Breeders' Cup race schedule 2026: Post times, TV channels, live streams to watch world championships at Keeneland originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The 2026 Breeders' Cup is getting ready to take over Lexington, Kentucky for two days of high-intensity thoroughbred races.
The Breeders' Cup World Championship is an elite international series that serves as the year-end competition for the sport. The 2026 edition will take place at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, with 14 races spanning two days.
Of course, there are plenty of world-class horses set to participate in this weekend's competition, including Kentucky Derby winners Golden Tempo and Sovereignty. 2025 Breeders' Cup champion Forever Young is also making a highly-anticipated return.
You won't want to miss this.

#keeneland #sporting #race #days

Forever Young, who last year made history as the first ***** anese horse to win the Breeders' Cup Classic, vies for a rare repeat in the showpiece of the $34 million racing extravaganza at Keeneland on Saturday.
Trainer Yoshito Yahagi sounded a confident note after the well-traveled five-year-old enjoyed a "perfect gallop" on the Lexington, Kentucky, track on Wednesday in his final tuneup for the 1 1/4-mile, $7 million race.
"The horse is moving beautifully," Yahagi said. "I'm very satisfied. There is no concern about the horse's condition. He is very fresh."
Forever Young was installed as the 2-1 early favorite after drawing the fifth post, and Yahagi acknowledged that the challenge facing the two-time Saudi Cup-winner and jockey Ryusei Sakai is somewhat different this year as they try to follow Tiznow in 2000 and 2001 as the only repeat Classic winners.
"I think the quality of the rivals is the same as last year, but our position this year is quite different from last year," Yahagi said. "Last year, we have to take on the challenge to win the Breeders' Cup Classic. But this year, I think we are in the position that everybody is targeting us, so it's not quite easy to defend the ***** le."

#yahagi #young #repeat

This past weekend marked our first UK basketball/football doubleheader, and now we're preparing for another with two games in Lexington this coming weekend for the Kentucky Wildcats.
On Friday, Mark Pope's Wildcats will face a stiff pre-season test, as the Texas Tech Red Raiders come to town. The Red Raiders are projected to be a top-25 team to start the season, but they currently face eligibility questions regarding some key players, including returners Darrion Williams and Donovan Atwell, as well as UCF transfer JaMichael Stillwell.
Star forward JT Toppin is also out this week as he continues to recover from a torn ACL that will likely keep him out until sometime in conference play.
Regardless, Texas Tech under Grant McCasland has been solid and should be a good measuring stick to see where this Kentucky team stands heading into the season.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Football returns home for an SEC matchup against Vanderbilt in front of what was recently announced as a sold-out crowd at Kroger Field.

#kentucky #texas #raiders #weekend

The 2026 Illinois high school football season just wrapped up the regular-season with plenty of Peoria-area players having put together a great nine-game stretch.
Now is your chance to let us know which player was the most valuable during the regular-season. So, who will it be?
Here are 13 Peoria-area regular-season MVP candidates during the 2026 campaign, listed in alphabetical order. Information about each candidate is below. Vote from now until noon Friday, Oct. 23 at pjstar.com.
This vote has no bearing on who will be selected as the Journal Star Player of the Year or will make the annual All-Area team, which are scheduled to be announced after the season.
MVP moment: The 6-foot-2, 180-pound all-state senior quarterback completed 71.4% (10-for-14) of his passes for 229 yards and found four different receivers for touchdowns in a 43-0 win over Colfax Ridgeview/Lexington in Week 3.

