GRIM ADVANCES TO DISTRICT

BOARDMAN — Heartland Christian junior Cooper Grim cruised into the Div. II district tournament by winning two matches on Wednesday at the Boardman sectional tennis tournament

In the second round Grim beat Struthers’ Zachariah Halverstadt 6-0, 6-0 and Mooney’s Michael Frangos 6-0, 6-0 in the sectional semifinal.

Grim, a two-time state qualifier, will meet Mooney’s Maximus Marino, the fourth seed, in the semifinal on Friday.

The district tournament is set for May 22-23 at Springside Athletic Club in Akron. Four singles and four doubles players from that tournament will qualify for the state tennis tournament which is set for May 28-29 at Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason. The professional tennis facility hosted the state tournament from 2014 to 2022.

MOUNT UNION GOLFERS AT NATIONALS

HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS, Fla. — Mount Union’s men’s golf team did not make the cut Wednesday the NCAA Division III Championship at Mission Resort and Club.

The Purple Raiders tied for 34th a +48 through two round.

Illinois Wesleyan leads the team standings at -5, three strokes ahead of Washington & Lee.

Mount Union freshman Jase Libb, a West Branch High School graduate, shot +13 in both rounds and is in 216th place. Fellow freshman Austin Wilhout was Mount Union’s top golfer in a tie for 61st at +5.

Oglethorpe University junior Ryan Dunn leads at 6-under-par.

Forty-three teams and 225 golfers are competing in the tournament.

FIRST STATE FLAG FOOTBALL TOURNAMENT SET

CANTON – Following the conclusion of the regional tournaments hosted by the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals, eight schools have punched their ticket to the Inaugural Ohio High School Athletic Association Girls Flag Football State Tournament this Saturday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

Hamilton Badin won the Bengals regional tournament, while Madison won the Browns regional tournament. The top four schools from both regionals qualify for the state tournament.

Spectrum will have live coverage of the state tournament. The state championship game will be televised live on Spectrum News 1. All seven games will be streamed live at SpectrumNewsApp.com and OHSAA.tv.

Quarterfinals (start at noon): No. 1 NE Madison vs. No. 4 SW Cin. Mount Notre Dame; No. 2 NE Grafton Midview vs. No. 3 SW Cin. Princeton; No 3 NE Burton Berkshire vs. No. 2 SW Cin. St. Ursula; No. 4 NE Macedonia Nordonia vs. No. 1 SW Hamilton Badin

Semifinals – 1 p.m.

Championship – 2:30 p.m.

STEELERS LOCK UP BOSWELL

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Steelers and longtime kicker Chris Boswell have agreed to a new five-year contract that will make him one of the highest-paid players at his position.

The deal, announced on Wednesday, averages $7 million a season over the final four years. That ties Boswell with Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey for the largest contract awarded to a kicker.

The 35-year-old Boswell has spent all 11 seasons of his career with Pittsburgh after signing with the Steelers in October 2015.

One of the most accurate kickers in NFL history, the two-time Pro Bowler has connected on 299 of 341 field goal attempts (88%), and 353 of 369 extra point attempts (96%) while also converting all 19 of his postseason field goals.

Boswell’s 1,250 career points rank second in franchise history behind Gary Anderson (1,343). Boswell made 27 of 32 field goal attempts (84.4%) last season, including a career-long 60-yarder in a Week 1 win over the New York Jets. He was 42 of 43 on extra point attempts (97.7%) and finished with 123 points.

NCAA SPLITS MEN’S SOCCER SEASON

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Division I men’s soccer season will be split between the fall and spring with the national tournament moving to the spring starting in 2027-28, the NCAA announced Wednesday.

The sport’s oversight committee adopted the legislation, which is subject to review by the Division I Cabinet in June.

Teams will be allowed to play 18 matches from late August until the Saturday before Thanksgiving and up to 10 matches from mid-February until the start of the NCAA Tournament. Specific dates for the postseason will be determined later.

There is no movement afoot to restructure the women’s season.

The men’s oversight committee introduced its new model in January with the rationale focusing on student-athlete welfare.

The committee said the fall-spring schedule would, among other things, reduce time demands and give athletes a more balanced academic and athletic experience; the potential for fewer midweek games would result in less missed class time; and more recovery time between matches would be provided.

500 WILL LIKELY BE A SELLOUT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The world’s largest single-day sporting event will be run in front of another full house, and central Indiana residents will be able to watch the telecast of the Indianapolis 500 live.

Race organizers announced Wednesday that reserved seating for this year’s race would be sold out by the end of the day and that the local blackout would be lifted.

Official attendance figures for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” are not announced, but there are an estimated 275,000 grandstand seats around the 2.5-mile oval and the total crowd, which includes general admission tickets on the infield, reaches an estimated 350,000.

“Anticipation for race day is approaching an all-time high right here in central Indiana and across the globe,” Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles said in a statement. “We can’t thank the world’s greatest and most loyal fans enough. The stars of the IndyCar Series are ready for an unparalleled showcase of speed, bravery and competition in front of a historic and massive crowd.”

NETFLIX BECOMES A PLAYER

Netflix has expanded its inventory of NFL games and will have a season-long presence with the league under a new deal announced Wednesday.

The streaming service will have five regular-season games as well as the NFL Honors through 2029. It had been carrying two games on Christmas Day since 2024. The announcement was made during its upfront presentation to advertisers.

Netflix will air a Week 1 game, one on Thanksgiving Eve, two on Christmas Day and a 1 p.m. ET contest on the Saturday of the final week of the regular season.

Two of the matchups — both featuring the Lost Angeles Rams — were made official on Wednesday. Netflix will carry the Week 1 game between the Rams and San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia. The Rams will then host the Green Bay Packers in the first Thanksgiving Eve contest on Nov. 25.

Both games will be aired in primetime in the United States at 8:35 p.m. ET. The Week 1 game will be on Sept. 10 in the U.S. Melbourne is 14 hours ahead of New York and 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles and San Francisco, so it will kick off at 10:35 a.m. on Sept. 11 in Australia.

The Australia matchup between NFC West rivals is one of nine international games the NFL will play this upcoming season. The league released its complete international slate Wednesday morning.

“We’ve seen how many fans are already on Netflix, so we thought it was a tremendous opportunity to deepen the partnership, expand the reach of those games, and to do so around tentpole events at the beginning and end of the year with big holidays in the middle, then have them extend into honors and do what Netflix has shown they do so well, which is make big events even bigger,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution.

Two games — Thanksgiving Eve and Week 18 — are from the four the league got back after ESPN bought NFL Network. The Week 1 game was on YouTube last season.

The NFL Honors started during the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis as a way for the league to announce all of its award winners in one show. It started airing the night before the Super Bowl but moved to the Thursday of Super Bowl week in 2022. It had been carried by the network airing the Super Bowl, but will now get a worldwide audience with the move.

The NFL Honors include the Associated Press awards for Most Valuable Player, Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Assistant Coach of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year.

The full schedule, including the Christmas Day matchups, will be released Thursday evening. The Week 18 Saturday games, which also include 4:30 and 8:15 p.m. ET matchups on ESPN/ABC, are not announced until six days out because the league prioritizes games with playoff implications in those spots.

The regular-season schedule was finalized Tuesday morning.

Netflix also announced the third season of the documentary series Quarterback will debut on July 14. It will feature Washington’s Jayden Daniels, Tampa Bay’s Baker Mayfield, Tennessee’s Cam Ward, the top pick in the 2025 draft, and Joe Flacco, who began the season with Cleveland before being traded to Cincinnati.