Not in the mood to adult today? We’re right there with you on this Monday. We’ll help you get ahead of those fast typing, sports talking colleagues with today’s Rundown. So go ahead and have that donut with your coffee – you can be an adult tomorrow.
We like the ones with sprinkles,
The Last Night’s Game Team
NCAA BASEBALL (COLLEGE)
- Underdogs prevail. The College World Series championship series is set and features two unlikely opponents. University of Arizona and Coastal Carolina, who both rose up from the loser’s bracket to make it to the finals, will play a best-of-three series starting tonight (7 pm EST, ESPN) to determine the champion.
NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing)
- Full steam ahead. In his last season as a driver, Tony Stewart snapped his 84 race winless streak on Sunday with a win in Sonoma. Until this weekend Stewart had not won a race since June 2013. In August 2014 Stewart killed another driver who was walking on the race track in a non-NASCAR, dirt track race and hasn’t been the same since. Now he has something to look forward to as he’s in the mix for the championship.
PGA (PROFESSIONAL GOLFERS' ASSOCIATION)
- Time to regroup. The PGA tour has cancelled its upcoming tournament the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia (scheduled July 7-10) due to massive flooding. This is the first time since 2009 that the PGA has cancelled an entire tournament. Professional golfer Bubba Watson lives on the course at Greenbrier and he shared photos of the devastation.
Soccer
- Things got Messi. Defending champions Team Chile and Team Argentina played in the championship for the Copa America Centenario title yesterday. After 90 minutes of regular play and 30 minutes of extra time the two teams were still tied at a big fat zero. Next up penalty kicks. The first kicker for Argentina was Lionel Messi, arguably the best player in the world. Scary right? Well he missed his shot. Argentina missed another penalty kick while Chile did not. Team Chile emerged as the winners of 2016 Copa America Centenario.
A frustrated Messi indicated in postgame interviews that he will retire from the Argentinian national team.
- Not quite on the medal stand. Team U.S.A. lost to Columbia 1-0 in Saturday’s third place game, finishing in fourth place in the Copa America Centenario.
Overtime
- When TCU (Texas Christian University) played Coastal Carolina in the College World Series over the weekend, proud alum Jake Arrieta (TCU) and his Chicago Cubs teammate Tommy La Stella (Coastal Carolina) made a bet. The bet was that the loser would have to get a tattoo of the opposing school's mascot. What could go wrong there? Coastal Carolina beat TCU two game in a row to make it to the championship series. Arrieta better be ready to become lifelong friends with the mascot, a chanticleer.
What is a chanticleer you ask? We didn’t know either. It’s a fierce rooster out of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Wow look out for the fierce roosters. What school’s mascot makes you go hmmm? Tell us in the comments or on Twitter.
Sideline stat
- Rising above the Brexit chaos, Wimbledon starts today. The tournament is one of the four major tournaments in professional tennis. The grueling tournament finishes July 10th. Pete Sampras was the last American man to win Wimbledon in 2000 and Serena Williams won last year for the ladies.
Coaches’ Corner
- What does it mean end the match in penalty kicks? Many soccer matches can end in a tie (aka a draw) but matches such as a championship game must determine a winner, therefore a tie is not acceptable. If both teams are still tied in an elimination game after regulation time and extra time (120 minutes of play total - that’s a whole lot of running around) they then resort to penalty kicks. In the first round, each team selects five players to kick. The teams alternate kickers who go one-on-one with the opposing goalie in an attempt to score a goal. The team that scores the most goals wins. Getting technical here, if after the first round the teams are still tied, five new players are chosen and the process repeats until a winner is determined. Learn more here.
