CHICAGO (AP) – Kansas City’s chance for the AL Central title was erased by Detroit’s victory on Sunday, and the Royals went on to a 6-4 comeback win over Chicago in the final game for retiring White Sox captain Paul Konerko.

Coming into the final day of the regular season, Kansas City was hoping for a one-game playoff on Monday in Detroit for the division crown. But the Tigers clinched the Central with a 3-0 victory over the Twins, sending the Royals to a home wild-card game against Oakland on Tuesday night in their first playoff appearance since 1985.

Right after Detroit secured its fourth straight division title, Kansas City manager Ned Yost started pulling some of his regulars from the lineup. Rookie right-hander Yordano Ventura was lifted after four innings and 73 pitches.

Kansas City (89-73) likely will have James Shields on the mound when the Royals take on the Athletics.

Big 12 football scores on Sept. 27:

–Kansas State 58 Texas El Paso 28

–Texas 23 Kansas 0

–TCU 56 SMU 0

–Baylor 49 Iowa State 28

CHICAGO (AP) – Jose Abreu hit a two-run homer, and the Chicago White Sox kept Kansas City out of first place in the AL Central with a 5-4 victory over the Royals on Saturday night.

The Detroit Tigers, who lost 12-3 at Minnesota on Saturday, stayed one game ahead of the Royals entering the final day of the regular season. Kansas City clinched at least a wild card spot on Friday.

Danny Duffy (9-12) lasted only two innings for the Royals. He allowed four runs, five hits and one walk. The White Sox jumped on him, scoring three runs in the first inning. Abreu capped the rally with his 36th home run.

Abreu broke a 31-year-old franchise record for the most homers in a season by a rookie, previously held by Ron Kittle. They are the most by a rookie since St. Louis’ Albert Pujols hit 37 in 2001.

 

The Junction City Lady Jay volleyball team won two matches and lost two matches at a tournament at Seaman High School on Saturday.

Junction City defeated Shawnee Mission Northwest in sets 2-0, lost to Silver Lake 2-1, lost to Seaman 2-0, and defeated Holton 2-0. The Lady Jays overall record for the season is 9-11.

LAWRENCE, Kansas (AP) – Tyrone Swoopes passed for one touchdown and ran for another and Texas picked off four Kansas passes, leading the Longhorns to a 23-0 victory Saturday in the Big 12 opener.

Swoopes, in his first start in a conference game, was 19 for 34 for 218 yards and two TDs as Texas (2-2, 1-0) beat Kansas for the 12th straight time. A stifling Texas defense limited Kansas sophomore Montell Cozart to 12 for 31 for 140 yards and the four picks. Cornerback Duke Thomas had two of the interceptions and also broke up a short pass in the end zone on fourth down. Texas also sacked Cozart four times while holding the Jayhawks to 313 total yards.

All week long, Kansas (2-2, 0-1) kept the Texas fight song blaring across the practice field and filled the locker room with reminders that the Jayhawks had not beaten Texas in 76 years.

 

The Kansas State offense bounced back Saturday after a poor showing in the red zone last week against fifth ranked Auburn. Going into last weeks game the wildcats were a perfect 12-12 in the red zone but finished 2-5 in the game.

On Saturday against UTEP the Wildcats got back on track going a perfect 6-6 in the red zone and finishing to win 58-28.

DeMarcus Robinson explained that last week was a struggle,”I just think that we just wanted to improve. We wanted to improve all across the board. I think we made steps but Coach Snyder always talks about we still have to do better, we’ve got to improve which we all agree.”

It was a struggle at the beginning of the game with the Wildcats walking away with only a field goal in their first drive in the red zone, but it was smooth sailing after that with the Wildcats scoring a touchdown on there next five drives that entered the red zone.

“When you are moving the ball and scoring a lot, we are having fun doing it. We struggled to execute on the first couple of drives, but then we played the way we know how, we can be a great offense,” says Jake Waters.

