Buckeyes swat Flashes,Indians and Devils rally for wins.

Brian Hartline was the star of the game as the Buckeyes cruised to a 48-3 win over Kent State at Ohio Stadium.
Hartline's 90-yard punt return set an all-time record at Ohio State and his touchdown catch on the Buckeyes first possession set the stage for a long day for the Golden Flashes.
Donald Washington grabbed a Julian Edelman screen pass and ran 70 yards for the touchdown in the game's biggest defensive play.
A very dull second half saw only one touchdown, a two-yard run by backup QB Rob Schoenhoft, although the Bucks did kick two field goals.
Overall the game was pretty much what was expected-a big lead and lots of reserves in the second half.
Generally, pretty tedious, but the win seems to have been achieved without any major injuries and that is always a plus.
The Buckeyes tackle the visiting Michigan State Spartans next Saturday and should go into the game as the top-ranked team in the country after losses by the two teams ranked ahead of them in LSU and California.

The Cleveland Indians broke open an extra-inning contest with a seven-run 11th inning to earn a split of the first two road games with a 13-6 win in Boston in the ALCS.
Trot Nixon's pinch-hit single opened the floodgates as the Indians smacked around three Boston pitchers in the 11th.
Good thing that the Indian offense showed up as Fausto Carmona was routed in just 4 innings of work and the normally reliable Rafael Perez was torched in his relief outing.
The Indians hit 3 homers off Boston hurlers as Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, and Franklin Gutierrez all connected.
Tom Mastny picked up the win from the bullpen.
Game 3 is Monday night in Cleveland.
Perhaps more on this game tomorrow.

The New Jersey Devils came out ready to play, but then played horrendous defense in falling two goals behind the winless Atlanta Thrashers.
However, the difference between this game and the loss to Florida was easy to tell-this time the towel was not thrown in.
The Devils scored three unanswered goals to take a lead, allowed Atlanta to tie, but then as Patrick Elias struck his second power-play goal of the game with 28 seconds remaining gave the Devils badly needed 6-5 victory.
The Devil power play was working early as John Madden's early 1st-period power-play goal (3rd) gave the Devils the early lead.
The other Devil tallies went to Travis Zajac (1st), Sergei Brylin (1st) and Jay Pandolfo (1st).
The Devil defense was awful and the usual suspects stood out.
Johnny Oduya can be sat at any time, why not give new Devil Sheldon Brookbank a look and scratch Oduya?
He is consistently killing this team as he allows snipers to shoot freely from the outside and if he tries to stop that, they skate around him for point-blank shots.
But the effort tonight was better and the offense did seem to have a bit more flow, but that could be that Atlanta is pretty bad.
The tougher test comes Wednesday night in Pittsburgh vs the Penguins.
Even though it is another road game, it will be nice to play in real hockey towns.
All these Southern arenas are making me ill.........

Bullpen Notes

Anyone else that is watching the ALDS notice that Fox seems to either have microphones all over the place or has turned them up dramatically?
Either way, it sounds almost like video game baseball.
But at least they aren't cluttering the screen with the lead-off graphic like TBS is........

Dusty Baker has agreed to a three year to skipper the Reds.
I like Dusty, but I am not sure that this is a good fit for him.
Dusty seems to get more out of veteran, contending teams and the Reds are not really either of those...

Juan Diaz added the IBF Lightweight title to his WBA belt with a stoppage at the end of the 8th round as Julio Diaz did not answer the bell for Round 9.
We had Juan ahead 80-72 at the end of the bout.
Hopefully, a final unification can be arranged for Diaz against WBC champ Joel Casamayor in 2008.

The Cleveland Browns (2-3) battle the winless Miami Dolphins (0-5) in Cleveland today at 1:00.
A winless opponent with an inexperienced backup Quarterback adds up to this ......
Our pick-Browns 28-14

The Seattle Seahawks (3-2) face another winless team in the New Orleans Saints (0-4) tonight at 8:30 in Seattle.
This is a far more dangerous game than the Browns have as the Saints are sitting on a big game and the Seahawks are injury-plagued at wideout, but........
Our pick-Seahawks 21-17

Photo Credits
Hartline-Neal Lauron-Columbus Dispatch
Indians-Stephen Savoia-AP Photo
Elias-John Amis-AP Photo
Diaz-Nam Huh-AP Photo
Helmets-Helmet Project