#here #Friday

We've got one ******* of an SEC season on our hands, huh?
No one is left undefeated, and the top of the table is a four-way tie between Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, and… Kentucky?? And let's be honest, none of their losses were great. Tennessee dropped a home game to Texas, which has looked like a shell for two weeks. Georgia got punked by Auburn (again at home.) Ole Miss got run over by Florida which looks like the best or the worst team in the conference depending on when you tune in. And Kentucky didn't just get beat by Alabama in Lexington… they got waxed.
Mizzou fans might be down in the dumps after the Tigers' embarrassing showing in Oxford, but we're halfway through the season and have no idea how it's going to turn out. For all we know, Mizzou controls its own destiny. So it might as well start on Monday by resting up and getting ready for the Halloween showdown against Arky. Hopefully the rest of the conference can keep the chaos rolling in Week 8 and create an opening for Eli Drinkwitz's squad.
Some interesting lines this week for those of you watching. Auburn is getting no respect after waltzing into Athens and taking down Georgia, as they're giving 8.5 points to Lane Kiffin's up-and-down Bayou Bengals. Meanwhile, South Carolina is a one score favorite over conference leader Tennessee, while Texas – which is currently considering benching its two-year starter!! – is a 3.5-point favorite over an Ole Miss team that just beat a fellow ranked conference opponent by four scores.
Think you have any clue what's going to happen this week? Good for you. Check out the opening odds at FanDuel and press your luck. Because that's all you can count on at this point.

#georgia

After securing a 48-20 victory over Arizona State to improve to 2-0 in 2026, Texas A&M will now turn its attention to a talented SEC foe with an offensive mastermind at the helm.
First-year head coach Will Stein and the Kentucky Wildcats will travel to College Station for a showdown against the Aggies on Saturday, marking the first contest between the two programs since 2018 and just their fourth matchup ever.
The Wildcats had No. 10 Alabama reeling in Lexington in Week 2, but were unable to close things out, leading to a 45-17 loss to the Crimson Tide. Among the many storylines in this game is the return of former Aggie defensive coordinator Jay Bateman, who is calling the shots for Kentucky's defensive unit.
Texas A&M's performance against Arizona State was solid, but there is still much to be desired, especially offensively. As was projected all offseason, the Aggies' offensive line struggled to establish dominance in the trenches, with a plethora of new pieces in the unit. That is something they must improve upon moving forward, as they open SEC play this weekend.
Here is everything Elko said during his weekly press conference, ahead of Saturday's matchup against Kentucky:

#matchup

Paul Finebaum and SEC Nation made their way to Lexington as Alabama is set to play Kentucky at Kroger Field today at 3:30 p.m. ET.
The Wildcats are in Year 1 under Will Stein, who kicked off his head coaching debut with a 45-13 win over Youngstown State last week. Saturay, he's facing his first conference opponent.
Ahead of today's contest, Finebaum made a bold statement about the Stein comparing him to one of the greatest head coaches of all time.
"Seventy-five years ago, Bear Bryant coached at the University of Kentucky," Finebaum said on the set of SEC Nation. "I feel a vibe right now that the next Bear Bryant has showed up at Kentucky. They really feel like they've got their guy. Will 'Bear' Stein has arrived."
"What a statement," Tim Tebow said. "That's a left hook."

#stein #bear

LEXINGTON, Ky. — An Alabama football freshman defensive back is a game-time decision for the Crimson Tide's SEC opener against Kentucky.
Jireh Edwards, who has been questionable in the days leading up to Saturday's bout between Alabama and Kentucky with an arm injury, is a game-time decision. Edwards did not appear in Week 1 against East Carolina.
No other changes appeared on Alabama's final SEC availability report before kickoff.
Here is who is on Alabama's final SEC availability report in Week 2 of the 2026 season:
Out