Kansas State finished with 451 yards total offense, 263 yards passing and 188 yards rushing.

Rimrock Farms near Lawrence was the site on Saturday for a cross country meet featuring teams from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, and Colorado.

The Junction City Blue Jays and Lady Jays were represented.

Coach Becky Steiger reported that Junction City had four medalists in the JV crimson division races. They included on the boys side Chris Foley, 7th in 18:22.9, and in the girls race Briona Jensen, 4th in 18:07.9, Leah Ervin, 8th, 18:25.6, and Beth Arneson, 16th, in 18:46.9. There were 307 runners in the jv boys competition, and 205 in the girls race.

In the varsity boys race the Blue Jays finished 7th out of 45 teams.

The Kansas State Wildcats rolled past the UTEP Miners Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium 58-28 and put up 451 total yards of total offense.

The Wildcats went to the air for the majority of those yards with Jake Waters completing 10-15 for 209 yards and Joe Hubener going 3-4 for 54 yards.

Tyler Lockett led the receivers with 84 yards receiving on four catches, increasing his total career receiving yards to 2,469, jumping from fifth to third place in school history and passing his uncle, Aaron (2,400; 1998-2001). Aaron was did visit Kansas State on Thursday and Lockett said during a post-game interview that the record was brought up during the visit.

“He brought it up, but it wasn’t really to much to talk about. He was just like you’ve got ten yards, and it was just one of those deals were he was like, I can’t believe you are going to pass me up,” said Lockett.

Lockett is 343 yards shy of passing Jordy Nelson for second place, and remains 563 yards shy of passing the all time career receiving leader, his father Kevin Lockett.

Defensively Kansas State shut down a second offense that boasted one of the nations best rushing attacks, averaging 314 yards per game on the ground.

“I was very pleased with the way we had, in the first half we had five consecutive three and outs. I mean you can’t get much better than that,” said Coach Bill Snyder. “I told them on the sixth possession, sixth and last possession of the first half they got a first down, and I told our players, I’m kind of glad that happened because it gave me something to complain about when I got in the locker room at half time, otherwise I would have been speechless.”

The win wraps up non-conference play for the Wildcats as they now begin to prepare for a Big 12 showdown with Texas Tech at Bill Snyder Family Stadium next Saturday. That game is scheduled for a 6:00 p.m. kick off. The Red Raiders will be coming into the game following a 45-35 loss on Thursday night to Oklahoma State and a 49-28 loss to Arkansas the week before.

Big 12 football games on Saturday find:

–UTEP at Kansas State

–Texas visiting Kansas

–Baylor at Iowa State

–TCU at SMU

 

Christian Ozores blocked a field goal, and Tyrik Nas-Carmickle returned it more than 80 yards for a touchdown to open the scoring for Junction City with 3:45 remaining in the first quarter against the Seaman Vikings.

From that point on Junction City controlled the game enroute to a 56-7 win over the Vikings on homecoming night at Seaman.

Junction City would tack on 28 more points by halftime enroute with two of the touchdowns coming on short runs by Downey Wood, one on an interception return for a score by Ozores, and another on a 13-yard pass from Tanner Lueker to Xavier DeGuzman.

The Blue Jays then scored two more touchdowns in the third quarter, before playing their reserves through most of the final period.

Blue Jay coach Randall Zimmerman said his team answered the challenge during the week in their preparation after losing a week ago to Shawnee Heights.

On the blocked field goal returned for a touchdown Zimmerman called it a “huge, huge play. In games like this you need play makers to make plays, and Christian Ozores is such a special kid. Just a tremendous, tremendous person, good athlete. He got off the edge, Trae McDaniel took the wing down inside with him, Chip ( Christian ) got off the edge, got a block, Tyrik Nas scooped it up. ”

Nas-Carmickle then ran for the touchdown.

The Blue Jays are 3-1 on the season, while Seaman fell to 1-3.