Sports category, Page 2564
Tim Benz: Penguins must avoid turning into what Steelers have become
What a bad Sunday. Blowing a lead. Playing down to the level of bad competition. Thirteen giveaways. I`m not talking about the Steelers. I`m talking about the Penguins. For one night, it felt like Mike Tomlin`s team had swapped its spikes for the skates of Mike Sullivan`s players. The Penguins...
Sarah Thomas to become first woman to officiate NFL playoff game
NFL official Sarah Thomas is set to be the first women to officiate a NFL playoff game on Sunday. Thomas will work the Los Angeles Chargers - New England Patriots matchup in Foxborough, Mass., joining Ron Torbert’s crew as a down judge, according to Football Zebras. Thomas became the first...
Kevin Gorman: With Steelers’ season over, spotlight shines on Penguins
The season started slowly for their captain. They endured an uncommon losing streak that saw them slip out of the playoff picture. A former player created a stir by suggesting the coach’s message wasn’t getting through to two of the team’s high-profile players. Sound like another season of Pittsburgh Steelers...
Alabama has plenty of work to do in offseason
Alabama coach Nick Saban is famously quick to start focusing on his postseason to-do list, whether the Crimson Tide just won a national championship or fell short. It’s how he’s wired, and there’s plenty of work to do this offseason. Saban needs to regroup from easily the worst beating of...
Chiefs’ struggling defense preps for Colts’ potent offense
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs defense had been hearing all season about how bad it has been and how it was the biggest threat to an offensive juggernaut falling short of the Super Bowl. Then, the Chiefs shut down the Oakland Raiders in Week 17. Now, the...
Clemson blows out top-ranked Alabama to win national title
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Dabo Swinney kissed the championship trophy and proclaimed this Clemson team the greatest of all time. He’s got a case. With stunning ease — and a freshman quarterback — Clemson toppled college football’s greatest dynasty again to become the first perfect playoff champion. Trevor Lawrence passed...
Reports: Matt LaFleur accepts offer to become Packers coach
NASHVILLE — The Green Bay Packers are turning to fast-rising offensive whiz Matt LaFleur to aid Aaron Rodgers and end a two-year absence from the postseason. LaFleur accepted an offer Monday to become the next head coach of the Packers, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person...
A-K Valley campus clippings: Simmons leads Saint Vincent men’s basketball over holiday break
Mike Simmons is heating up at Saint Vincent. The Bearcats’ senior guard, a Kiski Area graduate and former Valley News Dispatch Boys Basketball Player of the Year, was named the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week on Monday. Simmons averaged 17 points in helping Saint Vincent go...
Terrell Brown’s defense making difference for Pitt basketball
There might be times Terrell Brown appears to be looking in one direction while the basketball is headed somewhere else when Pitt is playing defense. Be assured, Pitt’s 6-foot-10 sophomore center is not day-dreaming, although he doesn’t mind if the other team thinks that’s the case. He knows exactly what...
Running back unlikely to be offseason priority for Steelers
Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a 12-part series breaking down the Pittsburgh Steelers at each position in the offseason. All salary cap information courtesy spotrac.com. Maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers would have run the ball more frequently — and perhaps more effectively — if Le’Veon Bell had reported for...
NFL wild-card round ratings up 12 percent over last year
The NFL’s strong regular season of TV ratings continued into its opening weekend of the postseason. The league said on Monday that there was an average of 28.4 million viewers for the four wild-card round games, which is a 12 percent increase over last year. The Philadelphia Eagles game against...
Westmoreland campus clippings: Latrobe grads guiding Shippensburg men’s basketball
Latrobe was well-represented Saturday as the Shippensburg men’s basketball team took down visiting East Stroudsburg, 76-70. Raiders coach Chris Fite notched his 100th career victory, and sophomore point guard Jake Biss scored a career-high 30 points for No. 25 Shippensburg (12-3, 6-1 PSAC). Fite and Biss are Latrobe graduates. Since...
