The Atlantic Trojans football team opens up the season tonight at Saydel and the team is excited to get out there. The Trojans make the adjustment from Class 3A to 2A for this season and will open up against a 2A opponent with that experience behind them. Saydel made the jump from Class 3A to 2A in 2016 and Eagles Head Coach Justin Russell said it has been a very positive experience for his school.

Atlantic Head Coach Mike McDermott said he knows Saydel will be a tough opponent. He wants his kids to know that making a class change doesn’t automatically change anything on the football field.

Atlantic returns some great speed on offense and Coach McDermott said they will start simple with some guys in new roles and expand from there. Defensively the Trojans will be looking to build experience and depth as the season moves along. They have plenty of guys with experience but some position changes have been made and some guys will take on a much larger role this year so game experience is going to help them gel. The Trojans will face a number of looks from Saydel’s offense.

Coach Russell said the Eagles have focused on building individual skills leading into the season.

We’ll have coverage of the Eagles and Trojans on KJAN tonight with pregame at 6:30pm and kickoff at 7:00pm. Chris Parks and Seth Christensen will have the call for you on-air, online, on the mobile app, and live video through our facebook page. Hear a full rundown with Coach McDermott on Trojan Preview at 4:45pm Friday and catch our weekly pick ’em show Who’s Gonna Win? at 6:00pm. Stay tuned after the game as well as we will bring you postgame interviews followed by the Iowa High School Scoreboard Show from Radio Iowa which will bring you all the scores from around the state from 10:00pm-11:30pm on KJAN.

(Radio Iowa) — A college student in Omaha who loves to run started a running club on her campus as she didn’t feel safe running alone after Iowan Mollie Tibbetts vanished. Ashley Tagart, a sophomore at the College of Saint Mary, says she’d just gotten home from a run in mid-July when her dad told her the news about Tibbetts disappearing after she went for a jog.

“I didn’t think anything of it and I was like, ‘It’s fine, I’ll just bring my mace,’ but then I noticed I kept looking over my shoulder a lot more and it started to feel more real,” Tagart says. “She wasn’t getting found and it started to scare me even more, so I tried apps that showed my location and I’d share it with my family and I still wasn’t feeling safe.”

Tagart and other club members launched an online campaign to sell t-shirts in honor of Tibbetts, the University of Iowa student from Brooklyn, Iowa, who authorities now say was murdered. “It’s a black tank top. We also have blue and pink and also t-shirts for men. It says ‘Mollie Strong’ on the front,” Tagart says. “It’s to bring awareness that we can all still keep running. We just have to do it safer.” The shirts cost $20 with a sales goal of 50 shirts. Tagart says they won’t make a dime from the shirts as all proceeds will be sent to Tibbetts’ mother, Laura Calderwood.

Many of the running club members share the feeling “that could have been me,” so Tagart says they’ve learned to run smarter. “At least find one person to run with,” Tagart says. “If that’s impossible for you, get one of the apps that share your location. Tell someone before and after when you’re running. Also, change up your route every once in a while because if you stay with the same route at the same time, that’s when predators can easily find you.”

Tagart, a Grand Island native who’s majoring in nursing and forensic science, says she’s getting in better physical shape in addition to being more motivated by her new clan of fellow runners.
Link to t-shirt sale:
https://www.customink.com/fundraising/mollie-strong?side=front&type=1&zoom=false

Here is the latest Mid-America sports news from The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The St. Louis Cardinals are on a remarkable run during the dog days of August. They swept the Dodgers to win their eighth consecutive series and have gone 17-4 so far this month to pull within 2 ½ games of the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs. St. Louis visits Colorado on Friday.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Chiefs will remain without three defensive starters, including star safety Eric Berry, when they visit the Chicago Bears for their third preseason game this weekend. Berry is dealing with a heel injury, while defensive end Allen Bailey is out with a knee injury and cornerback Steven Nelson with a concussion.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A throwing error on Kevin Kiermaier’s bases-loaded grounder in the ninth inning helped the Tampa Bay Rays complete a four-game sweep by beating the Kansas City Royals 4-3. Tampa Bay improved to a season-high six games over .500 with its fifth consecutive victory. Kansas City, which has lost 17 of 21, fell 52 games under .500 and was eliminated from the playoff race.

ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Forward Cameron Lard is back with Iowa State’s basketball team. Lard enrolled at a wellness center in early June instead of joining his teammates for summer workouts. Coach Steve Prohm says Lard rejoined the Cyclones earlier this month after some off-court problems.

UNDATED (AP) — IndyCar drivers have been waiting patiently for updates on Canadian Robert Wickens since he suffered a spinal injury in a crash at Pocono Raceway. Wickens remains hospitalized in Pennsylvania and the series moves on to race Saturday night at Gateway Motorsports Park near St. Louis. The drivers will push Wickens’ crash out of their minds as they focus on the racing.

(Radio Iowa) — College basketball may no longer be using a Ratings Percentage Index to help determine which teams make the NCAA Tournament but the R-P-I is coming to high school football and for the first time since district football was installed all nine games will count toward the playoffs. Todd Tharp of the Iowa High School Athletic Association says three factors will be considered. (Click on on the left side of the audio bar to listen to his comments)

Tharp says the R-P-I will be posted on the association’s website the week of September 10 and will be updated weekly.

The new system means non district games will be part of the equation and Tharp says teams will not be penalized for playing teams from smaller classes.

Tharp says the R-P-I will be used to determine at-large bids and winning or sharing a district title will get a team into the playoffs automatically.

ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Forward Cameron Lard is back in Iowa State’s good graces and coach Steve Prohm is hopeful things will stay that way. Prohm said Thursday that Lard, who enrolled at a wellness center in early June instead of joining his teammates for summer workouts, rejoined the Cyclones earlier this month.

Lard, who will be a sophomore this season, had a drug paraphernalia charge dismissed during a pretrial hearing in April. He was stopped by Ames police on Feb. 4 for speeding, and an officer smelled marijuana coming from the car. Lard pleaded guilty to speeding.

Lard, 20, was also cited for being underage at an Ames bar this offseason. Prohm said all the issues pushed Lard to spend time at a wellness center and away from Ames in an effort to make better decisions. Prohm met with Lard on Wednesday and said he was in “really good spirits.”

“He’s done some things that he doesn’t need to be doing. We handled that internally,” said Prohm, who met with reporters before a charity golf event outside of Des Moines. “My goal, and my prayer, is that he continues to grow and get better.”

The 6-foot-9, 225-pound Lard didn’t arrive at Iowa State until midway through his freshman season, but he was considered so talented that there was talk that Lard might immediately join a team that went on to win the Big 12 Tournament. Prohm instead redshirted him. Last year, Lard showed in his first season that he has the potential to be one of the better big men in America.

Lard averaged 12.6 points and was fourth in the Big 12 with 8.1 rebounds per game in 2017-18, even though he made just 16 starts. Lard also ranked second in the Big 12 in field-goal percentage at .601 and third in blocks per game at 2.2.

Lard was inconsistent as a freshman, but he also took games over more than once. He scored 22 points against Texas Tech on 10 of 11 shooting, had 21 points and 16 rebounds against Texas and scored 19 points with 17 boards in a win over Oklahoma. Lard has not spoken to the media since last season.

“If we can get (his habits) lined up with his abilities, I think he’s got a chance to be a terrific frontcourt player in (the Big 12),” Prohm said. “He really runs the floor well, really chases down on the offensive glass…and hopefully we can continue to develop his offensive, low-post game. But it’s about habits for him. And he knows that, and I think he took a big step this summer.”

The Iowa High School Athletic Association and the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union released the State Qualifying Cross Country Meet sites for the upcoming season on Thursday.

Locally in Class 1A AC/GC will host, in Class 2A Panorama will host, in 3A Glenwood is a host site, and in 4A Lewis Central will host.

