Five area basketball players will participate in the eighth annual Alice R. Kozel Foundation District 9 All-Star Games this Saturday at Penn State-DuBois.

The girls game tips off at 4 p.m., with the boys game starting at 6. Three-point shooting contests take place at halftime.

Tiffany Corle and Janele Divins of Union, and Haley Callihan of Karns City will play in the girls game, with Union's Josh Meeker and Karns City's Dave Kerschbaumer involved in the coaching.

A-CValley's Shawn Courson and Union's Gary Cooper will play in the boys game, with A-CValley's Jim Marron involved in the coaching.

Seneca Valley graduate Zach Jackson, a left-handed pitcher in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, was optioned to Class AAANashville over the weekend.Jackson had a 7.82 earned run average in 12X\c innings pitched over seven games in Cactus League play with the Brewers this spring. He allowed 11 earned runs and 16 hits while striking out six and walking seven.

SLIPPERY ROCK — Slippery Rock University's Jeff Weiss and Nate Hardic captured the PSAC Men's Track and Field Athletes of the Week honors.Weiss won the 10K event at the University of Richmond's Fred Hardy Invitational last weekend. Weis recorded a conference-leading and NCAA provisional time of 29 minutes, 56.5 seconds to establish a new meet record and beat his PSAC best time from a year ago by 17 seconds.Hardic won the javelin throw at the California (Pa.) University Early Bird Invitational last weekend with a throw of 180 feet, 8 inches. In his first meet of his career, the Coastal Carolina Invitational, he registered the league's best mark with a provisional throw of 204-8Z\v.

SLIPPERY ROCK — The Slippery Rock University baseball team is ranked fourth in the latest North Atlantic Regional poll, trailing Kutztown, West Chester and West Virginia State.The Rock (11-4) is scheduled to host Shepherd in a doubleheader today before opening PSACWest play with a 1 p.m. twinbill Friday against California (Pa.) at Critchfield Park.

Cole Baxter of Butler, a member of the Golden Tornado junior high wrestling team, placed fifth at the Pennsylvania Junior Wrestling Championships over the weekend.Both of his losses were by one point, one coming in overtime. Butler's Ryan Hannon won two matches in the 11- and 12-year-old division, but did not place.