New Prairie’s Macaria Tierney has signed a national letter of intent to golf at Manchester University. She is pictured with her parents, Beth and Mike.
NP golfer Tierney signs with Manchester
New Prairie’s Macaria Tierney has signed a national letter of intent to golf at Manchester University. She is pictured with her parents, Beth and Mike.
NP golfer Tierney signs with Manchester
La Porte’s RJ Anglin yells after striking out the final South Bend Adams to complete a 2-0 shutout in Wednesday’s Plymouth Sectional game.
Kade Flores had two hits and an RBI for La Porte in its 2-0 win over South Bend Adams on Wednesday at Plymouth.
Kade Flores encourages Ben Dubbs before an at-bat in La Porte's sectional game with South Bend Adams on Wednesday. The Slicers pair combined for five hits.
PLYMOUTH – OK, so Scott Upp didn’t approach RJ Anglin after La Porte scored in the second inning of Wednesday’s game with South Bend Adams and say, There’s your run.’
But given the way the Slicers have (or haven’t) been producing offensively lately, the senior ace knows he’s not always going to have a lot of leeway.
“I was ready to work with just that one,” Anglin said. “I guess it probably helps me stay locked in. I just try to give us the best chance. If one run is all we get, I’ve just got to shut them out.”
And so he did, blanking the defending champion Eagles (13-6) in the Class 4A sectional opener with a three-hit sparkler. LP even pushed a second run across the dish for good measure in a 2-0 victory at Bill Nixon Field.
“He just gets it and goes,” Upp said of Anglin. “I don’t know what (speed) he was throwing, but I thought he was throwing fairly hard. He had command of his breaking pitch. He’s a bulldog right now and that’s what we need out of some other guys, that same attitude. I don’t know if other coaches have noticed it before (now), but I feel like he’s exuding confidence. I hope people are standing close to him and it rubs off, osmosis.”
Kade Flores’ second-inning single to left brought in his brother Drew, a courtesy runner after Carter Moses reached on a error and Ben Dubbs singled.
“Most of the time, that’s all he needs,” Kade Flores said of Anglin. “I saw (Adams pitcher Aidan Pearson) pretty good. I usually do all right against lefties. I was just trying to get the bat on the ball with a guy on third, to move him, and it got through. There’s nothing we can do about what happened in the regular season. We had a lot of energy in the dugout. Everybody was ready to go.”
Anglin faced a threat right off the bat when an infield hit and a clean single started the Adams half of the first. Brook Stultz hit a chopper back up the middle that a leaping Anglin speared and fired to second base on the move to trigger a slick 1-6-3 double play.
“You talk about an athletic play,” Upp said. “That’s a quarterback making a jump throw over the line for a two-point conversion. That was a huge play. To turn a double play on that, that’s game changing.”
A popup to second then stranded the only Eagle to get to third base.
“I saw it off the bat, I thought it was going to get past me, then it hung in there a little bit, I was like, I’ll try to get a glove on this,” Anglin said. “Luckily, I did. I thought the only chance to get two is if I was throwing on the run. We needed two there big time. I got it quick enough where I thought I could get him at two.”
Anglin breezed into the fifth, when a roller up the third base line and a walk put two on with one out, but he set down the next two Eagles, chasing curve balls for strike three.
“Five through seven, I was throwing it real hard and I was getting a lot of chase,” Anglin said. “It was probably moving like a slider, which probably helped. They thought it was going to be in the zone more than it was. I just kept throwing it in the same spot.”
Dubbs’ third hit led to the other La Porte tally in the seventh. He moved to second on a Kade Flores walk, was wild pitched to third and raced home on a short passed ball.
“(Upp) said, 100 percent confidence, to be safe,” Dubbs said. “The passed ball, he was saying, no, no, no, and I went. It went right under his glove, he was walking to it, and I went.”
A few pitches later, Flores tried to steal home, appearing to evade the tag before getting a hand on the dish, though he was called out.