#edwards

There is a particular kind of quiet that follows a quarterback who hasn't needed to be loud. Marcus Washington Jr. throws touchdowns the way some kids collect grades—steadily, without much fuss, until one day the transcript is too good to ignore. The three-star, 2029 First Team MaxPreps All-American out of Cajon (Calif.), has spent this season quietly ******* embling one of the most productive stat lines in the country, and this weekend he trades the Southern California sun for the SEC's version of theater when he makes his way back to Lexington for Kentucky football's showdown with Alabama at Kroger Field.
Call it a homecoming, even if his mailing address says otherwise. Washington camped in the Bluegrass this past summer, and the visit left a mark. He is coming back not as a tourist, but as a young man doing due diligence on a decision that will shape the next four years of his life—and doing it the way the good ones always have, on his own clock, gathering information instead of chasing headlines.
THE NUMBERS DON'T WHISPER.
Whatever Washington is doing quietly, the box score is not. Last week alone he was 14 of 25 for 219 yards and a touchdown through the air, then shredded the edges for 138 yards and four more scores on the ground—the kind of two-way workload that makes opposing coordinators lose sleep and college recruiters lose their composure. Through three games this fall, he has piled up 1,176 total yards and 13 touchdowns, a pace that reads less like a high school box score and more like a mid-major Saturday.
Numbers like that don't need adjectives. They need context, and the context is this: Washington isn't just a runner who can throw or a thrower who can run. He is a West Coast problem that programs from four time zones away are now trying to solve, and Kentucky is convinced it has the answer.

#kentucky

After an impressive showing last Saturday against East Carolina, the Alabama Crimson Tide now begin SEC play this weekend in Lexington against the Kentucky Wildcats.
Similar to last week, Roll Tide Wire recently turned to the EA Sports College Football 27 video game to simulate the Alabama-Kentucky matchup, as well as find out which team wins in the simulation. So far this fall, the simulation is 1-0 when correctly predicting the results on Alabama's schedule.
Here is how the College Football 27 video game predicts the Alabama-Kentucky game to play out this Saturday.
Final Score: Alabama 34, Kentucky 25
Notable Alabama Stats:

#kentucky #play

The Kentucky Wildcats volleyball team faced another ranked team on Sunday night by taking on the 13th ranked Penn State Nittany Lions at Wrigley Field in Chicago. It could have been a tough match, but at the end of the night, the Cats stood tall, and got a fourth straight win 3-1 (25-23, 25-21, 23-25, 25-15).
Kentucky was led by Brooklyn DeLeye, who had 21 kills and a .319 hit percentage. Morgan Gaerte was right behind her with 16 kills of her own, and Asia Thigpen added 12 more.
The Wildcats also excelled on defense, totaling 23 blocks, with Lizzie Carr and Gaerte each posting 6 of them. Kennedy Washington added 5 blocks. They were also impressive all match at getting digs, with Molly Tuozzo out in front with 19. Kassie O'Brien had 48 ***** ists.
Next up for Kentucky is a match against North Carolina. They'll face off on Wednesday back at home in Lexington, with the match scheduled to begin at 6:00 P.M. ET.
This article originally appeared on UK Wildcats Wire: Kentucky volleyball rolls on, taking down Penn State

#state #gaerte #volleyball #ranked

The Carolina Ascent is celebrating their first win at home this season.
The team beat Fort Lauderdale 3-0 Saturday night at American Legion Memorial Stadium.
It comes a week after the Ascent fell to the Tampa Bay Sun.
Next Saturday, the team takes on Lexington SC on the road in Kentucky.
A watch party will be held at Blinders Sports Lounge in South End.

#legion

LEXINGTON, Va. (WFXR) – Facing Virginia Tech for the first time since 1984, the VMI football team will renew the all-time series with the Hokies after a 42-year hiatus.
VMI looks to bounce back from last week's 38-10 loss to Idaho State in Pocatello, Idaho. The Keydets trailed just 10-0 at halftime, but the Bengals pulled away in the third quarter with four touchdowns en route to the win.
Virginia Tech is eager to start the season under First-year Head Coach and former Penn State Head Coach James Franklin, who takes over a team that finished 15th in the ACC last season with a 3-9 record overall and 2-6 mark in conference.
Although the landscape of college football has changed dramatically since 1984 – the last time the two schools played each other – the Keydets do own 25 all-time wins in the series dating back to 1894.
The Hokies have won the last three matchups which were played in 1982, 1983 and 1984. The last time the Keydets took down the Hokies was November 21, 1981, a 6-0 win in Blacksburg.
The Keydets (0-1) and Hokies (0-0) will kick off at 7:30 p.m. at Lane Stadium.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv.

