Good Hope pitcher Cara Goodwin has 9 no hitters in 2013 — Softball Showcase

When Cara Goodwin heads to the mound, the question is rarely whether she is going to win. Rather, it’s whether she’ll even allow a run.

Goodwin, a Cullman (Al.) Good Hope High senior and University of Alabama-Birmingham signee, is currently 21-4 in her final campaign. More impressively, nine of those wins have come on no-hitters, with Good Hope’s 11 most recent wins all shutouts pitched by Goodwin.

Clearly, Goodwin is hitting her stride at precisely the right time, just as her squad heads toward the state playoffs. Perhaps more impressively, according to the Cullman Times, Goodwin’s two most recent starts have both featured victories that came within two at-bats of a perfect game.

In a victory against Cold Springs (Al.) High she gave up her only walk with two outs in the seventh inning and Goodwin unintentionally struck two batters with pitches during the team’s rout of Falkville (Al.) High.

Goodwin's dominance is nothing new for the state of Alabama, with the teen previously setting single season state records for most strikeouts (525), innings pitched (318) and shutouts (19) in a single season. All of those marks may be under threat again this year, as well.

The plan for the rest of Good Hope’s season is clear: Keep giving Goodwin the ball, and keep hoping that she will mow down opposing batters.

Jeremy Lopez is the kind of player coaches dream about. He is consistent at the plate and better in the dugout. He always wants to take the ball on the mound, even if his total of losses is rising as the season rolls on. Metaphorically, he’s the kind of player who stands 8 feet tall.

Pennsauken Tech baseball star Jeremy Lopez stands just 5-foot-1 — Philadelphia Inquirer

Physically, he barely stands 5 feet tall.

That, naturally, is what makes Lopez so special. The Camden County (N.J.) Tech School-Pennsauken High senior star is precisely 5-foot-1 and 110 pounds. He is one of the smallest players in all of prep baseball nationwide, yet he also has found a way to have a profound impact on his team’s fortunes.

As reported by the Philadelphia inquirer. Lopez was his team’s most consistent hitter as a junior, batting .386. He had 27 hits, scored 23 runs and finished with 14 steals. More impressively, he struck out just three times all season. That’s fewer times than many power hitters strike out in a single game.

Lopez was the team’s go-to man on the mound as well. And while he finished just 4-6, the then-junior had 32 strikeouts in just 58 innings of work.

"He got the ball in every one of our big games," Pennsauken Tech baseball coach Jon Repece told the Inquirer. “I knew he was a special kid the first day he came out. He was this little freshman, and he was helping all the other kids."

Now, Lopez is enjoying his final season on a competitive baseball field. The senior -- who is also the president of the school’s National Honor Society and reportedly earns straight A’s -- also competes in cross country and bowling, pursuits that he could be able to continue in the years ahead.

Two former executives of a Pennsylvania-based sporting goods company pled guilty to defrauding more than 100 schools in 12 states on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

Circle Systems Group CEO Alan Abeshaus and CFO Mitchell Kurlander admitted in court that they had forged competitors' prices, inflated invoices and overbilled schools for almost a decade, according to an Associated Press report.

Each pled guilty to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud -- a crime that could have meant 20 years behind bars -- but the 81-year-old Abeshaus will likely avoid prison time while his 54-year-old son-in-law faces up to 51 months in jail as part of their plea deals.

In 2011, the two men were indicted after another former Circle Systems Group executive and two New Jersey school officials also pled guilty as part of the conspiracy.

The company sent a bill and a similar looking invoice to schools in order to recoup two payments for refurbishing athletic equipment (mainly football helmets and pads), which led to almost $1 million in earnings, according to the 2011 New York Times report.

Circle also sent forged price quotes from competing companies in order to secure the lowest bid and then overcharge schools for additional services, the AP reported. Additionally, the company issued fraudulent invoices to make up for money it had donated to school's athletic programs, according to The Morning Call.

As U.S. District Judge William Walls asked Kurlander in court, "So, you gave with one hand and took back with the other?" The former CFO responded: "Yes, your Honor."

Anyone up for a video of an 12-year-old drilling a shot from half court during halftime of an NBA game? We thought you might be.

During Toronto's Wednesday victory against the Washington Wizards, the Raptors used halftime to host that greatest of all traditions: A youth basketball game between teams comprised entirely of 11 and 12-year-olds. These gimmicks can never go wrong; the teams play hard, the kids are cute and once in a while some elementary schooler will make a play that will actually turn everyone's head.

Case in point: The video you see above from Toronto, in which an unnamed 12-year-old drilled a shot from just inside halfcourt as the buzzer sounded. Did he travel before the shot? Probably. Did that diminish his sense of accomplishment? Absolutely not.

While the shot itself was pretty good, the reaction of both teams is completely priceless. After all, no high school team would go nuts when an opponent hit a buzzer beater like that, but elementary schoolers are happy to do so. Heck, they probably would have celebrated just as excitedly if the shot had gone in at some small, dank gym in Sudbury, let alone inside the Air Canada Centre.

A Texas wrestler has landed himself in hot water after objecting to a new standardized test he was forced to take in the most direct way possible, and possibly the most unwise as well: He opted to write “YOLO” (You Only Live Once) and a smiley face on his multiple choice answer sheet and tweeted it out to the world.

