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Dearborn’s Record-Setting Softball Career Highlight Among Spring College Athletes
By Tom Robinson

By the time Blue Ridge graduate Jocelyn Dearborn finished up her career this spring, she was the best softball player in the Atlantic 10 Conference and the best power hitter in Fordham University history.

Dearborn’s Atlantic 10 Player of the Year honor highlighted an impressive spring for college athletes who graduated from Susquehanna County high schools.

The senior third baseman led the Lady Rams in home runs (16), RBI (44), total bases (145), doubles (11) and triples (8) while batting .350.

Dearborn finished her career as Fordham’s all-time leader in hits (257), RBI (175), doubles (54), home runs (45), total bases (476) and games played (246).

The former Susquehanna County Transcript Athlete of the Year made another trip to the NCAA Tournament where Fordham’s season ended with a 5-2, 16-inning loss to Penn State.

Dearborn was an Atlantic 10 all-Rookie selection as a freshman, a second-team conference all-star as a sophomore and a first-team choice as a junior and senior.

The list of other active NCAA Division I athletes from Susquehanna County includes Jocelyn’s sister, Kaitchen Dearborn, a freshman member of the Penn State women’s track and field team.

Kaitchen Dearborn finished seventh out of 17 javelin throwers at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships with a throw of 39.57 meters (129 feet, 10 inches). Her season-best throw of 45.38 (148-11) qualified Dearborn for the NCAA Division I East Regionals.

Dearborn was eliminated in the preliminary round of East Regionals while finishing 22nd of 32 with a throw of 43.49 meters.

In addition to the javelin, Dearborn competed in the heptathlon at times during the season. Dearborn was ninth out of 11 in the Penn Relays heptathlon where she led all entries in the javelin part of the five-event competition.

Erin Keene helped Cornell University come within one step of returning to the NCAA Division I softball tournament.

The junior shortstop from Blue Ridge finished third on the team in runs scored with 23 and runs batted in with 20.

Cornell lost two straight games to Harvard in the best-of-three Ivy League Championship Series.

Keene played 49 of 50 games, starting 48 for Cornell (27-22-1). She hit .253 with seven doubles, a triple and two home runs.

Julia Koloski, a freshman from Montrose, was on the University of Pittsburgh women’s track team. She finished her season by placing tied for 25th out of 27 in the ECAC Outdoor Championships in the triple jump, the event in which she won a state title for the Lady Meteors.

Elk Lake’s Ryne Carney ran the better of his two 5000-meter runs for Bucknell University in 15:49.45. He also competed once each in the 3000 and 10000 meters.

DIVISION II

Cody DeBoer, a sophomore from Montrose, finished third in the long jump while helping Shippensburg University to the men’s championship at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championships at Slippery Rock University.

DeBoer jumped 23-10 3/4.

A jump of 24-9 earlier in the season put DeBoer in the NCAA Division II Championships, but he fouled on two of three attempts there and was unable to advance out of the preliminary round. DeBoer was looking to gain All-American honors with a top-eight finish just as he had in the winter when he was eighth at the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships.

Sarah Kimsey, a freshman from Montrose, finished 16th in the PSAC Championships with a 5-0 1/2 high jump while representing Kutztown University.

Three Blue Ridge graduates were distance runners on the California University of Pennsylvania team.

Senior Bethany Stone, junior Laurie Hall and sophomore Megan Kleiner were on the team.

Hall was 12th out of 34 entries in the PSAC Championships 1500-meter run in 4:43.70. She was also 25th in the 3000 in 10:51.25.

Stone was 15th in the conference in the 10000 meters in 40:53.20.

DIVISION III

Jenna Fancher was one of two recipients of the N. Scott Thurston Award when the Keystone College athletic department honored its graduating student-athletes at its annual year-end banquet earlier this month.

The Thurston Award is presented annually to one male and one female athlete who are in their junior or senior year and have demonstrated outstanding academic excellence.

Fancher, a member of the women’s cross country and track teams, had a term grade point average of 4.0 and a cumulative grade point average of 3.88 as a biology major.

The Mountain View graduate had earlier received the Keystone College Outstanding Graduate award.