#hokies #keydets #Tech

Will Stein was ready to make waves the second he accepted the UK football head coaching job.
Stein was named the Kentucky head coach on December 1, 2025, and just four days later, he nabbed a massive four-star recruit in Kenny Darby.
Darby was a consensus four-star wide receiver ranked as high as No. 188 overall by Rivals. The shift wideout caught 83 passes for 1,124 yards and eight touchdowns as a senior in high school, while rushing for 609 yards on 49 carries with nine touchdowns.
The 6-1, 180-pounder chose Kentucky over Alabama, LSU, Colorado, Ole Miss and Mississippi State, among many other suitors. Darby was committed to LSU and followed offensive coordinator Joe Sloan from Baton Rouge to Lexington.
Darby has the chance to make a splash now in his first season donning the blue and white, and folks are paying attention nationally. 247 Sports has named Darby to their Preseason True Freshman All-American Team.

#four #stein #kentucky #named

Special thanks to Tristan Holmes, Addicted to Quack's Oregon football film reviewer, and Thomas Cicansky, my partner in this year's Big Ten preview series, for joining me on this week's podcast to discuss the Ducks' roster:
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Oregon's offensive coordinator for the last three seasons, Will Stein, departed to take the head coaching job at Kentucky, he's replaced by OC Mehringer who's been the TE coach since Coach Lanning took over the program in 2022. Mehringer's only direct playcalling experience was a decade ago at Rutgers when he was of the youngest in college football history to do so, I didn't find much value on investigating it. Since then my reading of Mehringer's roles at Texas, FAU, and New Mexico has been as a strategist and gameplanner; there's quite a bit of oblique praise from head coaches and OCs in the literature over this time for his role in gameweek preparations, but no evidence about his down-to-down playcalling preferences.
It's also difficult to disentangle some of the idiosyncracies ATQ film reviewers have noted in Stein's playcalling over the last three years — positive notes on counter-programming defensive substitution rules, negative ones on forgoing "money down" opportunities for deep shots and an ***** ytically unsupportable habit for perimeter screens — from Mehriner's potential influence, since their time at Oregon overlaps. It's possible that some, none, or all of those qualities were unique to Stein and he takes them with him to Lexington. ATQ devoted considerable effort this offseason determining if any statistically valid ***** ysis could be performed to quantify Mehringer's effects on play sequencing or outcomes at Oregon or previous stops, and we concluded that nothing we could publish would meet our standards – there are just too many variables involved. We're just going to have to wait and see how Mehringer calls the game.
Otherwise, my expectation is continuity for the Ducks offense, and if anything a return to historical trends after a one-off dip in certain metrics from charting caused by an offensive line quirk in 2025 which it looks like the squad has firmly put behind them in 2026 and beyond. The coaching staff under Lanning all returns, as does starter #5 QB Dante Moore, five of the top eight skill producers on offense in addition to a key 2024 receiver coming back from injury, and the top talent pipeline in the conference:

#down #ducks #mehringer

Collateralized fund obligations have quietly become an important fundraising tool for some of the largest managers of secondaries funds.
Last week, Franklin Templeton got in on the act by raising a $1.5 billion CFO, allowing the ****** et manager to issue tranches of rated debt secured against cash flows generated by a pool of private ****** ets it manages.
Structured Solutions 2026, as the CFO is known, gives investors, including registered investment advisers, family offices and insurance companies, exposure to the returns of a diversified portfolio of private equity fund stakes and continuation funds managed by Franklin Templeton's secondary-investing affiliate, Lexington Partners.
A portfolio of US middle-market loans managed by Benefit Street Partners, a direct-lending subsidiary of the $1.8 trillion ****** et manager, is also included in the CFO, according to a statement.
Franklin Templeton did not respond to further questions.

