Clan-Members » Cole, NC Centrals top scorer at 21 p

NYON, Switzerland - Reprieved from a match-fixing ban to enter the Champions League, Fenerbahce was drawn on Friday to play Salzburg in the third qualifying round. The Turkish league runner-up had been excluded by UEFA, but reached agreement on Thursday at the Court of Arbitration for Sport to freeze the sanction and play before its appeal is judged next month. In some of the other 15 drawn pairings, Zenit St. Petersburg will play Nordsjaelland, 1988 winner PSV Eindhoven faces Champions League debutant Zulte Waregem of Belgium, and Metalist Kharkiv will travel to play PAOK Thessaloniki of Greece. Fenerbahce officials declined to discuss the 18-time Turkish champions legal problems at UEFA headquarters. Still, the uncertainty involves Salzburg, a potential playoff round opponent next month — including Arsenal or AC Milan — and Turkish league rival Bursaspor, which was on standby to take the vacant place in the draw. "Of course, we are a little bit confused about things that happened yesterday," Salzburg official Mark Lang told The Associated Press. "We dont have any influence on these decisions." CAS set an Aug. 28 deadline — the eve of the group-stage draw — to give a verdict in Fenerbahces appeal against a two-year ban from UEFA competitions. Club officials were convicted in a Turkish criminal court of helping to fix matches to win the Turkish title in 2011. They deny wrongdoing and have appealed. Still, the Turkish Football Federation withdrew Fenerbahce just before the 2011-12 Champions League groups draw, and UEFA reinstated Trabzonspor, which had lost in the qualifiers. If Fenerbahce wins through to the group stage yet loses its legal challenge at CAS, UEFA must decide which team would take its place in the 32-team draw in Monaco. The simplest solution is for Salzburg to win a two-leg series which opens in Austria on July 30 or 31, and concludes in Turkey on Aug. 6 or 7. "We are trying to beat them on the field," Lang said. "Its a very interesting opponent, and were looking forward to the matches." Bursaspor officials, attending the subsequent Europa League draw, acknowledged having no idea if their club could yet be upgraded to Europes marquee club competition. PAOK was also affected, because Fenerbaches reinstatement as a seeded team knocked the Greek league runner-up down into the pool of unseeded clubs. PAOK will host Metalist in an empty stadium, as the club serves a UEFA ban for crowd violence in a Europa League match last season. Ukrainian runner-up Metalist has finally broken through into the Champions League by finishing behind champion Shakhtar Donetsk, pushing longstanding power Dynamo Kyiv into third. "Champions League is a big challenge," Metalist official Anton Ivanov told The AP. "We were looking for it for a lot of years. To play in the group stages, we need to beat teams like PAOK. Its a big advantage that PAOK plays without spectators." Winners advance to a playoff round, when the non-champions in Fridays draw will be joined by Arsenal, Milan, Schalke, Real Sociedad and newcomer Pacos de Ferreira from Portugal. The 10 playoff winners advance to the groups with the established European powers who have direct entry. Group matches start in September. Nike Shox Outlet Clearance . Scott Kazmir allowed four hits in seven shutout innings, Michael Brantley hit a two-run homer in a three-run first inning and the Indians maintained their hold on an AL wild-card spot with a 4-1 win over the Houston Astros on Saturday night. Clearance Nike Shox .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. http://www.cheapnikeshoxfreeshipping.com/ . And when it opened, every player was at his stall. Thats a sure sign that a team is in a slump and is searching for answers. "Its embarrassing to be at home and play the way we did," said defenceman Josh Gorges. Cheap Nike Shox China . But by the time the game started, the Toronto Raptors forward felt even worse. And, for three quarters, it showed as Gay shot a woeful three-for-13 from the field. Cheap Nike Shox Shoes . -- Quarterback Will Finch threw for 252 yards and three touchdowns, and Yannick Harou rushed in two scores as the No. BATON ROUGE, La. -- Antonio Blakeney made two field goals in the final four minutes to lift LSU a 70-66 non-conference victory over North Carolina Central on Tuesday.Two baskets following offensive rebounds by Will Ransom enabled the Eagles to tie the score at 65-65 with 4:45 remaining in the game. Blakeney made the only field goal attempts by either team the rest of the way.Blakeney sank a jumper with 3:59 left to break the tie, and after North Carolina Centrals Patrick Cole made one of two free throws, hit another with 2:42 left. Neither team scored again until the Tigers Brandon Sampson made a foul shot with nine seconds to go.Coming off a 14-day layoff, we knew we wouldnt be hitting on all cylinders, LSU coach Johnny Jones said. Our guys did a good job in the second half of playing with the effort we needed. With a few minor adjustments on the defensive end, we made it tough for them.Blakeney scored a season-high 27 points, 18 in the second half. Duop Reath added 14 points and Sampson had 13 for LSU (6-2), which trailed by 13 points on three occasions in the first half.The mentality was to play defense in the second half, Blakeney said. They were really shooting the ball in the first half. We wanted to play defense and take our offense to the next level. I was just trying to be aggressive. I wanted to draw plays out and knock the shot down.Cole scored 19 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and handed out nine assists. Dajuan Graf had 18 points and Ransom scored 10 points for the Eagles (6-5).It was a tale of two halves, North Carolina Central coach LeVelle Morton said. We caught them rusty a little bit. They havent played in a while, so we kind of shocked them. We really executed in the first half. We diidnt finish the game down the stretch and thats on me.ddddddddddddBIG PICTURELSU: The Tigers remained unbeaten at home with their fifth victory. For the third time this season, LSU won after trailing at halftime.NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL: The Eagles came very close to knocking off their second Southeastern Conference team this season. NC Central beat Missouri 62-52 last month.SECOND HALF TEAMLSU continued to play much better after halftime. The Tigers outscored NC Central 34-23 over the final 20 minutes. LSU defeated Wofford and Old Dominion earlier this season after trailing at halftime. In the Tigers previous game against Houston, they outscored the Cougars by 18 points in the second half while going on to an 84-65 victory.NEAR QUADRUPLE-DOUBLEPatrick Cole, NC Centrals top scorer at 21 points per game, almost reached double digits in four statistical categories. Cole contributed 19 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. In addition, Cole committed 10 of the Eagles 19 turnovers. Cole had a potential game-tying 3-point shot blocked by Brandon Sampson with 12 seconds remaining in the game.SOLID POST TANDEMBoth Duop Reath and Craig Victor, LSUs two starting posts, came close to registering double-doubles. Reath, who was 7-of-9 from the field, had 14 points and eight rebounds. Victor, who missed nine of his 12 field goal attempts, accounted for eight points and a season-high 11 rebounds.UP NEXTLSU: The Tigers will play Texas Southern Saturday.NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL: The Eagles continue their two-game swing through Louisiana when they meet McNeese State in Lake Charles on Saturday. ' ' '