Fancher, who plans to continue her education at the Commonwealth Medical College, was part of a team that set a school record in the distance medley this season.

Elk Lake graduate Karin Mowry was named Colonial States Athletic Conference second-team softball all-star for her play as a catcher at Baptist Bible College.

Mowry helped lead the Defenders into the conference playoffs. The sophomore from Elk Lake led the team in batting average (.434), hits (49) and RBI (39) in the regular season while throwing out 12 base runners.

Jared Conklin, a sophomore thrower on the Keystone men’s track team, broke his own school record in the discus.

Mike Kubus, a junior from Forest City, was a distance runner on the team.

Amanda Collins, a freshman from Forest City, finished fourth in the Pennsylvania State University Athletic Conference in batting average by hitting .453 for Penn State-Hazleton.

Collins was fifth in the conference in on-base percentage (.532), sixth in hits (24), 11th in RBI (19), 12th in walks (nine) and 13th in runs (18).

JUNIOR COLLEGE

Dustin Barton, a freshman from Susquehanna, was a big part of a championship golf season in which Lackawanna College advanced to National Junior College Athletic Association Division II Nationals where it finished 19th.

Barton shot 80-78-82-78 - 318 in the national tournament. He was second for the Falcons with a 72 when the team won its sixth straight Pennsylvania-Delaware Cup.

Barton got his career off to a great start by shooting the low score, a 76, in a season-opening victory.

TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can be reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com.

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NASCAR Racing
By Gerald Hodges

Kurt Busch Gets A First At Infineon

SONOMA, Calif. - Kurt Busch had never won a road course race, but he made it look easy Sunday in the Sprint Cup Toyota/Savemart 350, as he held off Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards at Infineon Raceway on the way to the checkered flag.

“We had an unbelievable setup in the car,” said Busch. “Once we got in the groove, the car just kept getting better and better.”

Kurt Busch, Sunday's Cup winner at Infineon Raceway.

Jeff Gordon was not one of the dominant drivers, but he was able to work his way towards the front and pass Carl Edwards for second with three laps to go.

“We really struggled, but there at the end, I think we were faster than the leader,” said Gordon. “If we had a few more laps we might have caught him, but that’s the way racing is.”

Carl Edwards, the points leader was strong throughout the race, but could not keep up with Busch or Gordon in the closing laps.

“We didn’t have the car we needed to win,” said Edwards. “It was good, but I could never get it to handle the way I would have liked to.”

Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex, Kevin Harvick, and Brad Keselowski were the remaining top-10 finishers.

Just like on any road course, there was a lot of contact. Tony Stewart and Brian Vickers got into it twice. On the last bump-and-shove, Stewart went into the outside wall, and did not finish the race.

“He (Vickers) just dumped me,” said Stewart. “I’m not going to let anyone that races me like that get away with it.”

Vickers did not see it the same way.

“It’s not in my nature to put anyone out of the race,” said Vickers. “Tony came down on me early, so I’m not sure what he’s so sore about.”

Montoya got into several bumping matches with other drivers and finished 22nd.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was never in the race. He was out after 45 laps with mechanical problems.

Top-12 Chase contenders after 16 of 36: 1. Edwards-573, 2. Harvick-548, 3. Johnson-540, 4. Kurt Busch-539, 5. Kyle Busch-536, 6. Kenseth-521, 7. Earnhardt-508, 8. Bowyer-498, 9. J. Gordon-480, 10. Newman-475, 11. Hamlin-463, 12. Stewart-460

SORENSON WINNER AT ROAD AMERICA

ELKHART LAKE, Wis. - “This is not the place I thought I’d win a race,” said Reed Sorenson, driver of the No. 32 Dollar General Chevrolet. “I’d never been here before.”

The scheduled 50-lap Nationwide race on Road America’s 4.048-mile road course needed three green-white-checkered-flag attempts to determine a winner.

The race ended under caution, a cloud of uncertainty, and drama.

Justin Allgaier took the white flag and had the lead when the seventh and final caution was thrown because Aric Almirola’s No. 88 Chevrolet had stopped on the track in Turn 5. But Allgaier ran out of gas in Turn 6, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether Sorenson or Ron Fellows had inherited the lead - even though Sorenson was running second behind Allgaier, with Fellows third.

