Last month, USSF instituted a series of stringent financial and facility requirements for Division 2 clubs, ostensibly to cultivate a long-missing stability in the lower tiers of American soccer. With a Sept. 15 deadline looming for applications to USSF for D2 sanctioning, Carolina RailHawks’ owner Selby Wellman recently told the Cary News that the NASL will submit their bid for the 2011 season, with Carolina, Tampa Bay, Miami, Rochester, Minnesota, Baltimore, St. Louis, Montreal, Puerto Rico, and a new franchise in Edmonton as prospective member clubs.
There is a temptation to view today’s announcement by USL as further window-dressing and posturing between the warring leagues. Indeed, other recent pronouncements from USL regarding the formation of an indoor soccer league — I-League — and a new franchise based in Orlando headed by controversial ex-Rochester Rhinos owner Steve Donner raised unintended eyebrows.
In conjunction with today’s announcement, Triangle Offense spoke by telephone with USL President Tim Holt. Holt had just left a meeting with representatives of clubs that will predominantly comprise USL PRO next year. Holt declined to list the clubs that will make-up USL PRO, saying further details about teams and divisions will be forthcoming over the next 30-45 days.
Mike Costanzo had a three-run homer and a single for four RBI, leading the Louisville Bats to an 8-4 win over the visiting Durham Bulls in the opener of their best-of-5 first-round series of the Governors’ Cup Playoffs.

All five of those players spent most of the season with the Carolina Mudcats.
Leslie Anderson led the defending national champion Bulls with a homer and a single for three RBI. J.J. Furmaniak added two hits for the Bulls.
Chad Reineke picked up the win for Louisville, with Richard De Los Santos taking the loss.
Game 2 is on Thursday night at Louisville Slugger Field, with the remainder of the series in Durham.
CARTER-FINLEY STADIUM/ RALEIGH—I arrived at Carter-Finley Stadium an hour before kickoff, for what would turn out to be the longest Saturday night I've had in a long time.
I hadn't seen a live football game in several years, but college pigskin is a bug one never quite recovers from. So, on a lovely Labor Day weekend afternoon, I happily made my way to Raleigh to see the N.C. State Wolfpack open their season against a patsy from the North Carolina mountains, otherwise known as the Western Carolina University Catamounts.
But first, I needed a parking place. My media credential entitled me to a spot in the State Fairgrounds lot on Trinity Road. I found my way there without too much difficulty, despite the wave upon wave of red-clad revelers: "Wolf!" "Pack!" "Wolf!" "Pack!"
Some of the kids were pouring off circulator buses aptly dubbed "Red Terror Transit." [1] But most of the students thronging the roads were coming from the parking lot I was trying to reach. And so I drove into a massive tailgate, feeling as if I'd arrived on the third day of Bonnaroo. Litter was everywhere, and N.C. State students were stumbling to and fro. A parking attendant assured me, however, that if I kept driving the direction I was going, another attendant would have a spot for me. And so it came to pass, and I was waved into a narrow spot that seemed reserved for discarded Bojangles boxes, beer cans and a Kingsford charcoal bag,
I waded through an inebriated tide of red pride, feeling older and older ("Wolf!" "Pack!") and maybe a little like Tom Wolfe upon his first glimpse of a game day at Duke. As I finished the 200-yard walk to the end of the lot, I saw a sorry-looking but enraged white undergraduate pinned against a car by a couple of friends who were screaming at him. A second later, I realized he had just received a mighty punch to his left eye, which was bleeding. The ruptured vessels under his eyelid were already swelling, and the kid was bawling and struggling to go after his no-longer-present assailant. I walked on.
Then there was a commotion and a half-dozen state troopers broke from their traffic-directing duties to apprehend someone. He turned out to be the first person I'd seen who wasn't wearing red. He seemed like an outsider, as he was a slightly older black man wearing a white sleeveless undershirt. He was on his knees, with his hands behind his back. I maneuvered for a better look, but I didn't learn any more about the incident(s), which will surely be recorded on a list of similar incidents during the day, a list that may be longer or shorter than those lists kept on other football occasions.
It was with some relief that I walked into the stadium where no more alcohol would be available.
The ACC released its women’s basketball schedule today, and as usual there is plenty to talk about.

