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SPORTSBRIEFING

Liverpool sells passes

EAST LIVERPOOL — Season athletic passes for East Liverpool City Schools will be on sale from 6 to 8 p.m. on Monday at the high school ticket office in Potter Fieldhouse. Cost is $35 for students, $60 for a single adult and $150 for a family (five maximum).

Jamboree game set

EAST LIVERPOOL — The Crestview at East Liverpool football scrimmage set for 7 p.m. on Aug. 16 will be an OHSAA Jamboree game. The cost for adults and students is $2. Proceeds will benefit the OHSAA Catastrophic Injury Fund for student athletes.

Chester moves to 13-0

POLAND — The Chester Oldtimers moved to 13-0 by dropping the Youngstown Astros 12-3 on Thursday at Poland High School.

Jub Whittaker went the distance to pick up the win. Mike Logston added two doubles and a single. Brian Newlyn had a double and two singles. Dave Smith, Nick Turkaly, Mike Brennan and Brian Six each had two hits.

Chester will meet unbeaten Greenville (12-0) at 2 p.m. on Sunday at East Liverpool High School.

Hamlin, Busch go 1-2

BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) — Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch swept the front row in qualifying at Michigan International Speedway. Kevin Harvick, neck-and-neck with Busch all season, was right behind in third.

Hamlin went 202.794 mph in Friday’s session to win a pole for the second consecutive week. The JGR veteran is winless this season, while teammate Busch has six victories and Erik Jones has one.

His No. 11 team has clearly hit on something these last two weeks and Hamlin, a two-time Michigan winner, was fastest in all three rounds of qualifying and Friday’s first practice. But he’s still in search of a win and wants to continue his streak of at least one victory a year every season since his 2006 rookie year.

“It is a very important streak; I think about it,” said Hamlin, who thought the streak was over in 2013 when he broke his back and missed a month, then didn’t win until the season finale.

“You look back at the really great drivers of NASCAR, and they had long streaks, 10 years and above, of winning in a row, and you want to keep that going for sure. It’s important.”

Busch made it an all-Toyota front row for Sunday’s race with a lap at 202.731 mph. Harvick, in a Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, went 202.100. Harvick and Busch are tied for most Cup Series victories, while Martin Truex Jr., the final member of the so-called “Big 3,” has four wins this year. He qualified seventh in his Toyota for Furniture Row Racing.

Jones qualified fourth to give JGR three of its four drivers in the front two rows. Daniel Suarez, who like Hamlin is winless this season, did not record a qualifying speed because he scraped the outside retaining wall early in the first round.

Austin Dillon and Ryan Newman, in Chevrolets for Richard Childress Racing, were fifth and sixth. Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano rounded out the top 10 in a pair of Fords.

Kurt Busch’s name jumped into the rumor bill in the middle of qualifying when Motorsport.com reported Busch would replace Jamie McMurray at Chip Ganassi Racing. After his 12th-place qualifying effort, Busch said he was talking to several teams and doesn’t have a deal for 2019.

Ganassi said he doesn’t have a deal Busch and his only recent communication with him was a bet on a baseball game. As for McMurray’s future with the team — McMurray has won the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600, Brickyard 400 and Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona driving for Ganassi — the team owner said: “I want Jamie McMurray back on my team.”

McMurray qualified 15th, two spots ahead of teammate Kyle Larson, the defending race winner. Both Ganassi drivers are winless this season.

Clint Bowyer, winner of the first stop of this season at Michigan, qualified 16th for Stewart-Haas Racing.

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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-AutoRacing and https://twitter.com/AP–Sports

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press.

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