Before declaring the winner, NASCAR officials took an extra look at the video feeds. They determined that Fellows had moved ahead of Sorenson after the yellow had been thrown, thus giving the win to Sorenson.

Fellows, who was scored second, was disappointed with his result.

“We got ourselves in a little bit of trouble, anyway,” he said. “For whatever reason, on the restarts toward the end, I just couldn’t get any forward traction.”

Jacques Villeneuve, Elliott Sadler, Mike Wallace, Andrew Ranger, Michael Annett, Ricky Stenhouse, Ricky Carmichael, and J. R. Fitzgerald rounded out the top-10.

The win pushed Sorenson into first in the standings by five points over Sadler.

Top-10 leaders after 16 of 34; 1. Sorenson-568, 2. Sadler-563, 3. Stenhouse-561, 4. Allgaier-534, 5. Leffler-495, 6. Almirola-493, 7. K. Wallace-457, 8. S. Wallace-434, 9. Scott-422, 10. Annett-408

IT’S MIDNIGHT FOR RED BULL AND NASCAR

Red Bull Racing found out that NASCAR is not the perfect partner for everyone and every product.

It appears the two-car Red Bull Racing team will shut down, or at least be phased out by the end of this season. The team fields the No. 4 for Kasey Kahne and the No. 83 for Brian Vickers.

Red Bull officials flew from the home office in Austria to Michigan last week to inform team vice president Jay Frye of their decision.

Two scenarios mentioned for the existing equipment could be Frye bringing in investors and starting a new operation with Mark Martin and engines from Hendrick Motorsports, a plan that Frye had tried to expedite over the last two years with pushback from Austria. The hot rumor of late has been the return of Ray Evernham in an ownership role similar to Tony Stewart's at SHR, with Red Bull as the sponsor. On Monday Evernham told FOXSports.com he "had zero desire to be an owner again."

Frye said he is optimistic that he can line up investors to keep the organization intact for the 2012 season.

“We have talked to some people who have great enthusiasm about what we're doing,” Frye said on a conference call. “We believe we can put something together rather quickly in 30 to 45 days. But the process has just started. We had a lot of inquires yesterday. The goal is to keep the Red Bull team continuing on the path it's on.”

Frye said he couldn't get specific about ongoing negotiations, because he learned just a few weeks ago that Red Bull might pull out. He said it's possible Red Bull could stay involved with the team in some capacity in the future.

Funding for the two RBR teams is in the $25-$30 million dollar range for an entire Sprint Cup season. Some speculate the company was not realizing enough advertising return on their investment as the reason for the pull-out.

Red Bull energy drink is targeted primarily to young people. Since NASCAR’s demographics show most of their core audience is middle-aged and older, this means the NASCAR fans are not ideal candidates to purchase the drink.

The younger generation; from 18-25 years of age are not embracing NASCAR. Most of the core fans are 35 and up. These older (if you can call someone old at 35) fans simply aren’t as interested in purchasing energy drinks like Red Bull.

It’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Red Bull and NASCAR were not good dancing partners. Finally, Red Bull realized that fact, and now they can move on to another venue that will give them better value for their advertising dollar.

Weekend Racing: The Cup and nationwide teams are at Daytona for the traditional July 4 race weekend. The Trucks do not race again until July 7. Correction: We reported last week that 2011 was the first time NASCAR had raced at the Road America road course. That was incorrect. It was the second time they had appeared at the track.

Fri., July 1, Nationwide Subway 250, race 17 of 34, Starting time: 7:30 p.m.; TV: ESPN.

Sat., July 2, Sprint Cup Coke Zero 400, race 17 of 36, Starting time: 7 p.m.; TV: TNT.

All times are Eastern.

Racing Trivia Question: Which team did Bobby Labonte drive for when he won the 2000 Cup championship?

Last Week’s Question: Which is the newest NASCAR track? Answer. Kansas and Chicago, which hold Cup races opened in 2001, but there are other, newer tracks (Iowa, Kentucky, and Road America) that have hosted Nationwide and Truck races. It was not a clear question, and we apologize.

You may contact the Racing Reporter at hodges@race500.com.

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