Quick Hitters
AWC men win at home
Arizona Western men’s soccer notched another conference win on Thursday at home.
The Mats (8-1-1 ACCAC) held off Mesa (4-5-1 ACCAC) to win 4-1.
Nemanja Zivanovic scored in the ninth minute to put AWC up early.
The Thunderbirds tied the game up minutes later.
Jorge Cayo Zelada gave AWC a 2-1 lead going into the half with an assist from Yerry Mendez.
In the second half a Cayo Zelada cross led to a goal by Milos Blagojeivc, and in the 78th minute Mendez scored his seventh goal of the season on a cross from Steve Mendoza.
AWC will be back on Saturday at Pima.
Mayfield leads Browns to 1st win since 2016
CLEVELAND — For the first time in 635 days, the Cleveland Browns found a way to win.
Baker Mayfield showed them how.
The No. 1 overall pick replaced injured starter Tyrod Taylor and sparked the Browns, who got two 1-yard touchdown runs from Carlos Hyde and beat the New York Jets 21-17 on Thursday night for their first win since Dec. 24, 2016.
And so ends Cleveland’s 19game winless streak, the NFL’s second-longest since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
The Browns (1-1-1) trailed 14-0 in the first half before Mayfield came in for Taylor and led four scoring drives while winning an unexpected matchup against Jets rookie quarterback Sam Darnold. Cleveland passed on taking Darnold in the draft and instead chose Mayfield, the Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma.
Mayfield finished 17 of 23 for 201 yards in a little more than a half after coming in after Taylor suffered a concussion.
Darnold had one last chance, but was intercepted by Terrence Mitchell with 11 seconds left.
When the final seconds ticked off the clock, Cleveland fans, who had endured a 0-16 season and waited nearly two years to see their Browns win, erupted in celebration.
Browns coach Hue Jackson got just his second win in 35 games since being hired by owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam, and this win will ease some of the pressure he’s been feeling to get Cleveland turned around. Jackson could also be faced with a difficult choice — either stick with Mayfield or go back to Taylor when he’s healthy.
Mayfield made his NFL debut with 1:42 left in the second quarter, replacing an injured Taylor after Cleveland’s starter was sacked for the third time. Taylor struggled getting to his feet after being dragged down by linebacker Avery Williamson, but he had absorbed several hard blows before that — and had been ineffective.
The Kofa volleyball team knew its perfect 8-0 AIA record was going to be put to the test Thursday night against Boulder Creek at Ernest F. Rillos Gym.
The Jaguars are a fellow 6A team — just the second on Kofa’s schedule so far — and last year made it further than the Kings at state.
It was indeed a test — a back-and-forth, five-set test that the Kings passed.
First-year Kofa coach Makyla Orman used the words “very intense” and “wild” to describe the Kings’ 22-25, 30-28, 25-22, 1925, 15-13 victory over Boulder Creek, which kept Kofa (9-0 AIA) undefeated on the year.
Every set but the fourth went down to the wire.
The first was tied 22-22 before Boulder Creek (2-6 AIA) scored three straight points. The second saw the Jaguars fight off six set points before earning one of its own at 28-27, only for Kofa to score three straight. The third saw Boulder Creek trim a 22-19 deficit to 23-22 before Kofa scored the final two points. And in the fifth, the Jaguars fought off four straight match points while pulling within 14-13, but their final serve of the night sailed long to give Kofa the victory.
“We expected a big game with them just looking them up on MaxPreps and seeing their stats,” Kofa senior outside hitter Keiley Sharp said. “So that was a big game for us.”
Sharp (3 digs, 3 blocks, 2 aces) and fellow senior outside hitter Pam Aguilar co-led Kofa in kills with 16 apiece, senior middle blocker Jocelyn Weber added seven kills, and senior setter Isabel Ponce had five kills, five aces and four digs.
Ponce, Sharp and Aguilar came up particularly big in the match’s most crucial moment.
Late in the fifth and final set, Kofa rattled off six straight points to turn a 9-8 deficit into a 14-9 lead. That stretch featured one ace and three assists by Ponce, who set up Sharp for two