Fanfare

CHL announces 09-10 alignment

WICHITA — The Central Hockey League has released its conference alignment for the 2009-10 season.
With 15 teams, there will be two conferences and no divisions. In the Northern Conference will be Wichita, Bossier-Shreveport, Colorado, Mississippi, Rapid City, Tulsa and Missouri. Rapid City and Missouri are both expansion teams.
The South division consists of Amarillo, Arizona, Corpus Christi, Laredo, Odessa, Rio Grande Valley, Texas and Allen. Allen is an expansion team.
The top five teams in each division will reach the playoffs. The fourth and fifth seeds will play a best-of-three series. The conference semifinals, conference finals and Ray Miron President’s Cup are all best-of-seven series.
Wichita opens the season Oct. 16, followed by the home opener the following night. The team moves to the Intrust Bank Arena in downtown Wichita in mid-January 2010.
Season tickets are now on sale. For more information, call (316) 264-GOAL.

Fudge named IFL top player for week

PARK CITY — Wichita Wild running back Darius Fudge was named the Indoor Football League offensive player of the week for week 17.
It is the second time this season Fudge has been honored.
In Thursday’s win over Alaska, Fudge had 148 yards rushing on 18 carries with seven touchdowns. Fudge has 936 yards with 31 touchdowns for the season, only the sixth player in indoor football to break the 900-yard mark with 30 touchdowns.
Wichita is off this week and opens the IFL playoffs July 18 at either Omaha or Bloomington.

Special Olympic tourneys slated

MISSION — The Kansas Special Olympic golf and softball tournaments will be July 31 to Aug. 2 in the Wichita area.
The golf tournament begins at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Clapp Golf Course.
The softball tournament begins Aug. 1 at the Cessna Activity Center. Divisions of play are T-ball, coach pitch and slow pitch. A home run derby will be at 10 a.m. Aug. 1.
The events are expected to draw more than 400 athletes.
Athlete sponsors are being sought for the event. For more information, call Lucas at (316) 831-8105 or visit the ir Web site at www.ksso.org/softballgolf.

Wingnuts fall to St. Paul

WICHITA — The Wichita Wingnuts fell to the St. Paul Saints 2-1 Wednesday in a game that was shortened to seven innings because of a hailstorm.
Wichita scored in the second inning on a Stephen Pearson sacrifice fly. St. Paul came back with a run in the top of the third on an Anthony Norman RBI single. Brent Krause drove in a run for the Saints in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly.
Saints pitcher Tom Buske, 1-1, allowed one unearned run on seven hits with two walks and five strikeouts for the win. Wichita pitcher Adam Cowert allowed two runs on eight hits with a walk and four strikeouts.
Jacob Butler went two for three for St. Paul. Norman went two for four.
Kelly Hunt led Wichita, going three for three hitting with a run scored.
St. Paul is 2-1 in the second half of the American Association season while Wichita falls to 1-2. The series concludes at 7:05 p.m. today.
St. Paul    001    100    0    —2    8    1
Wichita    010    000    0    —1    7    0
Buske (W, 1-1) and Knazek; Cowert (L, 4-2) and Muich. Time — 1:53. Attendance — 4,284.