KNOXVILLE, Iowa – Reigning Knoxville Nationals winner Brad Sweet proved on Saturday night that he hasn’t forgotten the way to victory lane at Knoxville Raceway.

Sweet prevailed over Logan Schuchart in a thrilling and frenetic finale to the Brownells Big Guns Bash at the black-dirt, half-mile oval, passing the Shark Racing driver for good with eight to go and driving away down the stretch.

In a 25-lap feature that featured three different leaders and three lead changes in the second half of the event, Sweet ultimately prevailed by one second at the checkered flag in the No. 49 NAPA Auto Parts machine for Kasey Kahne Racing.

That didn’t mean his fourth World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series win of the season – and the 38th of his Outlaw career – was easy, however. Sweet noted in victory lane it was anything but.

“That (No.) 1s is very underrated. If he (Schuchart) gets up front in one of these (Knoxville) Nationals, he’s going to be tough to beat,” Sweet said of Schuchart. “He’s got a great-handling race car, he can time (moves) well and Logan’s getting better and better as a driver. He definitely got me up on the wheel there tonight; that was about all I had to be able to hold him off and beat him.”

The feature rolled off just before 1 a.m. CT, after showers led to a lengthy rain delay before hot laps.

“When the track is fast like that, it’s really tricky, because everything is happening way faster than you want it to,” noted Sweet of the heavy, lightning-quick surface the field was faced with. “You still have to hit that narrow bottom, though, and that was the key tonight … was getting the low line to work.”

After missing the feature on Friday night at Knoxville, Lance Dewease and the Don Kreitz-owned No. 69k came back 24 hours later and started from the pole after winning the DIRTvision Fast Pass Dash.

Dewease started strong, too. Despite a false start on the initial green flag and a caution with three laps scored for a stalled Trey Starks in turn two, the Pennsylvania kingpin paced the first 13 circuits with ease, opening up as much as a one-second lead before getting into lap traffic just before halfway.

That was when Sweet turned up the wick, powering to the inside in turns three and four to take command on the 14th round. Just as quickly, Sweet brought Schuchart with him into second, and a ferocious battle for supremacy was on.

Schuchart wasn’t content to ride, shooting past Sweet on the outside to assume the top spot down the backstretch with 10 to go, but Sweet had a counter-play lined up and ready to go.

With seeming ease, Sweet retaliated on lap 18 with a dive to the inside entering turns one and two, sliding across Schuchart’s line to break his momentum and taking a lead he wouldn’t relinquish again.

Though Schuchart didn’t come away with a win in the end, he admitted a runner-up finish and “being in contention” was exactly what his Shark Racing team needed going into the Knoxville Nationals in August.

“I was watching Brad and Lance there for a little while. I could hit the bottom early in the race, and any time you can run the bottom pretty snug here, that’s a good sign,” said Schuchart. “Once I got the lead, it was just tough to hit the bottom that many times consistently … and I just felt more comfortable going back to the top, especially with lap cars there.

“It ended up hurting me, but this team won the Nationals, and we ran them down and passed them,” Schuchart added. “In my book, that’s something to be proud of.”

Daryn Pittman rallied through the field from 10th on the grid to complete the podium, with Sheldon Haudenschild and David Gravel following in fourth and fifth, respectively.

Dewease fell back to sixth at the checkered flag, ahead of Friday winner Brian Brown, Shane Stewart, Carson Macedo and Lynton Jeffrey. KSE Hard Charger Ian Madsen came from 25th to finish 11th.

The finish:

Brad Sweet, Logan Schuchart, Daryn Pittman, Sheldon Haudenschild, David Gravel, Lance Dewease, Brian Brown, Shane Stewart, Carson Macedo, Lynton Jeffrey, Ian Madsen, Terry McCarl, James McFadden, Dominic Scelzi, Donny Schatz, Brent Marks, Kraig Kinser, Jason Sides, Sawyer Phillips, Matt Juhl, Justin Henderson, Trey Starks, Jacob Allen, Kerry Madsen, A.J. Moeller.

CHICAGO -- The Chicago Blackhawks have acquired defenseman Olli Maatta in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins for forward Dominik Kahun and a fifth-round pick in this year's draft.

