Potters, Beavers off to Muskingum

NEW CONCORD — East Liverpool and Beaver Local are heading to the East Division II regional track and field meet at Muskingum University on Thursday and Saturday.

The East Liverpool boys have regional qualifiers in six events. The Beaver Local boys and girls each have five qualifiers and the East Liverpool girls three.

Thursday’s schedule includes the boys discus and long jump and girls shot put and high jump at 4:30 p.m. and the running events at 6 p.m.

Saturday’s schedule is 11 a.m. for the field events and 12:30 p.m. for the running events.

The top four finishers in each event advance to the state meet in Columbus on June 6-7.

Tickets are $11 for adults and $5 for students.

Wellsville, Southern at North Royalton

NORTH ROYALTON — The Northeast Division III regional track and field meet at North Royalton High School on Wednesday and Friday will feature 37 qualifiers from Columbiana County.

There are 15 boys regional qualifiers and 22 girls qualifiers from the county, including Columbiana, Crestview, Heartland Christian, Southern, United and Wellsville

Action gets started Wednesday with the boys discus and long jump and girls shot put and high jump at 4:30 p.m. and the running events at 6 p.m.

The meet concludes Friday with the field events at 4:30 p.m. and the running events at 6 p.m.

The top four finishers in each event advance to the state meet in Columbus on June 6-7.

Tickets are $11 for adults and $5 for students.

Chester blanks Youngstown

NEW MANCHESTER, W.Va. — Chester OldTimers baseball team improved to 2-0 with a 7-0 win over Youngstown on Sunday at Oak Glen High School.

Dave Smith led the way with a double and two singles. Doug Comm had a double.

Steve Nemec started and got the win with strong relief from Dave Smith.

Chester plays Poland at 2 p.m. Sunday at Poland High School.

Pirate shines in major league debut

PHOENIX (AP) — Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Braxton Ashcraft pitched three scoreless innings in his major league debut on Monday.

Ashcraft, one of the team’s top prospects, was recalled before Pittsburgh’s 5-0 loss at Arizona. Right-hander Isaac Mattson was optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis.

The 25-year-old Ashcraft entered after Andrew Heaney was tagged for five runs and eight hits in five innings. He fanned his first batter, Tim Tawa, for his first career strikeout.

He allowed two hits and walked one. He threw 50 pitches, 32 for strikes.

Ashcraft’s performance was a bright spot for a last-place Pittsburgh team that dropped to 7-17 in May. The Pirates finished with six hits in the opener of a six-game trip.

Ashcraft was selected by Pittsburgh in the second round of the 2018 amateur draft. He was 3-3 with a 5.03 ERA in 10 starts for Indianapolis this season, striking out 56 in 48 1/3 innings.

Manager Don Kelly told reporters that Ashcraft would work out of the bullpen with the Pirates.

Mattson has no record and a 3.00 ERA in three games with Pittsburgh this year.

Ohtani’s leadoff homer powers Dodgers

CLEVELAND (AP) — Shohei Ohtani hit a leadoff homer for the second straight game and the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Cleveland Guardians 7-2 on Monday night.

Will Smith also went deep for the Dodgers, who bounced back after dropping two of three games in New York to the Mets.

Los Angeles’ first five hitters accounted for seven of its eight hits.

Ohtani didn’t waste any time in hitting his major league-leading 19th homer of the season. He drove a low, inside fastball from Gavin Williams (4-3) on the first pitch into the right-field stands. It was the second time this year he went deep on the first pitch.

It was Ohtani’s fifth leadoff homer this season and 17th since arriving in the majors from Japan in 2018. It is the first time he has had 19 home runs in the majors before June 1.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto (6-3) allowed two runs in six innings and struck out seven. The Japanese right-hander has a 1.97 ERA, which ranks sixth in the majors.

Key moment: The Dodgers got a pair of insurance runs in the fifth on Teoscar Hernandez’s RBI single and Max Muncy’s sacrifice fly.

Key stat: Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez extended his hitting streak to a career-high 19 games with a pair of doubles. He is batting .387 (29 for 75) with 12 extra-base hits and 11 RBIs during that span.

Up next: Los Angeles RHP Dustin May (2-4, 4.09 ERA) faces Cleveland RHP Tanner Bibee (4-4, 3.57 ERA) in the middle game of the series.

Hurricanes avoid another sweep

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Frederik Andersen returned to the net and stopped 20 shots for his fifth career playoff shutout, Logan Stankoven got the only goal Carolina needed and the Hurricanes won their first Eastern Conference finals game in 20 years by beating the Florida Panthers 3-0 on Monday night to stave off elimination.

Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal got empty-netters to seal it for the Hurricanes. They had dropped 15 consecutive East finals games, getting swept in 2009, 2019 and 2023, then dropping the first three games of this matchup.

No sweep this time, however. Carolina still trails the series 3-1, but that looks a whole lot better than 3-0 does. The Hurricanes kept the Panthers’ offense completely bottled up for much of the game, limiting the reigning Stanley Cup champions to 12 shots through two periods.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 25 shots for Florida, which played without the injured Sam Reinhart, Niko Mikkola and A.J. Greer.

Game 5 is Wednesday in Raleigh, North Carolina. If Game 6 is needed, it’ll be back in Sunrise on Friday.

Stankoven gave Carolina its first lead of the series midway through the second period when he took a cross-ice diagonal pass from Alexander Nikishin at the blue line and skated in alone on Bobrovsky. He beat the Florida goalie over the right shoulder for the 1-0 lead, ending a drought that — depending on perspective — had lasted for either six games or two years.

It was Carolina’s first lead in the East finals since the second period of Game 2 of the 2023 matchup against Florida. A total of 364 minutes, 53 seconds.