Sports
Westplex Today Sports Page: March 4th, 2010
By Stephan R. Barnard
Mar 4, 2010 - 5:29:34 AM

The Grapefruit League is here for the Cardinals.  The Redbirds will be in Port St. Lucie today for their spring debut against the New York Mets.  Potential fifth starter Evan MacLane will get the ball first for the Cards in today’s contest. The Mets counter with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey.  New York has split a pair of games with the Atlanta Braves to start their spring schedule.  That includes a 9-5 loss to the Braves yesterday at Lake Buena Vista.  Tomorrow, the Cards will face a split Mets squad back in Jupiter.

As Cardinal single-game tickets go on sale tomorrow morning,  the team announced some  promotional dates including Three bobblehead days.   The special incentives will begin with Vince Coleman bobblehead day on Friday, July 30th.  On May 21st, the team will give away replicas of the Bob Gibson statue outside of Busch Stadium.  The team will also have a handful of autograph nights and two Fireworks Fridays are scheduled.  The displays on April 16th and June 4th will be the first fireworks shows at the new Busch Stadium.


The Blues make their second stop on a six-game road trip tonight when they face the Stars in Dallas.  The game is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m.  The Note opened their trip last night with a 5-2 win over the Coyotes in Phoenix.  Chris Mason turned away 37 shots in the win.  After Thursday, the Blues will travel to Denver to take on the Avalanche on Saturday.  The Blues have 67 points on the season.  They trail the Central Division rival Red Wings by three points for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The Blues made one deal yesterday before the 2 p.m. trade deadline.  The team sent Yan Stastny to Vancouver for prospect Pierre-Cedric Labrie.    Labrie has played in 45 games for Manitoba of the AHL this season and has five goals and one assist to go along with 69 penalty minutes.  Stastny has one goal over four games with the Blues this season, and has 10 scores and 17 assists in 49 AHL games with Peoria.  The Note made some other deals ahead of Wednesday's deadline.  On Monday, they acquired netminder Joe Fallon from Chicago in exchange for goaltender Hannu Toivonen and defenseman Danny Richmond. 

The first two games of the Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament are tonight at Scottrade Center.  The first game is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. and will will pit number-eight Drake against number-nine Southern Illinois.  The late game is scheduled to start at 8:35 p.m.  In that game, Missouri State will be favored over Evansville in a 7-10 matchup.  Top-seeded UNI won't play until tomorrow, when it will play the winner of the Drake-Southern Illinois contest.  The tourney will run through Sunday, with the title game scheduled for 1:05 p.m.  The winner of that game will earn an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament later this month.

Sherron Collins scored 17 points in his final home game as second-ranked Kansas clocked fifth-ranked Kansas State 82-65 at Phog Allen Fieldhouse.  Xavier Henry had 19 points to lead the Jayhawks, who clinched their sixth straight Big 12 regular season title.  KU extended its home-court winning streak to 59 games and improved to 28-and-2 on the season, including 14-and-1 in the conference.  Denis Clemente scored 21 points Jacob Pullen added 20 for the Wildcats, who had their seven-game winning streak snapped to slip to 24-and-5 and 11-and-4.  Kansas closes out the regular season Saturday at Mizzou, while K-State hosts Iowa State.