UE to face league champ

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The University of Evansville will play league champion Missouri State on Friday in the first semifinal match of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Men’s Soccer Tournament at Des Moines, Iowa. Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m. CST. Host Drake, the No. 2 seed, plays No. 3 Creighton at 6. Friday’s winners play for the championship and an automatic NCAA Tournament berth on Sunday at 1 p.m. The title game will be televised live by Fox Sports Midwest. This is the fourth straight year in which the Purple Aces have qualified for the MVC Tournament. UE goes into the tourney with an 11-7-1 record, 5-4-1 in league play. The 11 victories are the most for Evansville since 1996. UE finished in a third-place tie with Creighton on Saturday after the Aces beat Bradley 2-1 and Creighton tied Drake 3-3.

Dynamo advances in semis

Brian Ching scored six minutes into overtime and the Houston Dynamo advanced to the Western Conference final for the third time in four years with a 1-0 win over the Seattle Sounders on Sunday. The teams had dueled to a scoreless tie in the first leg of their two-game semifinal on Oct. 29.

Donovan leads Galaxy

Landon Donovan sent the Los Angeles Galaxy to the MLS’ Western Conference finals by burying a 73rd-minute penalty for a 1-0 victory over Chivas USA on Sunday night. Donovan tied an MLS record with his 16th postseason goal and put the Galaxy through 3-2 on aggregate after a 2-2 tie last week. The Galaxy will host Houston in a single match on Friday night to determine who goes to the MLS Cup final.

horse racing

Leparoux earns award

Julien Leparoux rode three winners during the Breeders’ Cup world championships, earning the Bill Shoemaker award as the outstanding jockey of the two-day event. The 26-year-old jockey was the only one with more than one victory. Leparoux won the Juvenile Fillies with She Be Wild and the Filly & Mare Sprint aboard Informed Decision on Friday. He added the Dirt Mile with long shot Furthest Land on Saturday, giving him five career BC wins.

tennis

Djokovic tops Federer

Top-ranked Roger Federer lost his hometown tournament on Sunday, falling 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 to Novak Djokovic in the Swiss Indoors final at Basel, Switzerland.

Deer-vehicle collisions rise in Pennsylvania

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Pennsylvania has always been a top deer-hunting state.

It remains a top deer-mashing state, too.

According to State Farm Insurance, only in two states — West Virginia and Michigan, in that order — are drivers more likely to hit a deer with a car than they are in Pennsylvania. That moves Pennsylvania up one spot from last year, when it ranked fourth.

The insurance company rated a driver's chance of hitting a deer with their vehicle here at 97 to 1.

The odds are 1 in 78 in Michigan and 1 in 45 in West Virginia. To put that in perspective, that means a driver's chances of hitting a deer with their vehicle in the Mountaineer State is roughly two times greater than the possibility that they will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service in 2009 and 1,100 times greater than their chance of winning a state lottery grand prize by purchasing one ticket per day for the next year.

The average property-damage cost of a deer-vehicle collision nationwide is $2,950, up 2.5 percent from a year ago, State Farm said.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there are about 1.5 million deer-vehicle collisions annually in the United States, causing more than 150 fatalities and $1.1 billion in property damage.

More fallout

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's decision to pull out of the Elk Country Visitors Center in Elk County has cost it another resource.

Sue Meehl, who had been RMEF's volunteer chairwoman in Pennsylvania for the past 22 months, recently told members in a letter that she was stepping down from that position. She said she made her decision because she didn't agree with either the foundation's decision to withdraw from running the elk center or the "misleading" way in which that withdrawal was handled.

Elk Foundation officials said previously they intended to turn over the elk center to another entity all along. Volunteers say that wasn't the case, pointing to a 30-year agreement the foundation signed to run it.

Meehl said she will remain a life member of the Elk Foundation, but plans to devote her time to getting the visitors center launched.

Deer hunting

An additional 200 acres of Moraine State Park will be open for archery deer hunting during the late season.

Park officials recently decided to allow hunting on the land, located between North Shore Drive and Lake Arthur encompassing the bicycle trail, for the season that runs Dec. 26 to Jan. 9. Hunters will have to register by calling or visiting the park office after Dec. 1 to be allowed on site, however.

In addition, 40 acres will be open to all current hunting seasons, excluding waterfowl, near the Old Route 422 launch area. Detailed maps of the expanded hunting areas are available at the park office.