The Washington Post - 09.11.2019

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SATURDAy, NOvEMbER 9 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS m2 d

BY CHUCK CULPEPPER

THE PLAINS, OHIO — of late in southeast ohio,

the citizens of this census-designated community

and the nearby college town of Athens repeatedly

have noticed colors once unimaginable and

language that seems eccentric if not quite foreign.

Clusters of purple and gold, sharply different

from the green and white of pretty ohio Universi-

ty or the scarlet and gray of dominant ohio state,

have begun to dot the townscape. Te rms such as

“Geaux Jeaux” appear on signs at G igi’s diner or at

the drive-through beer stop. All of it appears to

signify a university that sits 800 miles to the

southwest, and all of it epitomizes the small world

of the era of the transfer in the American religion

of college football.

Around here sprouted 6-foot-4 Joe Burrow, the

LsU quarterback who used to be a celebrated

Athens High quarterback (in green and gold)

see lsu on d3

In tiny Ohio town,

‘Geaux Jeaux’ is

all the Cajun rage

The path to the big question

hovering over no. 2 LsU vs. no. 3

Alabama began in Ireland in 1990

with a water-skiing accident on a

lake the Irish call Lough Gowna,

even if a dull American ear might

need that repeated and spelled.

As Brian Thornes told it by phone Thursday

from Dublin, it began while Thornes was a first-

year medical student when, he said, “I was run

over by a speedboat,” which his father piloted. A

mean wind shoved it until a propeller cut

Thornes’s ankle, costing him both a year of his

beloved rugby and some feeling in his foot.

He made lemonade of it. Ankles became

“always an interest thereafter,” he said.

By 2000, Thornes had invented an innovative

device for ankle surgery. By 2003, he had

licensed it to a Florida company, Arthrex. By the

late 2010s, the “TightRope” surgery had joined

see on footbAll on d3

Tagovailoa’s ankle

is tie that binds

across an ocean

On

Football

CHUCK

CULPEPPER

CHrIs graytHen/getty Images

Quarterback Joe burrow’s success turned people in the plains, ohio, into lsu fans, and they will tune in to watch him in saturday’s showdown against Alabama.

through with it without hesitation.

“I have two parents w ith huge hearts, and I knew

where the coaching s taff’s hearts lied,” Williamson,

now a senior captain, said in a phone interview this

week. “It was a very big privilege to be able to say

yes, right then and there. I didn’t have to think

about it or weigh my options. It was: ‘Let’s do this.

You tell me where I need to be.’ ”

Williamson underwent additional bloodwork,

which confirmed he was a perfect match for

Plemons. Back in Columbus, that news brought

much-needed hope to Plemons and his family.

see donor on d2

That summer, William & Mary offensive line-

man Mark Williamson was at home in Greene

County, Va., when he received a call from Be the

Match, a nonprofit dedicated to connecting people

with life-threatening diseases to potential bone

marrow donors. Williamson, who had joined the

global registry along with most of his teammates

by swabbing his cheek at a bone marrow drive on

campus a few months e arlier, was told he might be

a match for an 18-year-old boy with leukemia.

Understanding full well that the donation pro-

cess would jeopardize his upcoming redshirt fresh-

man season, Williamson committed to going

BY SCOTT ALLEN

on Friday, 21-year-old Rusty Plemons walked

through the tunnel and onto the field at William &

Mary’s Zable stadium to meet, for the first time, the

college football player who saved his life.

Plemons was finishing his junior year of high

school outside of Dayton, ohio, in May 2016 when

he received a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia.

After being admitted to ohio state’s James Cancer

Hospital in Columbus, he underwent four rounds

of chemotherapy while awaiting a bone marrow

donor match and transplant.

‘A big privilege’: W&M player meets survivor whose life he saved

College footbAll sAtUrdAY

gAmes to WAtCH

nationally

4 Penn state at 17 minnesota

noon, aBC

2 lsU at 3 Alabama

3:30 p.m., CBs

18 Iowa at 13 Wisconsin

4 p.m., Fox

Iowa state at 9 oklahoma

8 p.m., Fox

locally

maryland at 1 ohio state

noon, Fox

georgia tech at Virginia

12:30 p.m., nBCsW

Young to miss terps game

ohio state sack leader Chase young will

sit with a potential eligibility issue. d3

Colleges

a wrestling ref says he told

rep. Jim Jordan of doctor’s

sexual abuse while Jordan

was at ohio state. A6

trACK And fIeld

nike to launch a probe of

its shuttered oregon

Project after mary Cain’s

abuse allegations. d2

men’s College bAsKetbAll

a pair of freshmen expect

meaningful minutes

tonight when maryland

hosts rhode Island. d5

of games last year, the Capitals

were ranked 28th in the league a t

72.7 percent.

