Triangle racquetball players, Steven Harper has a challenge: Try it
without the ceiling and the back wall – and in the great outdoors.

On March 20, the Clayton resident and retired Navy lieutenant commander
will provide the state’s first public demonstration of an outdoor
racquetball court provided through his organization, the Military Racquetball Federation.

The free clinic will take place 11 a.m.-4 p.m. at The Church @ Clayton Crossings, 11690 U.S. 70 in Clayton.

The U.S. Navy awarded contracts worth up to $6 million to Entegrion, a small Research Triangle Park biotechnology company developing blood-related products to help treat serious injuries.

The contracts will help develop products that can be used for combat injuries such as Stasix, designed to help control internal bleeding.

Entegrion was founded in 2002 based on blood research at UNC-Chapel Hill.

See photos of Capt. Richard Phillips, freed Easter Sunday in a mission by U.S. Navy Seals off the coast of Somalia.

The NCAA says the ACC can't send N.C. State to the EagleBank Bowl in Washington.

Maryland says it won't play in the EagleBank Bowl because of an academic conflict.

Now, Navy says it won't play Wake Forest in the EagleBank Bowl because it has a no rematch clause, Patrick Stevens of the Washington Times reports.

That leaves? Miami.

DURHAM — Duke's schedule was designed to fit as many "manageable" non-conference games against "like-minded schools" as possible.

That doesn't say much for Duke's non-conference opponents, except like Duke, those opponents are better in 2008. Duke's opponents outside the ACC are 13-3 four weeks into the season.

Staff photo by Chuck Liddy

• First Look: Navy at Duke 

DURHAM — The 2007 Duke Blue Devils did not know how to put people away in games. The 2008 version might finally have learned how while beating Navy, 41-31, at Wallace Wade Stadium on Saturday.

It takes big plays like Adrian Aye-Darko's interception of Navy QB Jarod Bryant with about seven minutes left in the game and Eron Riley's 49-yard catch-run-and-score minutes earlier to give Duke a 10-point lead in what had been a wild-and-woolly contest. 

It takes the ability to manage the clock, which Duke did in the final seven minutes of the game after Aye-Darko's interception. Though the Devils didn't run the ball that well in the game, it kept possession and gave Navy just 29 seconds at the end to try to make a run at them.