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LSU reentered The Associated Press college football poll at No. 18 on Sunday, and No. 25 South Carolina earned a ranking for the first time in four seasons.

The first six teams in the AP Top 25 held their spots after either winning or not playing over the weekend.

Georgia is No. 1 for the third straight week, with No. 2 Ohio State gaining ground after it blew out Iowa. The Bulldogs, who were idle, received 31 first-place votes and 1,530 points, and the Buckeyes got 18 first-place votes and 1,513 points.

No. 3 Tennessee received 13 first-place votes. No. 4 Michigan, No. 5 Clemson and No. 6 Alabama also held their spots, with the Tigers receiving a first-place vote.

No. 7 TCU moved up a spot after remaining unbeaten with a second-half comeback against Kansas State. Oregon jumped two spots to a season-high No. 8 after routing UCLA.

Oklahoma State was ranked No. 9, and USC and Wake Forest tied for No. 10.

LSU, in its first season under coach Brian Kelly, handed Ole Miss its first loss of the season in emphatic fashion and moved back into the rankings ahead of its game against Alabama on Nov. 5 in Baton Rouge.

The Tigers were ranked for a week earlier this month before losing to Tennessee. They improved to 6-2 by outscoring Ole Miss 42-3 after falling behind by 14 in the first half.

South Carolina, under second-year coach Shane Beamer, is ranked for the first time since a one-week stint after the opening weekend of the 2018 season. The Gamecocks beat Texas A&M to improve to 5-2. They have not been ranked this late in a season since 2013.

POLL POINTS

LSU moving into the rankings before its off week ensures that Tigers-Crimson Tide will be a matchup of ranked teams for the first time since the SEC West rivals played a 1 vs. 2 game in 2019.

Alabama is off next week too.

The Tigers backslid after winning the national title in 2019 and were unranked when they played the Crimson Tide each of the past two seasons. That snapped a string of 14 straight seasons in which LSU and Alabama were both ranked when they played.

• LSU and Tulane are both ranked for the first time since 1998, though the Louisiana schools were heading in different directions when they overlapped that season.

For two weeks at the beginning of October, the Tigers and Green Wave were in the Top 25, but LSU fell out the next week and finished 4-7. The Green Wave went on to an unbeaten season and finished No. 7.

OUT

Texas is unranked again after blowing a second-half lead at Oklahoma State. The Longhorns fell to 5-3.

Mississippi State once again had the misfortune of catching Alabama immediately after a Crimson Tide loss and was knocked out of the rankings. The Bulldogs did score a touchdown in Tuscaloosa for the first time since 2014. It came on the final play of the game.

CONFERENCE CALL

SEC – 7 (Nos. 1, 3, 6, 15, 17, 19, 25)
ACC – 5 (Nos. 5, 10, 16, 21, 24)
Big Ten – 4 (Nos. 2, 4, 13, 17)
Pac-12 – 4 (Nos. 8, 10, 12, 14)
Big 12 – 3 (Nos. 7, 9, 23)
American – 2 (Nos. 20, 22)

RANKED vs. RANKED

After having a total of 11 games matching ranked teams the past two weeks, the next slate is not quite as juicy.

• No. 2 Ohio State at No. 13 Penn State. Sixth straight meeting with both ranked. The Buckeyes have won the previous five.

• No. 19 Kentucky at No. 3 Tennessee. Last time the Wildcats and Volunteers were both ranked when they played was 1951.

• No. 9 Oklahoma State at No. 22 Kansas State. The second meeting out of 65 matchups with both ranked. The first was 2011, when the Cowboys won 52-45.

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‘Incredible’ Tkachuk returns, nets 2 for Panthers

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'Incredible' Tkachuk returns, nets 2 for Panthers

TAMPA, Fla. — Matthew Tkachuk made his long-awaited return to the lineup and was back to his old self quickly on Tuesday night for the Florida Panthers, who opened this postseason the way they ended last postseason: With a win.

Playing for the first time in more than two months after dealing with a lower-body injury, Tkachuk scored two second-period goals in his return game, as the Panthers handled the rival Tampa Bay Lightning 6-2 in this Eastern Conference first-round series opener at Amalie Arena.

Those two goals were both of the power-play variety, the first putting Florida up 4-1 — the second goal for the Panthers in a 14-second span — and the next one pushing the lead to 5-1 midway through the second period.