The Wolfpack opens its regular season on Nov. 12 against the College of Charleston in the opening round of the Sheraton Raleigh Wolfpack Invitational at Reynolds Coliseum, while UNC will open its regular season at home the same night against North Florida. Duke will open at home the next day against Brigham Young.
Game times and matchups:
Game One, Wednesday, Sept. 8, 6:05 p.m., Louisville Slugger Field: Richard De Los Santos (Bulls) @ Chad Reineke (Bats).
Game Two, Thursday, Sept. 9, 6:05 p.m., Louisville Slugger Field: Aneury Rodriguez (Bulls) @ Tom Cochran (Bats).
Game Three, Friday, Sept. 10, 7:05 p.m., Durham Bulls Athletic Park: TBA (Bats) @ Alex Cobb (Bulls).
Game Four (if necessary), Saturday, Sept. 11, 7:05 p.m., Durham Bulls Athletic Park: Ben Jukich (Bats) @ Bobby Livingston (Bulls).
Game Five (if necessary), Sunday, Sept. 12, 5:05 p.m., Durham Bulls Athletic Park: TBA (Bats) @ Paul Phillips (Bulls).
(Note: the Bats' starters are speculation only, based on Louisville's rotation at the end of the regular season. Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo has not, at the time of writing this preview, named his starters beyond Game Two.)
For the third year in a row, the Durham Bulls will face the Louisville Bats in the first round of International League playoffs. Charlie Montoyo's Bulls beat Louisville manager Rick Sweet's Bats in 2008 and 2009. What's more, the Bulls have bested the Bats in the two other playoff series between the two teams, in 1998 and 2003. So there is a rich history of Durham dominance in the post-season.
All of that means nothing, of course. Not only are these two teams changed from previous years, they aren't all that close to the corporations they were as recently as July, when they last played. (The Bulls took three or four games from Louisville at the DBAP then, after splitting a four-game June visit to Louisville.) For Bulls fans worried about the team's depleted roster, that's really nothing compared to what has become of Louisville's. There are details after the jump about the players and pitching matchups.
There is, perhaps, one thing that, according to Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo, might favor the Bats in this series, regardless of how the teams match up. Last season, after eliminating Louisville, Durham went on to beat the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees to claim the Governors Cup—it was a measure of revenge for Scranton's 2008 triumph over the Bulls in that same competition. After this past Monday's season finale, Montoyo was musing on the upcoming series. "You know what I was thinking last year? I'm not saying [the Bats] are going to beat us, obviously; but when [the Bulls] played Scranton [in the 2009 finals], I was thinking, 'It's my turn now. There's no way you're going to beat us two years in a row.'" He paused. "I'm hoping Rick Sweet doesn't feel the same way."
The thing is, of course, that Durham has already beaten Louisville two years in a row. So does that make the third try a charm for the West Division champs against Durham, or does it simply assert a mysterious domination by one team over another?
We'll know in the next few days. Games One and Two are Louisville; the Bulls bussed up there on Tuesday (an 11-hour ride). If you're planning on tuning in, note the early start time at Slugger Field both Wednesday and Thursday, 6:05 p.m.—some concessions, including beer for a while, are just $1, too, if you happen to be going there for the games.
Details of the series to come are after the jump.
BROOKS FOOTBALL BUILDING/DURHAM Duke definitely got its football season off on, well, the right foot in its season-opening 41-27 win over a very good Football Championship Subdivision team from Elon three days ago.

Duke’s next assignment is at noon Saturday at Wake Forest, which has managed to win the last 10 games in the series. The Deacons, who opened their campaign with a 53-13 over transitioning FCS member Presbyterian on Thursday night, beat Duke 45-34 last season at Wallace Wade Stadium.
The Blue Devils had plenty of positive signs in their entertaining season opener. In his first start Sean Renfree completed 31 of 39 passes for 350 yards and two touchdowns — with most of the yardage to mainstays Donovan Varner and Conner Vernon — and the team rushed for 192 yards including 77 and a touchdown from Desmond Scott.
The defense got a test but passed it, intercepting Phoenix quarterback Scott Riddle twice in the second half to foil any ideas of a miracle comeback by the visitors.
“I feel like we (the defense) played OK,” senior captain and linebacker Abraham Kromah said Tuesday at Cutcliffe’s weekly media luncheon. “We won, so there’s no complaint there. We learned a lot of things, and they exposed a lot of things we need to get better at. We let up a lot of big plays and missed a lot of tackles. Those things can be fixed, so that’s always encouraging. Most of the mistakes were on the mental and not the physical side. We’re capable of being better, so it’s up to us to really get it done.”
Former Durham Bulls right-hander Jeremy Hellickson has been named Baseball America’s 2010 Minor League player of the year, marking the fourth time since 1996 a Bulls player has taken the honor.