#private #Portfolio

ONTARIO — Ontario girls soccer coach Larry Atkinson is as old school as it gets.
At the end of each season, he breaks out his pen and notebook paper that has every single one of his 20 completed seasons and the overall records of those seasons with the championships won written in them and adds that year's numbers.
His son and ***** istant coach, Greg Atkinson, on the other hand has a sophisticated Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that he updates on a game-by-game basis with goals scored, ***** ists, saves and wins and losses. So, when it came down to the debate on what his father's career coaching record was heading into the Warriors' nonconference Richland County rivalry game against Madison on Tuesday, Aug. 25, it was Greg's numbers that were legit. If it were up to Larry, a milestone victory would have come one too soon.
BOYS SOCCER SCORES: 2026 Richland County Boys Soccer Scoreboard: Lexington earns program's 500th victory
GIRLS SOCCER SCORES: 2026 Richland County Girls Soccer Scoreboard: Rider earns 100th career victory

#Soccer #larry

New Mexico United has an open roster spot.
The club and defender Will Seymore "mutually parted ways," it announced Monday.
It's the third transaction United has made in the last two months.
New Mexico loaned midfielder Marlon Vargas to USL League One side Union Omaha for the remainder of the season on June 29. The club announced the addition of goalkeeper Andrew Pannenberg on Friday.
United currently holds the top spot in the Western Conference table despite being tied with both Orange County SC and El Paso Locomotive FC with 34 points. New Mexico holds tiebreakers over the two. But United (10-4-4) can take sole possession should it beat or tie Lexington SC (9-7-4), which it hosts at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

#united #spot #marlon #vargas

BUCYRUS — It's back!
Cast your vote now and as often as you'd like until 5 p.m. on Friday when the poll closes to decide this week's Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum Athlete of the Week. Be sure to check back next week to see who won, along with a fresh slate of options to choose from.
MORE: Buckeye Central's young talent on display in sweep of Lexington

#bucyrus #cast #telegraph

LEXINGTON — Kentucky football held its second and, according to first-year coach Will Stein, final scrimmage of preseason camp Saturday, Aug. 22, at Kroger Field.
The Wildcats' word of the day: turnovers.
Errors committed by the offense. Takeaways created by the defense.
"You never want to put the ball on the ground as an offensive player, and that's stuff that we can control," Stein said in a post-practice interview. "We preach ball excellence all the time on both sides of the ball — getting takeaways on defense and protecting the football on offense.
"So it's a little bit of a double-edged sword for me. ... I think when it's in our control, that's when it is not good. I didn't think our backs did a good enough job today protecting the football. But kudos to the defense as well."

#stein #takeaways #offense #control

LEXINGTON – It took three weeks longer than expected to complete the 93rd News Journal Tennis Tournament, but once action resumed Jake Chilcote – or should we say, Mr. Tiebreaker – simply picked up where he left off.
He beat former Lexington High School teammate and 2024 champ Ethan Remy 6-1, 1-6, 10-8 for the men's singles ***** le Saturday at Lakewood Racquet Club.
Since Nicky Wong capped his four-year reign in 2022, there have been four different champions over the last four years. There was Justin Csepe in 2023, Remy in 2024 and Dylan Catanese in 2025, paving the way for Chilcote's run to the championship this summer.
No one can say he didn't earn it.
Chilcote's last three wins in the tournament were all decided by 10-point tiebreakers. He went the distance – first to 10 points by two in a decisive mini-set – to beat former champ Alex "Bones" McCann in the quarterfinals and again in the semis against 2024 finalist Cooper Remy, Ethan's younger brother.