The Blackhawks had been looking to upgrade their blue line after missing the playoffs for the second straight season. The 24-year-old Maatta, who helped Pittsburgh win the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017, ranked third on the Penguins with 116 blocked shots in 60 games last season.

Kahun, who turns 24 on July 2, played in all 82 games for Chicago in his first NHL season. The Czech-born German finished with 13 goals and 24 assists.

The deal was announced Saturday.

Maatta's contract runs through the 2021-22 season with an average annual value of $4,083,333. The Finn was selected by Pittsburgh with the No. 22 overall pick in the 2012 draft.

Uriel Antuna scored a hat trick as Mexico got their Gold Cup campaign off to a dominant start with a 7-0 rout of Cuba in their opener at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

The 21-year-old was a last-minute replacement for injured defender Jorge Sanchez in the Mexico squad for the tournament and the addition paid big dividends.

The LA Galaxy midfielder, on loan from Manchester City, gave Mexico the perfect start in their quest for a seventh Gold Cup title when he scored in the second minute of the match, moments after Raul Jimenez had hit the post from close-range.

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Antuna, who just made his international debut 10 days ago off the bench against Venezuela, gave his team a 4-0 advantage in the 44th minute, then capped his night with a final goal in the 80th minute.

Wolverhampton Wanders star Jimenez scored twice, while Diego Reyes and Ernesto Vega also tallied for El Tri.

Cheered on by a supportive crowd, Mexico showed no sign of letting down their fans down despite missing key figures like Hector Herrera, Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, Carlos Vela and Hirving Lozano from their squad.

It was a first competitive win for new manager Gerardo "Tata" Martino, who was hired back in January and had overseen three friendly wins against South American opposition.

"I was surprised I was going to get the start," Antuna told Univision after the match. "But I just took advantage of the situation, [Martino] showed great confidence in me."

Cuba, making their first Gold Cup appearance since 2015, have now lost to Mexico four times in as many meetings in the biennial championship of the North, Central American and Caribbean region.

"We had a great match, we took the initiative from the beginning," Jimenez told Univision after the match. "The first goal helped us, it opened up with the match."

Canada earlier thrashed Martinique 4-0 at the same stadium in Saturday's other Group A match.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

PARIS -- For the players involved, a World Cup can be a repetitive cycle of meetings, practices, meals and waiting that is interrupted only occasionally by 90 minutes of soccer. So it was hardly a surprise to find a contingent of American players wasting time at one of the countless outdoor cafes in Reims, France, a few days before the U.S. played its opening game.

And it was hardly a surprise to see Lindsey Horan take charge when someone needed to act as spokesperson in the interactions with the waitstaff. Still a few days away from her World Cup debut, she wasn't the most senior player in the group. But after living and working in the country for more than three years as a member of Paris Saint-Germain, she is the team's Francophile. When it comes to navigation or language, teammates are happy to follow her lead.

"She's definitely guiding us around," Samantha Mewis said after the team moved on to Paris. "She gives us little French tips when we have questions. My parents and I followed behind her and her parents last night, like 10 feet away, to dinner because I had no idea where to go. So we were just like little ducklings."

What remains to be seen is whether a generation of players will follow her lead to future World Cups. Against the backdrop of this tournament in Europe -- one in which the oft-discussed recent rapid growth of national teams such as those from England, the Netherlands, Spain and even host France will be tested -- Horan is at least partly the product of a European development model.

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After a successful debut with a goal in the rout of Thailand, her return to Paris for Sunday's game against Chile brings her full circle. She once came to this city as a teenager looking for a soccer experience she couldn't get at home. Now she returns hoping to prove the U.S. remains a team unlike any in the world.

"I went through a lot," Horan said last week. "But it's prepared me for me being here today."

The World Cup now underway in France had yet to be awarded to the country when Horan made headlines by passing up a scholarship at the University of North Carolina to sign a professional contract with PSG in 2012. While the money committed to the men's team drew more attention after Qatari interests purchased Paris Saint-Germain in 2011, the takeover also marked a new era for the women's team, which saw funds committed to foreign players such as Horan and Sweden's Kosovare Asllani. It was big-time soccer.

While common enough in a sport such as tennis, Horan's move to bypass college in favor of the professional ranks was essentially unprecedented in major women's team sports in the United States. It created a path where none previously existed, even if trailblazing wasn't her intention.

