(Radio Iowa) — Nick Nurse is an NBA champion. The Carroll native led the Toronto Raptors to a 114-110 win over Golden State in game six of the NBA Finals. It was last summer Nurse was named head coach for a team known more for coming up short in the playoffs.

It has been a long road for Nurse who began coaching in the pros in England and he also made two different stops in the G-League.

The Raptors won the series by winning three straight games in Oakland.

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

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Pat Bowlen, the Denver Broncos owner who transformed the team from also-rans into NFL champions and helped the league usher in billion-dollar TV deals, has died. He was 75. In a statement on the team’s website, Bowlen’s family says he died late Thursday night at home surrounded by loved ones. The statement did not specify a cause of death. Bowlen had battled Alzheimer’s for several years. Bowlen, elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year, was the first owner in NFL history to have his team win 300 games — including playoffs — in three decades. He had as many Super Bowl appearances (seven) as losing seasons, and the Broncos had a 354-240-1 record since he bought the team in 1984. Under his stewardship, the Broncos won Super Bowls in 1998, ’99 and 2016.

NEW YORK (AP) — The game between the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets was suspended because of rain, moments after Harrison Bader hit an RBI double with two outs in the top of the ninth inning that made it 4-all. Play will resume Friday beginning in the bottom of the ninth. That will be followed by the regularly scheduled game between the teams.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nicky Lopez hit his first major league homer in the stadium where he played college ball, Homer Bailey allowed two hits in six shutout innings and the Kansas City Royals beat the Detroit Tigers 7-3 in the first big league regular season game played in Nebraska. The Royals won two of three over the Tigers for their first series win since April 12-14 against Cleveland. The game at TD Ameritrade Park coincided with the buildup to the College World Series, which begins Saturday.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs signed kicker Harrison Butker to a five-year contract extension, locking up the former Panthers practice squad player through the 2024 season.

UNDATED (AP) — Florida State’s Mike Martin improbably has one last chance to capture a College World Series title that has eluded college baseball’s winningest coach during his 40-year career. Martin is retiring at the end of the season. The 75-year-old’s final team earned one of the last four at-large bids into the NCAA Tournament and is on a six-game winning streak.

(Radio Iowa) — The administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission says the rule-making process to allow legalized sports betting in the state is moving along on schedule. Administrator Brian Ohorilko gave an update on the process at today’s (Thursday) meeting in Northwood, and spoke about it in an interview with Radio Iowa.

“We believe we’ll have rules published here in the next few weeks. Draft rules are in place and we’re still working through some of the details in those. The goal is to have these rules published here in the next few weeks,” Ohorilko explains. The governor signed the sports gambling bill into law in May that allows you to place a bet at one of the 19 state-licensed casinos or on-line.

Ohorilko says they will hold a public hearing on the rules at their July 11th meeting — and then could vote on approving the rules at the end of July. “The commission has scheduled a special meeting on July 30th to deal with matters related to sports wagering,” according to Ohorilko. “That could be a meeting — depending on how well the rules process goes — where the commission could review and consider those rules for emergency adopt.”

He says it is possible you might be able to legally place a bet in Iowa on the first college football games of the year. “If emergency rules were adopted at the end of July, there would likely be a period of time for casinos to get controls approved and their partners licensed,” Ohorilko explains. “…that may take a few weeks, so we are still looking at mid-August, sometime before college football season.”

Ohorilko says that timeline is based on everything falling into place without delay. “There’s still a lot of things that need to fall into place. The commission is not wanting to cut corners on any of this, and so those things need to happen. But if they do, I think it still is reasonable to anticipate a go live date is prior to the college football season,” Ohorilko says.

He says they have been reviewing how other states have handled this in the last several years as it was an issue in the legislature before finally being approved. Ohorilko says having the process in other states will also help in setting up the companies here. “We’ve received a number of applications from people who are partnering with casino companies that are licensed in other jurisdictions.

That also is helpful because those companies that have received licenses in other jurisdictions are used to being regulated, they’ve had backgrounds in those other jurisdictions, so that is helpful in this process,” Ohorilko says. The I-R-G-C’s July 11th meeting will be held at the Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Altoona.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Dallas Wings re-signed AP Player of the Year Megan Gustafson on Thursday. Gustafson was drafted 17th by the Wings, but was one of the final cuts from the roster before the season started. With injuries depleting Dallas’ roster, the Wings were able to sign the former Iowa star. Skylar Diggins-Smith is still out while recovering from giving birth to her first child. Tayler Hill will undergo knee surgery within the next few days. Glory Johnson will depart for Eurobasket to compete with Montenegro following the Wings’ game against Atlanta on Saturday. Moriah Jefferson is injured and hasn’t played all season.

To make matters worse, rookie Arike Agunbowale was doubtful for the game against Indiana on Thursday night because of an ankle injury sustained in the team’s game at Washington last week. “We are excited to bring Megan back to the Dallas Wings organization,” team president and CEO Greg Bibb said. “We are currently dealing with a series of roster challenges and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to sign a player of Megan’s character and ability.”