#lexington #former #champ

When the courts opened up the transfer portal for players who were originally a part of the 2022 recruiting class, Kentucky basketball set its sights on a few to fill their final roster spot. One of those players was Jaxon Kohler.
Kohler spent four years at Michigan State, but was granted a fifth season by multiple judge's rulings, and he entered the transfer portal. Kentucky made their pitch, but he'll be heading to the BYU Cougars instead, per On3.
BYU has been the favorite to land Kohler since he was allowed to enter the portal. He is a Utah native, and certainly fits with what they do on offense. Mark Pope had hoped to sway him to Lexington, and he fits the Kentucky offense as well, but Kohler will head closer to home instead.
Now, Pope swings his attention to Mark Mitchell, the former LSU Tigers forward. Mitchell is expected to get clarification on his situation tomorrow from a Louisville judge. If he wins his case, the Wildcats are expected to be one of the favorites to land him.
Many will see this as another recruiting loss for Pope, and it is. However, it's one that isn't unexpected, and if Kentucky can land Mitchell, then it will have worked out just fine.

#mitchell #portal #players

One of the big question marks for the Kentucky Wildcats heading into the 2026 season is the wide receiver position.
The wide receiver room is filled with potential, but there still remains a big question mark looming over which of those young players will step up.
Now just less than three weeks away from Kentucky's season opener against Youngstown State, one young wide receiver has been drawing some praise from Kentucky's coaching staff.
Ja'Kayden Ferguson, a four-star prospect in the class of 2025 from Houston, Texas, originally committed to Kentucky. However, Ferguson ultimately flipped to Arkansas. After one season in Fayetteville, Ferguson entered the transfer portal and committed to Kentucky following a visit. Now, the 6'2 speedster is drawing some attention in Lexington.
A few weeks ago, coach Will Stein specifically mentioned Ferguson during an appearance on Cole Cubelic's show as a "ball in hand" player with his ability to make plays in ***** e. Yesterday, following Kentucky's scrimmage, Stein spoke again about Ferguson.

#kentucky #wide #drawing

LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) — Kentucky women's basketball released its 2026-2027 SEC schedule on Tuesday.
Some notable games include the Wildcats first conference game on New Years Eve traveling to Gainesville to take on Florida. On January 10th UK will host Texas - the SEC Tournament Champions and the team that knocked Kentucky out of the Sweet 16 back in March.
There will be just one home-and-home match up this season which will be with Tennessee. UK welcoming in the Vols on January 21st before traveling to their house a month later on February 21st.
On January 31st Kentucky will head to last seasons' SEC regular season winners and NCAA ****** le runner-up, South Carolina.
Finally, they'll close out its regular season slate on its home court against Mississippi State.

#years

LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) — High school athletes are back on the field preparing for the upcoming season, but experts warn that rising temperatures and humidity can create dangerous conditions during practices.
As physical activity increases, so does the amount of heat produced by the body. Combined with high temperatures and humidity outdoors, that can increase the risk of heat-related illness, experts say.
Latest central Kentucky weather forecast
Dr. Ryan Stanton said one of the biggest risks comes when athletes return to intense workouts after spending much of the summer away from organized practices.
"They really need 1 to 2 weeks of climate of being outdoors, in the heat of really getting ready to be in this type of temperatures and this humidity," Stanton said.

#humidity #high #practices #outdoors

This is Keegan Brown's first year in Lexington, as he looks to revamp the Kentucky Wildcats' scouting and roster-building process after a tough year last season for the Cats.
Despite no games being played yet, it seems like that mindset is already working, as the 2026-27 Cats roster seems to fit together better than last year, and Brown is a major factor in that. It also sounds like he is hoping to develop how the scouting department operates for Kentucky going forward.
In a response to a tweet by Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated referencing the growth needed in scouting departments in college basketball, Brown implies that changes are coming.
Does this mean more staff or a different model to track stats? Not a lot of info in the tweet, but it's obvious that Brown is looking to take the Cats' scouting and roster building to the next level. Hopefully a successful season in Lexington can really help propel the Cats back to the top of the sport, especially with the new administration in Kentucky Athletics.