"At the time, that definitely is not what I was thinking," Horan, 25, said this week. "It was more so just what was best for me, and what I needed to do to meet my goals and put myself in an uncomfortable position. And something that I've always wanted to do in my life was play professionally overseas and do whatever I could to get myself on the women's national team."

Among those well aware of Horan at the time was Jill Ellis, in her role as a college coach at UCLA until 2011 and then as U.S. Soccer development director when Horan signed with PSG.

"I was a little bit surprised," Ellis recalled, "but I've always been someone that believes that people have to determine their own path. And I never want to walk in someone's shoes. So I applauded her for that, the courage to make that decision, to pursue that goal."

As invested as Ellis is in the college model, not just from her time as a coach but also as a student who found far greater soccer opportunities in the U.S. than her native England, she is also a realist now in charge of a national team competing against nations with very different developmental models. Foreign players abound on NCAA rosters -- a Finnish player captained Florida State to the national title in 2018. World Cup rosters, too, are full of women who played college soccer in the United States. It's still a model that works for a lot of people in a lot of places.

Yet increasingly at the very top of the sport, it's a model that separates the U.S. from most of its main rivals. And arguably constrains it.

U.S. defender Crystal Dunn took the collegiate path Horan bypassed, playing at North Carolina, but she also saw the emerging alternative while playing for a year with Chelsea. From youth teams to the senior team, men or women, the club was interconnected. Teenagers trained next to, and sometimes alongside, pros perhaps a decade older.

"I think that really was important for them to be thrown in that environment and obviously see where they stand," Dunn said. "Just the way they set up their development is really spectacular because they put a lot of thought and resources into their youth because they feel like that's the key to the future. It's important that the young ones are feeling like pros."

That's the path Horan followed from the time she was 18.

Now one of Horan's close friends on the U.S. team, having played alongside her going back to the under-20 national team, Rose Lavelle on Thursday recalled being intimidated when Horan, the professional, came into the same youth team for the first time. Later, in regard to her own journey, Lavelle also talked about how much more seriously she had to take soccer, the mental and physical preparation, when she entered the National Women's Soccer League and debuted for the senior national team in 2017. As a college player, she admitted, she could get by with some shortcuts.

Horan didn't get to take those shortcuts. She was a pro among amateurs when she returned to youth camps. That would seem intimidating to those around her.

"I was so used to playing on my youth team [growing up in Colorado] and being one of the best players and being able to do whatever I wanted," Horan said. "It was a different situation with PSG. I had to learn how to come off the bench, as well, and not always have that starting role. It made me mentally tougher."

Horan sounded almost wistful this week talking about the pleasure of hearing French again, even as she knocked the rust off of her own language skills. She has talked in the past of cherishing memories as simple as taking her parents to see tourist destinations when they visited. Time gilds memories. But she doesn't hide the fact that soccer was only part of the challenge, maybe even the easier part.

"It's insanely different," Horan said recently. "At 18 in Paris, I'm young, I'm shy, I'm very nervous about the culture and language, and socially just kept myself inside and didn't get out there until more internationals came and Tobin [Heath] was there. And as I got more comfortable, things started getting easier for me and I actually got out of my apartment."

Ideally, of course, players who choose the same path as Horan won't have to follow it across any oceans. The NWSL wasn't in operation when Horan went overseas. The model for the select few in the future might look more like U.S. teammate Mallory Pugh, who elected not to play college soccer at UCLA and signed professionally with the Washington Spirit. Olivia Moultrie, who signed with the Portland Thorns at 13, might be next in line.

But whether it's in their own country or overseas, where the monetary possibilities and training facilities from teams such as recent Champions League finalists Barcelona and Lyon will always be tempting, players pondering the decision would be wise to consider not just Horan playing in front of thousands in Paris this weekend but also Horan sitting alone and uncertain in an apartment at 18.

"They just have to know it inside," Horan said recently. "It took me a year to make the decision to go pro and skip college and give up that. You really have to know inside that you do not want to do [the college route], that professional soccer is what you want to do with your life.

"You're giving up a lot, and you need to know it's not going to be easy."

