The Iowa Western Community College baseball team won’t need Google Maps or GPS to find its way to Grand Junction, Colorado. The Reivers are headed to the NJCAA Division I World Series for the 10th time in the last 14 years and while the 11 and a half hour route remains the same, it never gets old. The Reivers not only have experience playing in the World Series but winning it as well. The will be in search of their fourth title since 2010.

Iowa Western plays Santa Fe College out of Florida in Saturday morning’s tournament opener. Coach Marc Rardin says the key is to not get caught up in the moment. Iowa Western is 50-13 on the season.

(Learfield Sports)

Iowa coach Rick Heller would like to see Omaha and TD Ameritrade Park become the permanent home of the Big Ten Conference Tournament. The home of the College World Series will host the league tournament for a second time this week and the Big Ten announced an agreement in April to have Omaha serve as host from 2018 through 2022.

Heller says the fan support in Omaha gives the tournament an outstanding atmosphere. The championship game in 2014 set an all-time attendance record of 19.965 fans. Iowa is the eighth seed in the tournament and plays regular season champion Minnesota in Wednesday’s opening round. Nebraska is the second seed. The Hawkeyes played their way into the tournament by winning five of their last six games and Heller hopes they can maintain that momentum.

Iowa sends sophomore C.J. Eldred to the mound and will face Gopher ace Matt Fiedler. Heller says starting pitching sets the tone in a tournament. Minnesota took two out of three games from the Hawkeyes back in early April.

(Learfield Sports)

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Duke will play host to Michigan State and North Carolina will visit Indiana in the marquee matchups of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The leagues and ESPN announced the matchups for the three-day event that features 14 games from Nov. 28-30.

The other matchups include Minnesota at Florida State, Wake Forest at Northwestern, Syracuse at Wisconsin, Pittsburgh at Maryland, Iowa at Notre Dame, Georgia Tech at Penn State, North Carolina State at Illinois, Purdue at Louisville, Ohio State at Virginia, Virginia Tech at Michigan, Rutgers at Miami and Nebraska at Clemson.

Starting times haven’t been announced. The Tar Heels beat the Hoosiers in an East Regional semifinal in March. The only ACC team left out of the challenge this year is Boston College, which finished last season in last place.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jason Hammel pitched 7 1-3 stingy innings and had a two-run double in the Chicago’s six-run first as the Cubs went on to rout the St. Louis Cardinals 12-3 on Tuesday night. Michael Wacha (2-5) gave up a career-worst eight runs in four innings and has lost five consecutive decisions for the first time. The 24-year-old right-hander was a 17-game winner last season and the NL championship series MVP as a rookie in 2013, but this season has a 5.04 ERA.

Jorge Soler drew a bases-loaded walk in the first and hit a two-run home run in the fifth. The six-run inning was a season-best for the NL Central leaders, who snapped their first three-game losing streak of the season. David Ross had an RBI double for his 500th career hit and Kris Bryant had an RBI single in the outburst.

Hammel (6-1) bounced back from his first loss in his previous start.

SOFTBALL

Creston 15, Southwest Valley 0 (3 innings)
Fremont-Mills 11, Essex 3
IKM-Manning 4, Charter Oak-Ute 2
Guthrie Center 9, CAM 6
Sidney 13, Bedford 1 (4 innings)
St. Albert 5, CB Abraham Lincoln 5
Wayne 12, Diagonal 0

BASEBALL

Clarinda 6, Bedford 5 (8 innings)
Coon Rapids-Bayard 13, Newell-Fonda 8
Creston 16, Southwest Valley 6 (6 innings)
East Mills 34, Clarinda Academy 3 (5 innings)
Fremont-Mills 16, Essex 1 (4 innings)
Glenwood 7, Tri-Center 0
Glidden-Ralston 20, West Central Valley 2
Lenox 11, Orient-Macksburg 0 (5 innings)
Martensdale St Marys 2, Guthrie Center 0

BOYS TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND

Class 1A Substate 7

Atlantic 7, West Central Valley 1 (David Thomsen – 3 goals)
AHSTW 4, Ankeny Christian Academy 1 (Preslyn Grobe – 2 goals, 1 assist)
Des Moines Christian 9, Nodaway Valley 1

Class 1A Substate 8

Riverside, Oakland 4, Missouri Valley 1
St. Albert 5, Clarinda Academy 1 (Charlie Donaldson – 2 goals)
Tri-Center 3, Treynor 1