#brown #year #building

The Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame is somewhere many dream of seeing their name, but for Brandon Webb and Rajon Rondo, it is now a reality. Both players were instrumental in the success of their Wildcats team while competing in the Commonwealth, and each went on to do major things at the next level.
Rondo is among the most well-known Kentucky basketball players, and his son, Peirre, can hoop as well. Hopefully he follows in his father's footsteps and heads to play college basketball in Lexington. For Rajon, the 6-foot-1 point guard was the 21st overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, after averaging 11.2 points, 6.1 rebounds and an SEC-high 4.9 ******* ists per game in his sophomore season. He then went on to have an illustrious career with the Boston Celtics.
"The 49th KSHOF class is comprised of Lexington native Tyson Gay, a world-class sprinter who still holds the American record in the 100-meter dash with the third-fastest time ever; Lebanon native Lisa Mattingly, one of the most highly accomplished basketball officials ever at both the collegiate and professional levels; Louisville native Rajon Rondo, a brilliant point guard at Kentucky and four-time NBA All-Star and two-time NBA champion; and Ashland native Brandon Webb, a fearsome pitcher in high school, college and the pros and National League Cy Young Award winner," the release from UK Athletics said.
While Webb wasn't as well-known during his time at Kentucky, he was an absolute stud in the majors. He earned a Cy Young Award and was a three-time All-Star pitcher, making his name as a standout starter for the Arizona Diamondbacks. His best seasons were in 2006 and 2008, the latter of which is when he won 22 games and the former was his Cy Young-winning season.
Webb and Rondo are both certainly deserving of this honor.

#kentucky #time

Phoenix Rising fell to four points behind the playoff line after a 1-0 loss away to Lexington SC.
Rising struggled in attack, while Braudílio Rodrigues put the hosts up in the second half. Phoenix defender Luke Biasi also received his second violent conduct red card of the season.
After a weekend in which Phoenix Rising didn't have its top attacking option available in Las Vegas, this was supposed to be an opportunity to show something different. Ihsan Sacko, having missed the last match due to personal reasons, was starting, as was Conrad Ambursley, who had impressed in spurts off the bench.
Instead, things didn't work out.
Despite taking 12 shots throughout the course of the entire match, Phoenix didn't put a single shot on target against Lexington goalkeeper Oliver Semmle.

#LUKE

Jenna O'Malley/PitchBook
In a fabrication shop outside Lexington, KY, MiddleGround Capital builds robotic work cells: self-contained stations where robots perform tasks with minimal human involvement.
The PE firm's automation team—roughly a dozen engineers and fabricators, many recruited from the Toyota plant up the road—assembles these cells near the firm's headquarters, then trucks them to the shop floors of its portfolio companies.
A typical build, founding partner Scot Duncan said, is "a robot arm on a little dolly." It opens the door of an industrial workstation, removes and measures a finished part, loads new material and starts the next cycle. "The human interaction is really almost nothing when it's actually running," Duncan said.
The setup is futuristic-looking, yet it is not generative AI, it is automation. That distinction is becoming increasingly important—and blurred—as PE firms race to put AI at the heart of an American manufacturing revival.

#duncan #shop #o 'malley #middleground

We are now exactly four weeks away from the start of the 2026 Kentucky football season, the first under coach Will Stein. As we count down the days, we're getting to know the players who make up the team, and today we're looking at No. 28, Demarcus Gardner.
Gardner is a 6'0", 177 lb defensive back out of Cedartown, Georgia. As part of the 2025 recruiting class, he was rated four stars by 247Sports and ranked as the No. 571 overall player in their composite rankings after playing offense, defense, and special teams in high school. He had offers from a number of power schools, including Ole Miss, but committed to the Wildcats.
Last season, he did see action in three games, but ultimately redshirted. Those should prove to be valuable reps, however, giving him a glimpse of what playing in the SEC is like. He recorded a couple of tackles in his limited playing time.
This season, he isn't expected to be a starter, but he should be a quality backup who will certainly find his way onto the field. He's a talented player, and a future starter in Lexington. Stein will be glad that he stayed with the program through the coaching change.
This article originally appeared on UK Wildcats Wire: Get to know the Kentucky football roster: No. 28 Demarcus Gardner

#season #wildcats #four #Football