NFL officially rules Parkey’s missed FG as block; Penn Hills grad gets hand on it
PHILADELPHIA — Cody Parkey got an excuse he probably won’t use. Parkey’s missed 43-yard field goal in the final seconds that gave the Philadelphia Eagles a 16-15 upset win over the Chicago Bears in Sunday’s wild-card playoff game officially was ruled a block by the NFL. Video showed Philadelphia’s Treyvon...
Antonio Brown withdraws from Pro Bowl; JuJu Smith-Schuster to replace him
Citing an injury, wide receiver Antonio Brown will not play in the Pro Bowl, opening the door for teammate JuJu Smith-Schuster to replace him in the all-star contest, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced Monday. Brown missed the season finale against Cincinnati with what the Steelers said was a knee injury. But...
Mark Madden: No logical connection between Roethlisberger, Steelers’ circus
Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. When the Steelers’ latest round of turmoil went viral, Freeman tweeted, “Three people deserve blame for the Steelers’ predicament: Ben , and Tomlin. But my point has been that Tomlin and AB catch all the heat while Ben skates....
RBs coach James Saxon let go after 5 years with Steelers
Running backs coach James Saxon became the second Steelers assistant to lose his job when coach Mike Tomlin announced Monday that he wasn’t renewing his contract. Saxon had been with the Steelers for five years. Outside linebackers coach Joey Porter didn’t have his contract renewed by Tomlin last week. Saxon...
With winning streak over, Penguins take stock of where they stand
The Pittsburgh Penguins tore through a 2 ½-week stretch, winning eight consecutive games and outscoring their foes by a 32-9 margin. Now that the run is over, though, the Penguins are left with a simple question: What, exactly, did the winning streak accomplish? “We are happy we are back where...
Sidney Crosby finds new role on Penguins penalty kill ‘fun’
Sidney Crosby is embracing his new role, even if it is one he did with regularity almost a decade ago. The Pittsburgh Penguins best player now is one of its best penalty-killers. “It’s something I did earlier on and then not so much for a long period of time there....
Latrobe grad Biss nabs PSAC East player of week honors for Shippensburg
A head-turning performance Saturday — and a quality three-game stretch in general — earned Jake Biss some conference-wide attention Monday. Biss, a sophomore point guard from Shippensburg and a Latrobe graduate, was named Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division Athlete of the Week after his 30-point game — and a...
Saint Vincent’s Simmons named PAC player of week
Saint Vincent senior Mike Simmons took momentum into the new year for the men’s basketball team. His strong play of late garnered him some recognition Monday as he was named the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week. A 6-foot-2 guard from Kiski Area, Simmons went for a...
Chad Ruhwedel returns to former role as Penguins’ No. 8 defenseman
Chad Ruhwedel was back in a familiar spot Sunday night: the press box at PPG Paints Arena. While he’d rather be playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, that beats where he was the previous 10 days. Ruhwedel returned to the Penguins after a conditioning stint at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he appeared in...
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan trains power play with positive reinforcement
The Pittsburgh Penguins saw their eight-game winning streak end with a 5-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night, in part, because of an ineffective power play. They went 0 for 3 with the man-advantage, including failing to score on 71 seconds of five-on-three time late in the first...
Troy Polamalu, Vince Young, Goodyear Blimp part of 2019 College Football Hall class
Texas quarterback Vince Young and Notre Dame speedster Raghib Ismail have been selected for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, along with 11 other players and two coaches. Young was the Heisman Trophy runner-up and led the Longhorns to the 2005 national championship with a memorable performance in...
Weekend College Top 10: Unlikely source leads Saint Vincent
Every Monday, the Tribune-Review will highlight 10 top area college performances from the weekend: 1. Saint Vincent men stay perfect in PAC Cletus Hilton (Seton LaSalle) scored a personal-best 20 points — 10 more than his previous high — in an 89-65 rout of Bethany on Saturday. Hilton, a transfer...
Antonio Brown’s agent talks briefly about his client’s future
The agent for Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown is ready to see what the offseason brings for his client. With Brown’s future with the organization up in the air, Drew Rosenhaus spoke about Brown on Sunday during an appearance on 7 Sports Xtra, a Miami-based sports show. “I’m just...
