Sports

Ohio Northern University will add both men's and women's lacrosse to its varsity sports program in the coming academic year.

Lacrosse will continue to be played as a club sport until spring 2015, when the Polar Bears will start varsity competition in the Ohio Athletic Conference.

Here's a report on the Ohio Xtreme 12U fastpitch softball travel team from Erin Prater. The team includes girls from Ada.

The Northwest Ohio Bullfrogs will host a 10U and 11U baseball tryouts for its 2014 travel teams on Sunday Aug. 18, at 3 at the village park in Bluffton. Contact Ryan Koenig  at 419-420-5450 with any questions.

Northwest Ohio Elite Diamond Sports will hold softball try outs for a 14U travel team on Saturday, Aug. 24, at 10 a.m. 

Try outs will be held at the Village Park in Bluffton. If you have questions, or in case of inclement weather, please contact Coach Brad Prater at 419-234-1206. 

Also, if you can't make the try out for some reason, call to see about scheduling a private try out.

By Andrew Korba

The Ohio Northern men's soccer team is ranked No. 5 in the 2013 NSCAA/Continental Tire Men's Division III preseason poll in voting conducted by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

The Polar Bears finished last season ranked No. 2 in the poll.

Defending national champion Messiah (Pa.) claimed the top spot, with Loras (Iowa) and Williams (Mass.) rounding out the top three.

Northern has now been nationally ranked in five of the past six seasons.

ONU will open its season on Aug. 30, when it faces Franklin (Ind.) at the Daniel Schuetz Community Classic at 8 pm.

The Alliance Golf Scramble was held Aug 9  at Veterans Memorial Park Golf Course in Kenton. This year, 27 teams and 108 golfers participated. They split cash prizes and with individual contests many prizes were up for grabs. Save the date. Next year’s outing will be Aug. 8, 2014.

The competition was great, but the Buckeye Machine team of Neal Boyd, Kyle Boyd, Kris Thacker, and Dan Todd posted a 57 to take the first place low gross prize. Figuring in handicap compensations, the Peacock Water team of Cliff Collins, Kevin Rickenbacher, Jeff Dauterman, and Joe Miller claimed the first place low net prize with a 51.8.  Each team won $400.

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