At Iowa, the 6-foot-3 center who played her high school ball in Wisconsin led the nation in scoring for the second straight season, averaging 27.9 points, and became the fourth player to reach 1,000 points in a year. She won The Associated Press women’s college basketball player of the year award. In three preseason games for Dallas, Gustafson averaged 2.6 points and 3.0 rebounds. “I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to further pursue my dream of playing in the WNBA,” Gustafson said. “I have learned that nothing in this life is guaranteed, but I will take full advantage of this second opportunity with the Dallas Wings whether it is for one day, one week, or 10 years.”

Gustafson wrote a first-person account Monday for the AP of what it was like to be drafted and then eventually cut by the Wings. A few days after she was cut, Gustafson was offered a spot on the Iowa team that’s playing in The Basketball Tournament. She landed in Dallas on Thursday and will be in uniform for the Indiana game. “There was a possibility if we didn’t sign someone we could be down to seven players after Saturday,” Bibb said. “We decided to make that player Megan. As players come back we’ll have decisions to make. I told her on the phone that she has a second chance now and can make it hard for us to make a decision later on.”

The 7:20-a.m. Sportscast with Jim Field.

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Hawkeye Ten Conference

Creston 6, Red Oak 1
Clarinda 14, Southwest Valley 8
Lewis Central 5, St. Albert 1
St. Albert 17, Fremont-Mills 0

Western Iowa Conference

AHSTW 7, Tri-Center 5
Logan-Magnolia 2, Missouri Valley 1

Rolling Valley Confernece

Coon Rapids-Bayard 9, CAM, Anita 2
West Harrison 11, Boyer Valley 1
Woodbine 11, Boyer Valley 1

Other Scores

Ballard 4, Carroll 0
East Mills 13, Orient-Macksburg 4
Nodaway Valley 21, West Central Valley 3

Hawkeye Ten Conference

Carroll 6, Denison-Schleswig 3
Red Oak 7, CB Abraham Lincoln 1
Shenandoah 11, Sidney 2
St. Albert 7, Lewis Central 2 (8 innings)

Western Iowa Conference

IKM-Manning 13, Tri-Center 1
Missouri Valley 10, Fremont-Mills 0
Riverside 10, Griswold 0

Rolling Valley Conference

Coon Rapids-Bayard 11, CAM 5
Exira-EHK 4, Woodbine 1
West Harrison 18, Boyer Valley 1

Orient-Macksburg Tournament

Lenox 15, Mormon Trail 0
Nodaway Valley 5, Orient-Macksburg 1
Melcher-Dallas 12, East Union 2
Murray 14, Diagonal 1

Other Scores

ADM 11, Perry 0
Boone 4, Winterset 1
Earlham 3, Mount Ayr 2
Mount Ayr 14, Earlham 2
West Lyon 14, MOC-Floyd Valley 9
West Sioux 5, Gehlen Catholic 4
Western Christian 11, LeMars 10
Woodbury Central 11, MVAOCOU 1

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

MIAMI (AP) — Jordan Yamamoto pitched seven innings to win his major league debut, and Garrett Cooper hit a grand slam as the Miami Marlins broke a six-game losing streak by beating the St. Louis Cardinals 9-0. Yamamoto, acquired last year in the Christian Yelich trade, allowed three hits and two walks and threw 95 pitches. The rookie also earned an RBI with a squeeze bunt.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Brandon Dixon broke an eighth-inning tie with a sacrifice fly that sent the Detroit Tigers past the Kansas City Royals 3-2. Miguel Cabrera also had a sacrifice fly for the Tigers, and Ronny Rodriguez hit an RBI double. The teams now head to Omaha, Nebraska, to play the first Major League Baseball game in that state Thursday night as a prelude to the College World Series, which begins Saturday in the same ballpark.

BOSTON (AP) — Ryan O’Reilly of the St. Louis Blues has been named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the most valuable player of the playoffs. The gritty forward lifted the trophy on the ice moments after the Blues beat Boston 4-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Members of the Exira-EHK School District’s Board of Education, Tuesday evening, rejected an offer to join the Western Iowa Conference for athletics and academics. School officials say low student enrollment and participation numbers were behind the decision to decline the invitation, with a majority of the Varsity coaches against making the change.

Superintendent Trevor Miller expressed at the meeting that there would be some academic benefit to the affiliation with instructional coaches and teacher collaboration. This is a little more difficult in the Rolling Valley Conference since some districts have part-time sharing agreements with other districts.

Ultimately the difference in school size was the driving factor in the unanimous decision to stay in the Rolling Valley. Current BEDS numbers show that Exira-EHK would by a decent amount be the smallest school in the WIC if they were to make a change, and they would be nearly 2.5x smaller than the largest district Underwood.

The Western Iowa Conference has gauged interest from a couple of other schools in the Rolling Valley as well. Both conferences expect some potential changes down the road. Ar-We-Va has a current partial sharing agreement with Carroll and Paton-Churdan students spend time at Greene County. Charter Oak-Ute recently exited the conference after joining up with Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto. The Western Iowa Conference is currently at 9 teams after losing Griswold to the Corner Conference last year. Treynor has expressed interest for a long time in joining the Hawkeye Ten. More adjustments are surely to come with time.

The 7:20-a.m. Sportscast with Jim Field.

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