The improved efficiency be-

gan after the Capitals acquired

Hagelin; the penalty kill ranked

13th in the league during the

final 22 games of 2018-19. Wash-

ington ultimately finished 24th

in the nHL at 78.9 percent.

In the Capitals’ 5-4 overtime

win T hursday against the F lorida

Panthers, the unit allowed only

one goal despite being forced to

kill off back-to-back penalties

twice in the second period. The

see CApItAls on d5

While the Capitals lost penalty

kill stalwarts Matt niskanen and

Brooks orpik in the offseason,

they found skilled penalty killers

with Carl Hagelin, who was ac-

quired at last year’s trade dead-

line; Garnet Hathaway; Radko

Gudas; and Jonas siegenthaler,

who has a much bigger role.

siegenthaler, Gudas and Hagelin

lead the team in shorthanded ice

time, and the tweaks in person-

nel and the system have the

Capitals’ unit clicking.

In 17 games, the Capitals’ pen-

alty kill ranks eighth in the

league at 85.7 percent. since

oct. 29, the Capitals have killed

off 15 of 17 power plays (88.2 per-

cent). Through the same number

given the green light to attack.

“We’ve done a good job at

getting our looks and knowing

the r ight time t o attack and try to

score, and there are other times

when we need to get our bodies

off the ice and get fresh ones out

there,” said Capitals assistant

coach scott Arniel, who is in

charge of the penalty-killing

unit. “The guys have been very

good in that department.”

BY SAMANTHA PELL

The Washington Capitals’

mentality on the penalty kill is

fairly simple: If you catch a

power play that is tired or has a

sloppy pass and you get the

chance to go, then go. Go and

make it hard on the opposition

by anticipating the next play and

use your aggressiveness and

quickness to your advantage.

But don’t forget, when you

decide to go, to make sure you’re

playing with controlled aggres-

sion. If the opposing power play

is content with playing on the

outside, know when to make

your move. If it is creeping in,

make the correct read and you’re

Controlled aggression keys the Caps’ penalty kill

Changes to the system

h elp turn around a unit

that struggled last year

golden Knights at Capitals

today, 7 p.m., nBCsW

tonI L. sandys/tHe WasHIngton Post

Capitals defenseman Jonas siegenthaler has been a key member of
washington’s penalty-kill unit, which ranks eighth in the league.

Wizards at Celtics

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., nBCsW

BY CANDACE BUCKNER

Youth overflows the Washing-

ton Wizards’ locker room. Rui

Hachimura, the 21-year-old rook-

ie sensation, sits between the kid

who turned 20 on Friday and the

new starting small forward who

can’t legally drink until July. Just

a few stalls away, there sits Brad-

ley Beal — the grown-up who has

grown tired of people attributing

the Wizards’ problems to their

age.

Throughout the Washington’s

113 -100 loss Friday night to an

even younger opponent, the

Cleveland Cavaliers, the Wizards

turned the ball over and commit-

ted unnecessary fouls. Their mis-

takes were part of another shabby

defensive performance in which

Cleveland built a 21-point lead in

the first half and held on through

a late Washington rally.

Despite a lineup shift that add-

ed another veteran to the rota-

tion, Washington fell to 2-6, and

Beal did not want to blame the

team’s youth for the defensive

lapses that contributed to its lat-

est loss.

“I’m done with that excuse,”

said Beal, who scored 20 points

on 8-for-21 shooting and had nine

assists. “A nd I’m not using it as

one, but we got to be better. Plain

and simple. everybody, myself

included. We got to be better, on

that end.”

The Wizards had little time to

get a feel of the game before they

fell behind by double digits. It

took just two possessions for the

Wizards to establish a turnover

trend. By the time Cleveland

rookie Darius Garland’s fast

break layup ripped through the

net — courtesy of a steal off a bad

pass from Troy Brown Jr., Wash-

ington’s third turnover — Coach

scott Brooks called a timeout

with his team trailing 12-2.

“We turned it over. We gave

them that 12-2 start, turned it

over,” Brooks said. “It’s hard when

you turn the ball over live, and we

had a lot of live-ball turnovers.”

That Washington stumbled

into a big hole early at home

should not have been a surprise.

The Wizards have trailed by at

see wIzArds on d6

In Wizards’

defense,

there isn’t

a whole lot

CAvAlIErS 113,

WIzArDS 100

Team fails to get stops

again in its latest loss