Take a look at the full list here: 2018-SQM-Cross-Country-Sites

A coaching change may have come at as good of a time as any for Atlantic volleyball with seven seniors gone from last year’s squad. Michelle Blake takes over the head coaching reigns from Emma Bireline who stepped down to spend more time with her young family. Blake has been an assistant coach for numerous Atlantic sports previously, including as an assistant with Coach Bireline during her first season. Coach Blake said that has helped in the transition for her.

Atlantic is coming off a 16-22 campaign last year, which showed continued improvement from a 4-28 season in 2016. For that improvement as a program to continue the Trojans will need to fill the void of losing their top players to graduation. The two leaders in kills from last year Cheyenne Elliot and Riley Seufert are gone, as is setter and assist leader Sidney Svoboda. Coach Blake said the team feels like this is a great opportunity to build a confident mindset with a lot of young players.

Atlantic opens up the season on Saturday at the AHSTW Tournament in Avoca. They will then play in a triangular with AC/GC at CAM next Tuesday. Coach Blake said she is looking to see the girls compete hard in these early matches.

You can hear the full interview with Coach Blake this Saturday morning at 8:30am on our Saturday Morning Coaches Show on KJAN.

The 2018 High School Football season is upon us and we are gearing up for another year of full Friday night coverage for you on KJAN. We will have a packed schedule of high school football coverage for you each Friday night throughout the season.

Every Friday at 4:45pm you can tune in to Trojan Preview, our weekly discussion with Atlantic Head Football Coach Mike McDermott. We’ll talk with coach about the upcoming match-up and once we are into the season take a look back briefly at last week’s contest. That program will also be available in podcast form on our programs page and then Trojan Preview/Who’s Gonna Win? page after it airs at 4:45pm.

We will then start our evening coverage at 6:00pm with another season of our high school football pick ’em show Who’s Gonna Win?. Doug Leonard, Matt Mullenix, Jim Field, and Chris Parks discuss and pick 8 high school football games each week. Each program will also be available in podcast form once it airs live also on the Trojan Preview/Who’s Gonna Win? page at kjan.com. We will also post running record tallies for our picks on those posts.

Then our High School Football Game of the Week coverage will begin each Friday with pregame at 6:30pm and the majority of kickoffs at 7:00pm throughout the season. Chris Parks and Mike Smith will have the call of our games again this season. You can listen to games on-air at AM 1220, FM 101.1, online at kjan.com, and on the KJAN mobile app. To listen online click the listen live icon in the top right corner of any kjan.com webpage. Find out details about the mobile app on our homepage at kjan.com. We are happy again to provide live video streaming of every game we cover as well. This season that video feed will be through our facebook page KJAN AM 1220 via Facebook Live. A link will be available on our traditional KJANTV page to find the game as well.  We hope this will make the game easy to access for all our listeners.

Here is a look at our schedule for the upcoming season. We hope you join us.

2018 KJAN High School Football Schedule
Friday, August 24th: Atlantic @ Saydel
Friday, August 31st: Audubon @ Fremont-Mills
Friday, September 7th: Griswold @ East Mills
Friday, September 14th: Atlantic @ Harlan
Friday, September 21st: Exira-EHK @ CAM
Friday, September 28th: AHSTW @ Earlham
Friday, October 5th: Atlantic @ Greene County
Friday, October 12th: Atlantic @ Shenandoah
Friday, October 19th: TBD
Friday, October 26th: First Round Playoffs
Friday, November 2nd: Second Round Playoffs

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For the second straight game, the St. Louis Cardinals rallied to win. And for the second time in the series, they did it on a ninth-inning homer off All-Star closer Kenley Jansen.

“It’s definitely redundant,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Same thing we’ve seen.”

The Cardinals clearly love a rerun.

Paul DeJong hit the go-ahead, two-run homer Wednesday night for a 3-1 victory and the Cardinals’ first sweep at Dodger Stadium since 2006.