The midfielder now so important for U.S. title hopes, who switched effortlessly in the opening game between playing deep in midfield as a conductor to attacking the goal from a wider position, was made in Portland just as much as Paris. The reigning NWSL MVP cites that club as the place where she found her confidence as a world-class player.

So maybe she is a blueprint. Or maybe she is unique. Either way, she followed a different path.

"We kind of always knew she'd be here," Mewis said of the World Cup. "Everyone in the youth camps was always like, 'We just knew that this was where Lindsey was going to end up.'"

Back on a soccer field in Paris, as it turns out.

The World Cup is the culmination of a process. Teams have fought to be there. They are battle hardened and ready, clear about what they are trying to do.

The Copa America is the opposite. It is the start of a new process, kicking off a new cycle of competitive games. That is even more true about Brazil 2019. Qualification for the 2022 World Cup starts later than usual -- next March rather than this October. That has taken away some of the urgency of the current tournament -- seen most clearly in the case of Argentina, who have come with an inexperienced caretaker coach.

Lionel Scaloni took over after Russia 2018 with a clear idea in mind. He spoke of his belief in direct football, in rapid transitions rather than elaborate midfield passing moves. And in last year's friendlies he set up his side in accordance with this way of thinking. He fielded two wingers, and the midfielders were expected to deliver the ball quickly into wide spaces.

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It was probably in Scaloni's favour that Lionel Messi was taking a break from the international game at the time. This is not a method of play made for Messi. Now he has returned -- and as Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Colombia made very clear -- Scaloni is caught between ideas.

The inclusion of Messi already robs Scaloni of one of his wingers, making it very hard to stretch the opposing defence and open up space. The other winger, Angel Di Maria, was unable to make any impact on the match because the ball never came his way. Occasionally Argentina tried to go long, with hopeful punts upfield predictably gobbled up by the giant Colombian defenders.

With the inclusion of Messi, Scaloni's Argentina were no longer equipped to go the direct route. But they were also unable to pass their way through the midfield, and thus bring Messi and Sergio Aguero into play close to the Colombian goal. Canny Colombia coach Carlos Queiroz packed the midfield, using Juan Guillermo Cuadrado in an interesting double function; he would play his normal wide role when James Rodriguez drifted across. But otherwise Cuadrado tucked infield, making the extra man through the centre, outnumbering Argentina and freeing the outstanding Wilmar Barrios to keep a watching brief on Messi.

At halftime, his team having made no impression on the game, Scaloni was forced to abandon his favoured idea. Off came Di Maria. Argentina were now left with no wingers. Rodrigo De Paul gave them the extra man in midfield.

Argentina began to work themselves higher up the pitch, putting some passing movements together in the Colombian half. It was better, but there was little penetration. Entirely right-footed out on the left, De Paul could only effectively go inside, and so the play was all in front of the Colombian defence. Argentina had become the exact opposite of Scaloni's original intentions.

Even so, they nearly took the lead. It took a moment of magic to unlock the defence: Aguero's backheel put Messi through, who sliced the back line in half but, before Messi could pull the trigger, Barrios was back to nip the ball away from him. And with Argentina higher up the field, it then became easier for Colombia to catch their vulnerable defence in open space.

Both times Argentina were caught out by switches to their right. The first time came from a magnificent cross-field ball from James. It was all too comfortable for Roger Martinez to collect, cut inside right-back Renzo Saravia and fire across into the far corner.

The second came after the belated introduction of centre forward Duvan Zapata, who always looked like being too much of a handful for the Argentina centre-backs. He set up the move, bodies bouncing off him as he went cross-field, found Martinez, who slipped to the overlapping Jefferson Lerma. Saravia was played out of the game, and then Lerma's cross cut out centre-backs German Pezzella and Nicolas Otamendi for Zapata to fire emphatically home.

The problem for La Albiceleste is that these players are not suddenly going to get better. Argentina's defensive woes are going to persist. What may change, though, is the overall idea of play.

Against Colombia, they fell ludicrously between two stools: Unable to play long, and then without the width to penetrate when they went short.

But the Copa is just beginning. Eight of the 12 teams go through to the quarterfinals. And one of the most fascinating aspects of tournaments is that they can serve as time sped up. Teams can suddenly fall apart, or they can suddenly come together.

If Messi is to end his national team title drought this year, then the second option will have to apply to Argentina.