CINCINNATI SPORTS LAST WEEK

After a Monday off, the Reds welcomed the Astros to town. Homer Bailey was going for his second straight win. He made it to two outs in the sixth allowing only two earned runs. No matter, shaky defense allowed Houston to come back from a 5-1 deficit to post an 8-5 win. Joey Votto hit his third homer. On Tuesday, Tom Shearn got the start but just didn't have it. He was pulled in the first having given up four runs. The Reds went ahead 5-4 but ended up losing 7-6. Brandon Phillips hit his 30th home run in this game. With his 30 plus steals this year, that makes him only the third 30-30 player in Reds' history and only the second second-baseman to perform this feat in all of baseball. On Wednesday night, the Reds lost their fifth in a row. Matt Belisle pitched his best game of the year. He was perfect into the seventh inning. The Reds had almost no punch in their lineup with Griffey and Dunn down and Phillips with the night off. Edwin Encarnacion hit his 16th homer of the year but the Reds lost 4-3.

On Friday night in high school football; Fenwick topped Roger Bacon 27-21, Hamilton lost to Oak Hills, Wilmington got thumped by Little Miami, Mariemont was shut out by Indian Hill 62-0. Our nationally ranked teams faired as follows: in the GCL South, St. Xavier beat Elder and Moeller edged LaSalle; in the GMC, Colerain smacked Fairfield 54-0.

The Cubs came to town on Friday night with hopes of winning the National League Central Division title this weekend. They pitched the highly paid Carl Zambrono against our Bronson Arroyo. It was no match. Chicago won 6-0 and, with the Brewers loss, clinched the division title. On Saturday afternoon, the Reds pitched Aaron Harang against a bunch of the Cubs bench players and still managed to lose their seventh in a row. In the embarrassing display, the Reds got only one hit in the 4-0 shutout.

Saturday night on the left coast, the UC Bearcats put their 4-0 record on the line against the Aztecs of San Diego State (1-3). Playing a more conservative style than in previous games, the Cats had six drives longer than 60 yards and won easily 52-23. Quarterback Ben Mauk had sterling performance putting up four touchdown passes in the second quarter and gave way to sophomore Tony Pike in the second half. Kevin Huber, the nation's leading punter only got to punt once for 52 yards.

The Reds ended the season on Sunday against the division winning Chicago Cubs. Rookie pitcher Homer Bailey gave up a homer to Alphanso Soriana on the second pitch of the game and went down 4-0 by the third inning. Not to fear! He and the Reds came back with four runs in the third and four more in the fourth to win 8-4 and break their seven game losing streak. Joey Votto hit his 4th home run. Cincinnati finished the season with 72 wins and 90 losses, 5th place in their division and 13 games behind the Cubs. It been at lest five years since the Reds won more than they lost. They should be totally embarrassed.

The Bearcats moved up to #20 in the AP poll released Sunday evening. Its their first top 20 football ranking in fifty years. They have also moved into both the USA Today poll and the Harris Interactive poll at #24 and are #14 in the Sagarin computer rankings.