The Cardinals’ eighth straight road win helped them improve to 17-4 this month, the most wins in the majors. They’ve homered in 15 straight games, one off the current season mark of 16 in a row by Philadelphia.

“It’s been a snowball effect for us,” DeJong said. “We can win every game.”

St. Louis remained 2½ games behind the NL Central-leading Cubs.

“It shows the resilience of our team. Everyone steps up on a nightly basis,” DeJong said. “It’s always someone new coming through.”

For Jansen, it was the same old story.

The Dodgers closer, who became a father for the third time earlier in the day, gave up consecutive homers to Jedd Gyorko and Matt Carpenter in the series opener Monday. That was Jansen’s first game back after missing time because of an irregular heartbeat.

This time, Gyorko got a broken-bat single off Jansen (0-5), and DeJong followed with his 14th homer to left-center, giving the Cardinals their first lead of the game.

“Very frustrating,” Jansen said. “Got to figure out how to get back out of this mess.”

The Dodgers went quietly in the ninth, with Jordan Hicks striking out Cody Bellinger, Brian Dozier and Chris Taylor to earn his fifth save.

“Hicks was filthy,” Cardinals interim manager Mike Shildt said. “That was elite stuff right there.”

Dakota Hudson (4-0) got the win with one inning of relief.

Los Angeles loaded the bases in the eighth, but Manny Machado grounded out to end the inning. The Dodgers stranded 30 runners while getting swept for the third time this season.

They dropped to 32-33 at home, falling below .500 at Dodger Stadium for the first time since June 30.

Rookie Tyler O’Neill launched his first career pinch-hit homer in the top of the eighth off Scott Alexander, tying it 1-all.

Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler dueled in a stellar matchup of rookie pitchers, although neither figured in the decision.

Flaherty held the Dodgers hitless through 5 1/3 innings. Joc Pederson broke through after Buehler struck out leading off the sixth, slugging his 19th homer to right field for a 1-0 lead.

Flaherty gave up just that one hit in six innings. The 22-year-old right-hander from nearby Burbank struck out 10 and walked two on 101 pitches.

“It was special,” Flaherty said. “I wanted to make sure to take in the moment and enjoy it.”

Buehler scattered three hits over seven innings, struck out a career-high nine and walked two on 104 pitches.

The Dodgers have lost three in a row and they dropped four games behind NL West-leading Arizona in pursuit of a sixth straight division title.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: After getting Thursday off in Denver, RHP Miles Mikolas (13-3, 2.80 ERA) starts the series opener against the Rockies. His victories are the most by a first-year St. Louis pitcher since Kyle Lohse in 2008.

The NCAA is ditching the RPI for its own evaluation tool to select teams for the NCAA Tournament.

The NCAA Evaluation Tool will rely on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and quality of wins and losses. NET will be used for the 2018-19 season by the committee that selects schools and seeds the tournament.

NET rankings will be released in late November or early December and updated through Selection Sunday, with a final ranking following the tournament.

“What has been developed is a contemporary method of looking at teams analytically, using results-based and predictive metrics that will assist the Men’s Basketball Committee as it reviews games throughout the season,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said in a statement on Wednesday. “While no perfect rankings exist, using the results of past tournaments will help ensure that the rankings are built on an objective source of truth.”

The NCAA has used the RPI since 1981 to help the NCAA Tournament selection committee pick at-large teams, seeding and bracketing teams each March.

The RPI has been criticized in recent years for not being analytical enough. The RPI is calculated on winning percentage, strength of schedule and opponent’s strength of schedule, but more accurate tools for evaluating performance have developed.

NET will give equal importance to early and late-season games, and caps wins at 10 points to prevent teams from running up the score.

NET was approved in July following months of consultation with the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, the National Association Basketball Coaches, top basketball analytics experts and Google Cloud Professional Services.

Last season, the NCAA introduced a quadrant system to put greater emphasis on wins away from home. The quadrant system will remain in place for evaluating teams.

The NCAA said the RPI will still be used in other Division I sports, including women’s basketball.