Saturday, pole-sitter Alex Palou lost his lead on the first lap of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, when he made a braking mistake and ran briefly onto the grass. It set him back a bit, but Palou regained the front position, got faster, and held on to defend his title from a year ago, defeating Will Power by 6.6 seconds. Now the huge scope of potentially capturing both the Grand Prix and the 500 is his focus. Palou says, “We’re working towards that. We know we have a fast car, obviously- we got the pole here last year- but the competition is tight. They never give you anything. So the focus is now on qualifying, trying to get the pole, but we want to win the Indy 500. It would mean- I don’t know what it would mean. It would mean– everything.” Palou’s team starts its first practice sessions for the 500 today.
After a critical Friday win, The Pacers were all over the New York Knicks in Indy Sunday, in NBA Eastern Conference semi-final Game 4, leading by 20 at the end of the first quarter! New York was never in the game, trailing by as many as 43 points early in the 4th. The final margin, 32 points– Pacers 121, Knicks 89. Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton topped all scorers with 20, backup TJ McConnell 15, and 3 more guys were in double figures. Aaron Nesmith led both teams in rebounds, pulling down 12. Now the series is tied at 2 games apiece, and Game 5’s at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night.
162 games is a really long season, and the Reds have only completed a little under a quarter of that, 40 games so far, with a record of 17 wins, 23 losses, so it could be a long summer. After Sunday’s 6-5 10-inning loss to the Giants, the squad’s now made its way to Arizona, facing the club they got swept by at home last week, the Diamondbacks. You can listen to how it goes this time around, when the broadcast starts tonight at 9:10, on the Sports Voice, 103.9 FM, WRBI.
Weekend scores from the local high school diamonds included 18 & 1 Rising Sun softball making quick work of Milan 6-0 Saturday, then the Shiners going on to also shut out New Washington, 14-0, the same day. Watch out for Rising Sun– they’ve won their last 4 games by a total score of 47-0. That’s not good news for the South Ripley Raiders, who host the Shiners this afternoon.
Other weekend scores saw East Central softball losing to Cathedral 5-3 in 11 innings… Franklin County shutting out Delta 7-0, then going on to also beat Northeastern Saturday, 7-2. South Dearborn won twice over Rushville, 11-1 and 12-7. South Ripley got blanked by Madison 10-0, and North Decatur lost a pair to Lawrenceburg, 18-1 and 10-0.
More softball today has Milan hosting Trinity Lutheran, East Central visiting Greensburg, and Batesville going to Triton Central. There should also be baseball action with South Dearborn at Batesville, Oldenburg Academy at Triton, Southwestern of Hanover at Milan, Jac-Cen-Del hosting South Ripley, Greensburg at Connersville, Franklin County visiting Rushville, and East Central hosting Lawrenceburg.
Saturday baseball included South Dearborn beating Charlestown 5-3 then losing 4-3 to Boonville, East Central topping Batesville 10-7, North Decatur blanking Rising Sun 7-0, and Switzerland County belting Oldenburg Academy, 12-0. Also, Southwestern of Hanover shut Jac-Cen-Del out, 10-0.
And both North Decatur softball and baseball host South Decatur today.