Bobcats top Idaho, will face St. Peter’s
Pearson’s 16 points help lead Bobcats to CIT quarterfinals.
Circuit of the Americas launches its 2017 race season this weekend with the Hoosier SCCA Super Tour Southwest Shootout.
The Hoosier Tour is the Sports Car Club of America’s top-level amateur road racing series, and this will be the first time in four years that a premier SCCA ama- teur series has visited COTA.
More than 450 cars from across the South and South- west regions, including more than a dozen teams from the Austin area, will be on hand Friday through Sunday, competing in 28 classes and seven race groups.
The cars range from Porsches to Corvettes to
An appeals court overturned the conviction of a former Baylor football player whose sexual assault case helped ignite a scandal that engulfed the nation’s largest Baptist school.
The Texas 10th Court of Appeals said in a ruling Wednesday that text messages between the accuser and friend should not have been excluded from the testimony in Sam Ukwuachu’s 2015 trial in Waco. The court ordered that a new trial be held for the former standout defensive end for the Bears.
The accuser exchanged text messages with a friend before and after the offense. But the trial court two years ago allowed testimonybased only on the texts that came afterward, in which the accuser told her friend that Ukwuachu raped her.
But Ukwuachu argued that the earlier texts showed the woman had consented to sex.
“In this case, the text messages were made immedi- ately prior to the offense and appeared to potentially relate to prior occasions where the victim and Ukwuachu had engaged in some type of sexual conduct,” justices deter- mined in their ruling.
John Clune, the attorney for the woman, said Thurs- day in an email that the justices issued an “unfortunate ruling” that ultimately will be decided by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the highest criminal court in the state.
“The trial court ruled that these text messages had no bearing on consent and we remain optimistic that the higher court will agree,” Clune said. “Either way, the victim will continue to cooperate with the prose- cution and see this case to its proper end.”
Ukwuachu was sentenced to six months in jail but ended up serving an abbreviated sentence.
Ukwuachu’s lawyer, William Bratton III, said the former player had “great confi- Alfa Romeos to open-cockpit machines.
The weekend of racing is free, and fans can park in Lot A nearest to the track’s main entrance. Friday qual- ifying runs from 1-4:30 p.m. On Saturday, a second round of qualifying starts at 8 a.m., with racing going from 12:30-4:30 p.m. On Sunday, the racing schedule begins at 8:30 a.m. and wraps up about 4:15 p.m.
COTA also will have watch parties Sunday for the Formula One and MotoGP season openers. The Australian Grand Prix will be broadcast on big-screen TVs in the Velocity Lounge on a tape-delay basis from 8-10 a.m. The MotoGP at Qatar will roll at 1 p.m. There is dence” his conviction would be overturned.
“He needs a fairer run at this case than he had the first time,” Bratton said.
A spokeswoman for the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment, saying a state- ment might be released later Thursday.
Ukwuachu transferred from Boise State University in 2013 after being dismissed for unspecified reasons, but he never played for Baylor. He was ineligible in 2013 and suspended in 2014.
Media coverage of his case and the 2014 sexual assault conviction of another former player, Tevin Elliott, led the school to hire Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton to investigate how the university and the football program handled reports of assault.
The university faces several lawsuits from women who say Baylor mishandled, ignored or suppressed their claims of assault for years, including several cases involving foot- ball players. The school also no charge for admission and concessions will be avail- able for purchase.
The track will have two free days of MotoAmer- ica testing Tuesday and Wednesday. A 43-r i der slate is headed by two-time defending MotoAmerica Superbike champ Cam- eron Beaubier, his team- mate, Josh Hayes, and the two Yoshimura Suzuki riders, Toni Elias and Roger Hayden.
The testing will feature four 50-minute sessions per class, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and ending at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, along with Q&A sessions for fans. faces a federal civil rights investigation.
In other news, a former Baylor football player was arrested after a grand jury indicted him on three sec- ond-degree felony sexual assault counts arising from a 2013 incident while he was with the Bears.
The Waco Tribune-Herald reported that former tight end Tre’Von Armstead was arrested Wednesday near his hometown of Port Arthur. The McLennan County grand jury handed down the indictment last week, but it remained sealed until Wednesday.
Armstead was jailed in Beaumont with bonds totaling $150,000. Jail records listed no attorney for the 22-year-old.
The indictment alleges Armstead forced a woman to perform sex acts in midApril 2013.
Last week, Armstead was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with domestic battery, resisting arrest and damaging a police vehicle after a disturbance between Armstead and a woman.
Texas State’s men’s basketball team has advanced to the quarterfinals of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament with a 64-55 win over Idaho on Wednesday night.
The Bobcats (22-13) host Saint Peter’s (20-13) on Saturday.
Three Bobcats scored in double figures, with freshman guard Nijal Pearson leading the way with 16. He was 5 of 10 from the field, including 3 of 6 from 3-point range. He also added four assists and two steals.
Kavin Gilder-Tilbury and Ojai Black, both seniors, added 14 and 13 points, respectively.
“It’s fun to be able to go out there and still play with our seniors,” Pearson said. “Our season was supposed to be over after the tournament, but we’re one of the few teams still playing. We’re a close-knit team, and the fact that we get to keep playing with each other and get to go to war together is a blessing.”
As a team, Texas State shot only 4 of 19 on 3-pointers but went 14 of 18 from the free-throw line, well above its 65.7 percent season average. Pearson had all but one of those threes; Bobby Conley, another senior, was 1 of 5 from the field, but the lone make was a three; he finished with eight points and seven rebounds.
The Bobcats led 24-23 at halftime before pulling away, scoring 40 points in the second half and increasing their lead to as high as 13.
“We started slow, but the crowd helped,” Bobcats coach Danny Kaspar said. “I would still like to see more people there since we are so deep in the playoffs. I think our players’ play is worthy of 6,000, 7,000.
“The crowd was good; don’t get me wrong. The people that were here were great. I wish more people would come because I think we are putting out a pretty good product.”
Sun Belt honors Rupp: Junior Randi Rupp was named the Sun Belt’s softball pitcher of the week, her first honor this season but the sixth of her career.
“The offense has been doing a great job putting runs up early,” Rupp said. “For that, it’s just been much easier to go out there and just throw. Not to think too much about it, not to get too uptight or tight at all up there. For them to put up runs early makes the defense relax a little bit and just play ball.”
In three wins last week, Rupp allowed no earned runs and had 26 strikeouts while holding the opposing teams to a .136 batting average. She allowed nine hits through 19 innings.
Rupp (13-2) has 67 career wins, which puts her in a third-place tie in the school record books. She’s had 10 or more strikeouts five times this season, including 13 in a 4-1 win over Appalachian State on Sunday. Rupp has 134 strikeouts for the season, which ranks her 11th in the nation.
The Bobcats have won nine straight games after two wins in a doubleheader against Southern University (10-8) on Tuesday, improving their record to 22-4. Their 5-0 record in conference puts them on top of the Sun Belt standings.