much of the final round until he snap-hooked his tee shot on the par-5 16th hole to fall out of the lead for the first time all day, and was unable to get it back. Needing a birdie on the final hole, he hit into the bunker. He crouched and clamped his teeth onto the shaft of his wedge.
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Furyk made bogey on the final hole and closed with a 74, a final round without a single birdie. McDowell, who made four bogeys on the front nine, at least gave himself a chance with a 20foot birdie putt on the 17th and a shot into the 18th that had him sprinting up the hill to see what kind of chance he had. The putt stayed left of the hole the entire way, and he had to settle for a 73. McDowell shared second place with Michael Thompson, who closed with a 67 and waited two hours to see if it would be good enough. Tiger Woods, starting five shots behind, played the first six holes in 6-over par and was never a factor. He shot 73.
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