Paying another visit to the variety store...



Among the missing

Former Lakeside football coach Tom Bruney led Brooke High School to the No. 1 seed in the West Virginia Class AAA playoffs this fall.

However, Bruney, who coached the Dragons to a 5-5 finish in his one season at the helm in 2005, was not in attendance last night when the Bruins hosted Princeton in a first-round playoff contest in Wellsburg, W.Va.

The former Lakeside coach was banned from being at the stadium after he was flagged for two 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties and ejected from Brooke’s Week 10 contest.

It should be noted, the second 15-yarder and the ejection came when an official judged him to be too far out onto the field to call a timeout.

Regardless, Brooke did rally in the game to pull out a one-point victory in its season finale to finish at 10-0 and earn the top seed in the Class AAA playoffs.



Kicking and...

League officials in Rhode Island are investigating a fight between members of two girls high school soccer teams who threw punches, pulled hair and sparked a brawl in the bleachers.

The fight captured on video by WPRI-TV broke out Sunday with about a minute left in a match between Woonsocket and Tolman high schools.

Woonsocket was leading 5-0 when two players collided, setting off the fray. Fans even duked it out in the bleachers during an awards ceremony.

Woonsocket coach Kathleen Fagnant said she doesn’t know how the fight started but says she isn’t going to “take the fall for that.”



Flip the bird

Police say a low-flying pelican distracted a driver in Texas, causing him to veer off a road and drive his million-dollar sports car into a salt marsh.

La Marque police Lt. Greg Gilchrist says the man claimed he lost concentration while driving his French-built Bugatti Veyron on Wednesday because the bird swooped into sight. Gilchrist says the driver dropped his phone, reached down to pick it up and strayed into the brackish water in La Marque, about 35 miles southeast of Houston.

Gilchrist does not know if the car can be salvaged but conceded that “salt water isn’t good for anything.”

He says the man, whose identity has not been released, was not injured in the accident.



Intruder

The coach of an Austrian women’s handball team has resigned after going onto the court to prevent a score during a game.

Gunnar Prokop, the coach of Hypo Niederoesterreich, says he “will go through this with a psychiatrist. ... I still can’t understand why I’ve done this.”

Prokop went onto the court four seconds before the end of Thursday’s Champions League match. He intentionally collided with an opposing player to stop a counterattack and deny Metz a chance to score. The match ended in a 27-27 draw.

Handball’s European governing body opened disciplinary proceedings against Prokop. A ruling is expected before his team’s match against Krim Ljubljana on Sunday.



Yeah, sure

University of Nebraska nose tackle Ndamukong Suh was ticketed for negligent driving after he hit three parked cars on a Lincoln, Neb., street early on a recent Sunday morning.

Suh, whose blood-alcohol content was within the legal limit, told police he swerved to avoid hitting a dog.



Cliff diving

It took almost 150 years for a Southerner named Lee to beat the Yankees; but it’s happened twice in one week in the World Series.



Cutting edge

An assistant football coach at Kathleen High School near Lakeland, Fla., faces assault and weapons charges for allegedly brandishing a pocket knife in front of a player and warning him “Don’t try me today” during a recent practice.



Part-time postman

Gothenburg goalkeeper Kim Christensen won’t be sanctioned, the Swedish Football Federation announced, despite being caught trying to move his goal posts closer together before a match recentlyk.



Chop, chop

A young Cincinnati Bengals fan has been penalized for clipping — getting the football team’s stripes and “B” logo cut into his hair.

School officials in the southwest Ohio city of Hamilton put eighth-grader Dustin Reader into in-school suspension Monday when he showed up with the new hairstyle in tribute to the Bengals’ good season. The school says its code of conduct prohibits extreme and distracting hairstyles.

His parents and his barber say they don’t understand why the haircut is out of bounds. His father, James Reader, says Dustin is just paying tribute to the 6-2 Bengals.

“This is a way for him to express pride in the Bengals’ putting up a winning season,” Reader said. “It’s not racist, not drug-related, not gang-related or anything like that. It’s about football.”

School officials say he will continue to do his school work away from other students at Garfield Middle School until the hair grows back or he changes the style.

Kathy Leist, assistant superintendent for the Hamilton schools, said such suspensions are “a building-level decision based on the code of conduct.” School officials wouldn’t discuss details of the discipline case.

His parents say they believe he is exercising his freedom of expression and he can keep his hair the way it is.

“I’m behind him 100 percent,” his father said.



The Associated Press contributed to this report. McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.