Salve Regina opens football season with 6-3 win

MIDDLETOWN – Sophomore Brendan Deasy kicked a pair of field goals and junior defensive end Shane Lange recorded nine tackles and two sacks as the Salve Regina University football team defeated Worcester Polytechnic Institute 6-3 in a non-conference game on Saturday afternoon at the Gaudet School field in the season opener for both schools.
Deasy tied the game late in the first quarter on a 31-yarder and booted the winner from 22 yards out late in the third quarter.
The Seahawks sacked WPI junior quarterback Pat McAuley five times and held him to 8-of-20 passing for 39 yards and limited the Engineers’ option attack on the ground to 129 yards on 33 carries.
“Our defense did a great job,” first-year Salve coach Bob Chesney said. “They stepped up and listened to what we talked about all week.
‘That option offense is tricky. They’re running all these different things, but we felt we had a pretty good scheme in place, and I thought our kids executed excellently.”
The win snapped the visitors’ 19-game win streak against New England opponents, dating back to a loss to Coast Guard on November 8, 2003.
Salve avenged a 34-20 loss to WPI last year in holding the Engineers to just five first downs and 168 total yards in spoiling the return of former Seahawks head coach Chris Robertson, who took over the helm at the Worcester, Mass., school last spring after four seasons in Newport.

Random thoughts

The Celtics just reacquired guard Delonte West, which makes you wonder if they're trying to build a team that can win another NBA title, or one that can rob a liquor store. West is suspended for the first 10 games of the 2010-11 season because he pleaded guilty to gun charges (he was stopped in Maryland last year while carrying two loaded handguns, a shotgun and a Rambo knife). But when West comes back, he might prove to be a good pickup for the C's. Never hurts to have another shooter on the team.

- Does any sport have more idiotic unwritten rules than baseball? Case in point: the brawl that broke out during Wednesday night's game between the Marlins and Nationals. Over the weekend, Nats outfielder Nyjer Morgan took a cheap shot at the Marlins catcher when he scored, but there was no play at the plate. The Marlins got their vengeance Wednesday, hitting Morgan with a pitch in the fourth inning. Conflict resolved, right? Apparently not.

Morgan had the audacity to steal second and third when his team was down 14-3. How dare he! For some reason, this was cause for the Marlins to throw behind him when Morgan came to the plate in the sixth. Morgan wasted no time charging the mound (and then got knocked on his rear end by Marlins first baseman Gaby Sanchez).



Since when is it against the rules to steal bases? Is Morgan supposed to just stand at first base like a goon? In the video above, you can hear the Marlins broadcast team say that the Marlins threw at Morgan "in a professional manner." What the hell does that mean? What if the next batter hit a ground ball? Would it be inappropriate for Morgan to try and break up the double play? This old-school baseball stuff is nonsense. Morgan brought this on himself, but I give him a lot of credit for his actions after he got hit.

- Andy Roddick lost last night in the second round of the US Open. This guy was supposed to be the next big thing in American tennis when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi stepped aside, but other than the 2003 US Open, Roddick hasn't come close to living up to that billing. He's not the first to fall short of the hype, but every time I watch him play, I'm astounded that a guy who can serve the ball harder than anyone on the planet can be so disappointing. My guess is that Roddick, who regularly serves more than 140 mph, struggles with the mental side of the game.

Titans cut Portsmouth's Bobby Sewall

Undrafted out of Brown University, rookie wide receiver Bobby Sewall, who starred at Portsmouth High School, was cut on Tuesday by the Tennessee Titans, who trimmed their preseason roster from 80 to 75 players.

Sewall saw a little time in the team's first three preseason games, mostly on special teams. He also played with the third-team offense, but made no catches.

Touching on the headlines

- Rogers Clemens will be arraigned today on charges of lying to Congress. Perhaps the best pitcher of this generation spend 30 years in jail for lying to Congress. Let me slow this down. A baseball player. Who allegedly took steroids. Could serve 30 years (although it'll likely be between 15-21 months. Got to love the U.S. judicial system). For lying to Congress.

I'm no fan of Roger Clemens, but I have a huge problem with this. Firstly, the economy is in the tank and unemployment numbers are through the roof, yet the government is wasting its time with baseball players.

Note to Congress: Stay out of sports; fix the country.

- A 13-year-old boy was killed on Sunday when he was racing his motorcycle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Let me slow this down. A 13-year-old boy was killed. When he was racing his motorcycle. At Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Apparently he's one of the best youth motorcyclists in the world, but he lost control of his bike on a test run and was run over by a another motorcyclist, a 12-year-old.

I'm not yet a parent, but I can assure you that when I become one, my 13-year-old, who won't yet have a driver's license, won't be on a motorcycle nearing speeds of 120 mph.

- Matt Kuchar won The Barclays on Sunday for his first victory of the season, and in the process, moved into the No. 1 spot in the FedEx Cup standings. I interviewed Kuchar a few years back at the CVS Charity Classic in Barrington, and Sunday's win couldn't have happened to a better guy.

Here's to rooting for Kuchar to take the $10 million that comes with winning golf's version of the playoffs.

But here's what I don't get. If the "regular season" means so much, how can one guy (Matt Laird) go from No. 95 to No. 3 with just one second-place finish? Like the BCS, I think that system needs some tweaking.