“I did a bit of swim move, pulled my arm back, he got me on the chest but I was already on the plate,” Flores said. “(Upp) just (said), don’t go if it doesn’t get out of the infield, give RJ a chance, then he looks at me and says, we’re going to try it. (Anglin) didn’t do anything, I was like, please don’t swing.”
Even with the out call, Anglin sensed the finish line at that point, striking out the side to end it, giving him a dozen Ks for the game.
“Early, it had that smell of, here we go again,” Upp said. “(Pearson) changed speeds well, he threw strikes. I kept telling them, don’t be satisfied. I think we battled well. It bodes well for (Anglin) later on (in college) to pitch in those situations. It certainly would be nice to see some of those runs plated. I’m proud of ‘em that they came to play. If we want to move forward, that’s what we’re going to have to do every day. It’s the tournament, you wipe out everything and start over. We’re 1-0 right now. Survive and advance, right? We survived.”
Of La Porte’s six hits, Dubbs and Kade Flores accounted for five of them.
“Those two, a hell of a game, just putting the ball in play. (Flores) getting a bunt down is a positive in itself,” Upp said. “(Dubbs) does nothing special. He just gets there on time.”
The 3-for-4 stat line surprised Dubbs, who doesn’t typically hit as well against left-handers.
La Porte (18-9) faces host Plymouth (14-14) in Saturday’s second game, following Michigan City (7-18-1) and Mishawaka (22-5), which starts at 10 a.m.
“Don’t let the Slicers get hot,” Flores said.
Email: jpeters@lpheralddispatch.com
Twitter: @JP8185
A third member of Marquette Catholic’s Class A regional champion boys basketball team has confirmed plans to continue his playing career at the collegiate level.
Lukas Balling, a 6-foot-5 forward who averaged 17.5 points and 10.4 rebounds per game this season, signed a national letter of intent Wednesday with Loras College, joining Blazers teammates Gary Lewis (Arizona Christian) and Jason Kobe (Manchester).
Balling’s 1,244 career points ranks sixth all-time in program history. He was an Indiana Basketball Coaches Association (IBCA) Small School All-State selection, as well as being named All-La Porte County.
Balling amassed 15 double-doubles on the season, highlighted by a 24-point, 25-rebound performance in the sectional against Westville. He logged a triple-double of 20 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists versus Bishop Noll.
Loras College is a NCAA Division III institution located in Dubuque, Iowa. The Duhawks, who have enjoyed winning records in all seven seasons of head coach Chris Martin’s tenure, compete in the American Rivers Conference.
Balling is pictured his parents, Diane and Ross, and sisters, Elaina and Livia.
Marquette’s Balling to play basketball at Loras
A third member of Marquette Catholic’s Class A regional champion boys basketball team has confirmed plans to continue his playing career at the collegiate level.
Lukas Balling, a 6-foot-5 forward who averaged 17.5 points and 10.4 rebounds per game this season, signed a national letter of intent Wednesday with Loras College, joining Blazers teammates Gary Lewis (Arizona Christian) and Jason Kobe (Manchester).
Balling’s 1,244 career points ranks sixth all-time in program history. He was an Indiana Basketball Coaches Association (IBCA) Small School All-State selection, as well as being named All-La Porte County.
Balling amassed 15 double-doubles on the season, highlighted by a 24-point, 25-rebound performance in the sectional against Westville. He logged a triple-double of 20 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists versus Bishop Noll.
Loras College is a NCAA Division III institution located in Dubuque, Iowa. The Duhawks, who have enjoyed winning records in all seven seasons of head coach Chris Martin’s tenure, compete in the American Rivers Conference.
Balling is pictured his parents, Diane and Ross, and sisters, Elaina and Livia.
Marquette’s Balling to play basketball at Loras
Will Power, right, of Australia, talks to a fan carrying a giant photo of himself during practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Friday, May 19, 2023.
Race fans walk into Gasoline Alley during a rain delay before practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tuesday, May 16, 2023, in Indianapolis.