Class 2A Substate 1

Harlan 2, Creston 0
Denison-Schleswig 11, Carroll 0

Class 3A Substate 1

Des Moines Lincoln 8, Council Bluffs, Abraham Lincoln 1
Lewis Central 3, Council Bluffs, Thomas Jefferson 1

GIRLS
Regular Season

AHSTW 10, Riverside, Oakland 0
Creston 5, Carlisle 2
St. Albert 4, Kuemper Catholic 0

Class 1A Region 1

Waterloo Columbus/Don Bosco 5, Kuemper Catholic 0
Waterloo Columbus/Don Bosco will face LeMars today in Ft. Dodge at 3:00pm for the first round of state.

Class 1A Region 2

Creston Orient-Macksburg 5, Ballard 3

Class 1A Region 3

Decorah 5, Pella Christian 1

Class 1A Region 4

Camanche 5, Keokuk 0

The 7:20-a.m. Sportscast w/Jim Field.

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ST. LOUIS (AP) — Randal Grichuck hit a tiebreaking solo homer in the ninth to lift the St. Louis Cardinals a 4-3 win over the Chicago Cubs on Monday night. Matt Adams tied the score with a two-run homer off in the seventh for St. Louis’ major league-leading ninth pinch-hit homer of the season. It also ended a streak of 13 innings of one-run pitching by Chicago starter John Lackey against his former team.

Grichuk drove a 2-2 pitch off of Adam Warren (3-1) for the win. Trevor Rosenthal (2-1) pitched a scoreless ninth. The Cubs’ Ben Zobrist had three singles and a walk, extending his streak to 29 starts with reaching safely. He is hitting .387 during that span.

Top 2 teams and Top 5 individuals qualify for the state tournament.

Class 1A Region 2 @ Anita

Team Scoring

1. West Monona 368
2. Boyer Valley 400
3. Westwood 403
4. Mt Ayr 408
5. Griswold 408

Individual Scores

1. Sam Knight, West Monona 76
2. Allyson Rose, West Monona 85
3. Maddie Shook Westwood 89
4. Mateya Peters, Griswold 91
5. Abbey Schafer, Mt Ayr 91

Class 2A Region 2B @ Neola

Team Scoring

1. Alta-Aurelia 341
2. Treynor 345
3. Tri-Center 400
4. Maple Valley 423

Individual Scores

1. Aly Anderson, Treynor 81
2. Lexie Pattton, Alta-Aurelia 82
3. Annika Patton, Alta-Aurelia 85
4. Randi Robinson, Treynor 85
5. Erin Lockin, Alta Aurelia 86

Class 3A Region 2 @ Nevada

Team Scoring

1. Atlantic 363
2. Shenandoah 383
3. Nevada 391
4. Grundy Center/Gladbrook-Reinbeck 392

Individual Scores

1. Brooke Newell, Atlantic 80
2. Claire Ausman, Nevada 86
3. Jill Itzen, GCGR 85
4. Grace Davidson, Clarinda 87
5. Erin Olsen, Atlantic 90
   Anna Carlson, Shenandoah 90

Other Atlantic Scores: Alyssa Ginther – 95, Sarah Fixmer – 98, Baylee Newell – 98, McKenna DenBeste -106.

Comments from Head Coach Kathy Hobson: “This victory allowed us to accomplish another goal for this season and that is a return to the state tournament.  Very excited for this team to continue on.  However, if we are going to contend for our ultimate goal, a state championship, we are going to have to play better.  As a team, we didn’t play bad today, buy we didn’t play good either.  363 is a great score but it is not what we are capable of.  So many times, we weren’t our usual selves on the course.”

Class 3A Region 1 @ Clarion was postponed until today at 12:00pm

Class 4A Region 1 @ Carroll

Team Scoring

1. Creston 349
2. Spencer 379
3. Harlan 384
4. Lewis Central 415
5. Carroll 417
6. Denison-Schleswig 419
7. LeMars 428
8. Greene County 437
9. Storm Lake 446
10. Glenwood 478

Individual Scores

1. Rachael Danielson, Greene County 84
2. Ashton Carter, Creston 86
3. Sophia Groumoutis, Creston 87
4. Mariah Irmiter, Spencer 87
5. Madison Hance, Creston 87