Hellickson (12-3, 2.45) had 123 strikeouts before being recalled to Tampa Bay in August. He pitched for Team USA in the All-Star Futures Game, was selected to the International League’s mid-season and post-season all-star teams and was named the IL’s pitcher of the year.
The Bulls also learned of another honor on Tuesday when veteran outfielder Chris Richard was named batter of the week for the final week of the season. Richard, who is in his fourth season with the club and has the Triple-A franchise career record of 84 homers, hit .360 with three homers, 11 RBI, his league-leading 39th double of the season and his first triple over the season’s final eight days.
Durham, the defending Triple-A National Champion, opens its best-of-5 series in the first round of the Governors’ Cup Playoffs on Wednesday night at Louisville.
UNC quarterback T.J. Yates has been named the ACC’s offensive back of the week, on the strength of his career best performance in Saturday night’s 30-24 loss to LSU in the Chick-fil-A Kick Off Game in Atlanta.

He also completed a 97-yard touchdown pass to Jheranie Boyd, the longest play from scrimmage in the program’s history, early in the fourth quarter.
UNC is off this Saturday before playing its home opener against Georgia Tech on Sept. 18.
On Labor Day, the season finale, the Bulls played a modified version of the single-bat game instead, with most (but not all) of the players using Justin Ruggiano's stylish black model. Didn't matter: the game went to extra innings, anyway, except that it was tied 5-5 instead of 0-0, and it began to take on the taut intensity of something very like a playoff game. The players started using their own bats somewhere along the way. They stopped hacking at pitches early in the count and started to care about winning after a je m'en fous early going. And when the Bulls loaded the bases with no outs in the 12th, the crowd of 8,835 got into it. Leslie Anderson, who had already had two singles to start emerging from a minor late-season slump, did not disappoint them: He hit the first pitch he saw from Mike Hinckley, laboring into his fourth inning of relief work, into right field for a game-winning, season-ending single. The Bulls won, 6-5, and finished the 2010 season with a visually pleasing, league-best 88-55 record.
This is going to be a short (for me) post. I will be back before the Bulls' Wednesday playoff opener at Louisville with a series preview that should have a decent amount of meat on it. If you are not planning on making the jump, what you need to know about yesterday's game can be summed up in two words: Paul Phillips. For the second straight year, the Michigander right-hander came to Durham from Double-A Montgomery just before the end of the regular season, and for the second straight year he paid immediate dividends. In relief of starter Bobby Livingston, who gave Montoyo a serviceable six-inning, three-run performance, Phillips threw six innings himself. He allowed two runs, and although those two runs tied the game, he then settled into a remarkably effective groove, retiring 13 in a row in a long stretch to conserve the tired relief corps—and, not incidentally, to collect the win. Third baseman Angel Chavez was up and throwing in the Durham bullpen for the third straight game; and for the third straight game, the Bulls' late-inning prowess made his emergency appearance unnecessary.
Based on this afternoon's performance, Paul Phillips earned a spot in Montoyo's post-season starting rotation. More about that, and other thoughts, after the jump.
FIVE COUNTY STADIUM/ZEBULON It’s the Carolina Mudcats’ swan song for 2010, and they’ll take on the Southern League’s best team, the Tennessee Smokies, with a chance to gain a split of the four-game series.

The Mudcats will finish in last place in the North Division in the second half, and with the ninth best record in the 10-team league.
Lefty Travis Webb (6-9) will take the hill for Carolina today, with Craig Muschko (8-3) going for Tennessee on a proverbial perfect day for baseball.
And the Mudcats outhit the visitors 10-6, but commit three errors in the 3-2 loss to finish 58-79.
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