The Borg Warner trophy is displayed during practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Thursday, May 18, 2023, in Indianapolis.
Race fans talk during a rain delay before practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tuesday, May 16, 2023, in Indianapolis.
Agustin Canapino, left, of Argentina, records a video during practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Friday, May 19, 2023.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When Doug Boles took his dream job as Indianapolis Motor Speedway president, he devoted himself to cleaning up the track’s increasingly common race-day blight of empty seats and empty sections.
Sure, that meant selling tickets. But to the lifelong Indianapolis 500 fan, it also meant selling newcomers on the pageantry, pizzazz and purpose of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
A decade later, Boles has presided over an IndyCar renaissance few saw coming, one that has included the first two announced sellouts since the resumption of the 500 after World War II, what appears to be another near sellout for the 107th running of the race Sunday and potentially even bigger crowds in the future.
Race organizers also sold all 135,000 tickets in 2021 when public health officials limited capacity because of the pandemic. Last year’s crowd was the largest since 2000, with the exception of 2016, and this weekend will be even larger. Boles said Thursday fewer than 5,000 tickets are available.
It doesn’t get much better for a race carrying the mantle of world’s largest single-day spectator sporting event. Crowd estimates often exceed 275,000 and potentially climb past 300,000 in the vast infield and stands overseeing the 2.5-mile oval.
Actual ticket sales – and the number of existing permanent seats – remain one of the sports world’s greatest mysteries because those numbers are not publicly released. But IndyCar teams and drivers don’t need attendance figures to know how much has changed.
“Look at last year when we had the big crowd,” said Tony Kanaan, the popular 2013 Indy 500 winner. “I think we had a lot of old hands here, but now we’re getting the millenials and I think it’s great.”
Last week’s practices also drew some of the largest crowds since the speedway started scanning tickets in 2016. Those attending last weekend’s qualifying made it feel more like the large, festive Carb Day crowds and there were even long traffic lines for Monday’s two-hour practice.
“Qualifying weekend, I thought it was like the best in the last 10 years,” driver Connor Daly said.
After the retirements, the loss of stars like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart to NASCAR and the damaging split of American open-wheel racing during the 1990s, the IndyCar Series finally has rebounded with big names and compelling storylines.
Young international stars like Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou and the return of more Formula One drivers have rekindled the enthusiasm Kanaan, four-time 500 winner Helio Castroneves and six-time series champ Scott Dixon injected into the series two decades ago.
American drivers such as Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta have strong, visible fan bases parading around the speedway. The pole-day shootout, the return of bumping and the anticipation of rerecord-breaking qualifying runs have become must-see attractions.
But it was the 2016 race that gave many their first glimpse into the colorful, race-day flavor family members and people like Boles and Chip Ganassi Racing managing director Mike Hull grew up with.
“On race day, the electricity in this place is like putting your finger in a 110 socket and it’s because the grandfathers and the great grandfathers brought their sons here and then those dads and moms brought their kids,” Hull said. “It’s so cool.”
Still, there were complications – none greater than 2020 when pandemic restrictions left the seats completely empty for the first race run under new owner Roger Penske. Boles spent part of that day with fans camped out in a parking lot across the street. He event took the unusual step of announcing fans could keep their beloved streaks of consecutive races attended intact by watching or listening.
“It was really depressing being here,” 2014 race winner Ryan Hunter-Reay recalled. “It just wasn’t the Indy 500. Fans make it go.”
Boles learned that lesson first as a fan, then as part-owner of the now defunct Panther Racing team and eventually in the speedway’s front office before he replaced Jeff Belskus in 2013 and embarked on his new mission – bringing fans back home again to his most revered track.
“We just had a lot of people who said, ‘We’re in, this is great and we had so much fun,’” Boles said, referring to those lucky enough to attend the 2016 race. “When you get that number of eyeballs out there and they actually see it and experience the race-day sparkle first-hand, that atmosphere I think is a lot of it, especially for somebody who has never experienced it before.”
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