As reported by Dallas-Fort Worth news network WFAA, Kyron Birdine, a star wrestler for Arlington (Tx.) High, was suspended for four days because of his original tweet, which depicted his personal scantron sheet just before he handed it back in.

Before everyone throws Birdine under the bus -- and to be fair, there’s plenty of reason for that -- the teen was actually making a political statement with his test answers, even if the statement was made in a rather crude way. Below his YOLO test photo, Birdine wrote. “I have the TAKS to study for, not this unneeded craziness.” In Texas, the TAKS test is the standardized measure that determines if students graduate.

"It wasn't for a grade," Birdine told WFAA. "Colleges don't see it. It didn't benefit my personal life at all."

Kyron Birdine's rather direct Twitter call out — Twitter

The test Birdine intentionally gave up on was the STAAAR, a new test that isn’t used for graduation eligibility.

Of course, that doesn’t justify Birdine’s decision to opt out of the test in the most melodramatic way possible. It also doesn’t justify his tweeting his original YOLO message directly at the Texas Education Agency and Arlington Independent School District; that’s just stupid.

Birdine has another year ahead of him (he's just a junior) but isn't in any kind of academic trouble. Rather, WFAA reported that he holds a 3.0 GPA and reportedly scored notably high on his PSAT.

Everyone knows that Rutgers has an impending transformation on the horizon. The school will leave the Big East for the Big Ten, becoming the conference’s eastern-most outpost and bringing Midwestern smashmouth college football -- and, perhaps more significantly in terms of decision making, the Big Ten Network -- to the New York region.

The move is a big one for the school and its football program, which was resurrected from the ashes in the mid 2000s and has since become an oft threatening but ultimately disappointing contender on the national scale. Some of those limited returns are clearly due to Rutgers’ general inability to recruit the nation’s top players, in part due to its lack of football heritage (beyond that whole playing the first organized game thing) and in part because it is located in Piscataway, N.J., not Miami or Southern California.

The move to the Big Ten should help that recruiting push. At the same time, the program may be trying to change the way it does things. Need evidence? Look no further than the school’s first scholarship offers for the Class of 2016. As noted by MaxPreps, both are quarterbacks, and both are among the highest-regarded prospects in the state of New Jersey.

Before we get any further, it’s worth taking a second look at precisely which class these athletes will be in: 2016. These are 14-year-old passers we’re talking about. No, they’re not USC offering a scholarship to David Sills, but it’s not far away from it.

The latter of the pair to receive a scholarship offer was Sonny Abramson, who was the freshman star of Sparta (N.J.) Pope John XXIII High in fall 2012. Abramson has also received significant attention from schools like Notre Dame, Michigan and Stanford, so it’s anything but a safe bet to assume that he’ll end up with the Scarlet Knights.

That didn’t deter the Knights from extending him an offer, of course. The school’s other freshman offer is significantly more specious. Jarrett Guarantano is a talented prospect at Oradell (N.J.) Bergen Catholic High, but he’s yet to start a single game on a varsity football field. Guarantano is expected to fight for a spot under center at Bergen Center, annually one of the nation’s best programs, during the fall 2013 season.

Here’s a novel and deplorable way to earn yourself -- and your national team -- some worldwide disrepute.

The video you see above was taken from idyllic yet chilly Estonia, which is hosting the 2013 Under-18 boys hockey world championship tournament. While these tournaments tend to be back burner events here in the U.S., they are a very, very big deal in Europe, where the likes of Russia, Finland and Sweden realize they represent their best chance at winning a world title at something.

Evidently they take it very seriously in Lithuania as well (that is part of Europe, after all) because Lithuanian forward Danielius Nomanovas reacted to a 3-2 loss to Great Britain in the most inappropriate and inexcusable way possible: He hurled his stick at a referee, with a heck of a lot of velocity, at that.

As you can see in the video above, the shot was most definitely felt by the referee, who went down to a knee so he could clutch his shoulder after Nomanovas’ stick drilled him in the upper body. The attack also elicited a rapid response from a British player, though he was kept from getting to Nomanovas by another ref.

Over the summer, Inside Lacrosse asked Candace Pallitto what she hoped to accomplish in the final season of her girls lacrosse career at Villa Walsh (Morristown, N.J.) Academy.

Georgetown-bound Candace Pallitto scored 11 goals in her girls lacrosse team's season opener -- The Star-Ledger

"I would like to continue to lead my team to success on and off the field," said Pallitto. "At the same time, I want to continue to improve my playing while enjoying every game."

If her season opener is any indication, the Georgetown commit will have no problem achieving those goals. Speaking of goals, Pallitto remarkably had 11 of them in a 16-14 victory against Mount St. Dominic (Caldwell, N.J.) Academy on Tuesday.

Pallitto also had an assist, giving her a hand in 12 of her team's 16 goals. She scored seven goals in the second half, including one to put the game away in the final minute.

"I was really excited and extremely pumped up," Pallitto told The Star-Ledger. "I think the energy around me, just the fact that everyone was playing so hard, got me fired up. I was just glad to help everyone pull out the win."

Pallitto tallied 71 goals and 23 assists in 19 games as a junior midfielder for the Vikings (14-5) last season. For those counting at home, that's an average of 3.7 goals per game.