It was just like old times: Tkachuk got twisted up with Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel — someone he fought during the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament — after one whistle, took the game’s first penalty on a roughing call (leading to Tampa Bay’s first goal), then made sure his name was all over the score sheet.

Florida coach Paul Maurice, in his in-game, bench interview with ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, said he was comfortable with what he was seeing from Tkachuk in his first game back and expected him to “be the difference-maker” for the Panthers.

“That’s what he is for us,” Maurice said. “He’s got an incredible set of hands, got an incredible gift for the emotional needs of a game, when you need a hit, when you need a big play. He’s been great for us.”

Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart also scored for the Panthers, and veteran defenseman Nate Schmidt, not known for his offense, added two more goals, as Florida, which won the Stanley Cup last June, hammered an Atlantic Division foe in front of a sellout crowd, setting up an all-important Game 2 on Thursday.

Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy will need to be sharper in that game, after a Tuesday performance to forget. The two-time Stanley Cup winner allowed all six goals on just 16 shots, closing with a .625 save percentage. Across the ice, Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky made 20 saves en route to the win.

“The series isn’t won in one game, so there’s a positive. We had a bunch of guys tonight playing their first playoff games, and I thought guys handled it fairly well,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “But in the end, we gave up six goals. We’re a pretty decent defensive team, and we have a very good [penalty-kill unit], and we gave up three [goals] on that. … In the end, those are areas of strength of ours, so I’m pretty confident we can button those up, and we’ll be OK.”

Jake Guentzel, in his first season with the club, and Brayden Point scored for Tampa Bay. But the Lightning played the final 33:30 without center Anthony Cirelli, and it showed. There was no immediate word why the 27-year-old center was out.

“We gave up 16 shots, and that’s usually a good night, but tonight wasn’t that. They’re a good team, we know they have good players,” Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said. “So, for us, it’s all about refocusing, make sure we have a good practice tomorrow, and get ready for the next one.”

Whether Tkachuk would even play in Game 1 wasn’t certain until just before game time. Tkachuk went through practices Saturday and Monday, then took part in the team’s day-of-game skate Tuesday before the decision on his return was made. Maurice even indicated that it could come down to the final few minutes before the 8:48 p.m. start time of the game.

“It’s not really a guy you can put a label on,” Schmidt said of Tkachuk. “He’s such a unicorn of a player. But, more than anything, just how he is in the room, getting the guys fired up for the game, you feel his energy, you feel his excitement.”

Tkachuk hadn’t played for the Panthers since Feb. 8 because of a lower-body injury suffered during the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament two months ago. He missed the team’s final 25 games of the regular season, yet still finished with 22 goals and 57 points — third most on the team in all three categories. He was also second on the Panthers this season with 11 power-play goals.

“There’s no better time to be an athlete,” Tkachuk told Kaplan in a postgame interview, in reference to the postseason. “This is the time of our lives. And just getting a win here in Game 1 is the cherry on top.”

Panthers forward Brad Marchand, acquired at the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, made his postseason debut for his new team in the win and also played with Tkachuk for the first time. Marchand had an assist and two shots on net in his 17:15 of ice time, and seemed to fit right in with Florida’s dominant forward group.

“Both teams will look at the tape and find things that they can do better,” Maurice said after the win. “But there isn’t an established identity to the series yet.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Limping Lightning seek ‘another level’ after loss

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Limping Lightning seek 'another level' after loss

Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh stated the obvious: The 6-2 humbling they suffered against the arch-rival Florida Panthers on Tuesday night was not how they wanted to begin the latest Battle of Florida.

“It’s definitely a salty feeling in here. We didn’t have a great start to this series like we talked about,” the veteran said. “But we know we can be better. We’ve got another level and we’ll find a way to get to that.”

The Panthers took a 1-0 series lead by scoring six times on 16 shots against Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. After Sam Bennett and Jake Guentzel traded goals in the first period, the Panthers scored four straight times — including goals by Nate Schmidt and Matthew Tkachuk that were 14 seconds apart in the second period. Schmidt’s goal was unsuccessfully challenged for goalie interference by the Lightning, earning a delay of game penalty. Tkachuk scored on the ensuing power play to make it 4-1.

“Yeah, you’ve got to stop that bleeding,” defenseman Victor Hedman said. “We give up that third one. The challenge that didn’t go our way and we give up one right away. That’s tough, but we got to make sure it stops there and not give up the fifth one as well.”

Tkachuk, returning to the Florida lineup for the first time after being injured in February’s 4 Nations Face-Off, scored his second of the game on the power play at 9:44 of the second period to make it 5-1 for the Panthers, en route to the 6-2 rout.

“You see him being able to step into a game and be impactful,” Schmidt said of Tkachuk. “That’s who he is. He’s a playoff player.”

Lightning coach Jon Cooper, who has won two of the three Battle of Florida playoff series against the Panthers, appreciated his team’s effort despite the result.

“I love this team. They try. They’re always trying, and they did that again tonight. Sometimes the results aren’t there. Most nights they are,” he said. “We can sit here and dissect this game all we want. The bottom line is we lost. Whether you lose 6-2 or you lose 1-0 in overtime, we lost the game. Turn the page and move on. Let’s sit here in 48 hours or whatever it is and dissect that one. This one’s over.”

The Panthers are the reigning Stanley Cup champion. Cooper noted that a number of his players were seeing their first playoff action in Game 1.

“We had a bunch of guys tonight playing their first playoff games, and I thought guys handled it fairly well. But in the end we gave up six goals,” he said. “The series isn’t won in one game, so there’s a positive.”

That said, it took just one game for the Panthers to flex on the Lightning defense and special teams, going 3-for-3 on the power play. One huge factor in that domination was an injury to Lightning center Anthony Cirelli, their best defensive forward and a key to their penalty kill. He left the game after taking two shifts in the second period. There was no update on his status after the game.

Game 2 is Thursday night at Amalie Arena in Tampa.

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Amaya blast keys Cubs, ‘something you dream of’

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Amaya blast keys Cubs, 'something you dream of'

CHICAGO — Catcher Miguel Amaya was confident he’d be jogging around the bases when he blasted a two-out, ninth-inning baseball high into the Wrigley Field sky with his Chicago Cubs trailing 10-9 to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.

He was right — but just barely.

Amaya’s 388-foot shot landed in the center field basket, sending the home crowd into a frenzy as Dodgers closer Tanner Scott blew the save. And one inning later, the Cubs won the game 11-10 on an Ian Happ run-scoring single off Noah Davis, capping yet another wild affair at Wrigley.

According to Statcast, Amaya’s blast would have been a home run in exactly one park in the majors.

“As a baseball player, its something you dream of,” Amaya said. “As soon as I hit, I felt it was out but then I saw the center fielder getting into position to catch it. Then it was, ‘Oh my god, I have to run,’ but it was enough to get out.

“I love those basket balls.”

It was the second time in five days that both teams playing at Wrigley scored 10 or more runs; on Friday, the Cubs beat the Diamondbacks 13-11 thanks to a six-run eighth inning that was preceded by a 10-run frame by Arizona.

On Tuesday, the Cubs led 5-3 after the first inning, but the Dodgers took a 10-7 lead thanks to a five-run seventh aided by an error from third baseman Gage Workman. As has been the case all month, the Cubs kept fighting back. Right fielder Kyle Tucker brought them within one with an eighth-inning home run before Amaya tied it in the ninth.

“They’ve done some amazing things and some resilient things, most importantly,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said of the team’s play on its homestand. “You win games like that early in the season and it’s a great carry forward for the rest of the season.”

The Cubs improved to 15-10 thanks to a high-powered offense that leads the league in scoring at just over six runs per game. They’ve tallied 10 or more runs in seven games already, their most through 25 games of a season since 1895, according to ESPN Research. No other team this season has done it more than 3 times.

Counsell credited his bullpen in shutting down the Dodgers in the final few innings.

The Cubs also did well facing Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani. He went 0 for 4, lowering his batting average against them this year to .167. Against all other teams, he’s hitting .302.

He also went 0-for-3 against Shota Imanaga and is now 0-for-10 against the Cubs starter.

“The next 10 at-bats he might get 10 hits,” Imanaga said. “It’s been a small miracle that it’s happened 10 times in a row.”

The Cubs keep on performing miracles at the plate both in the colder conditions this month and in the few games where the weather has been favorable for hitters. That included Tuesday, when it was 71 degrees with the wind blowing out at first pitch. It led to six home runs, none bigger than Amaya’s.

“Basket hurt us a couple times last year,” Counsell said with a smirk. “It was helpful tonight.”

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