Dick Bagnall’s offensive style gave opposing coaches fits.

Most did not face anything remotely like the split veer, triple-option attack Bagnall used at Susquehanna for many of his 28 years as head coach.

As they battled through the years, the coaches returned the favor, creating new variations of their defenses to also make Bagnall work extra in his own preparation.

“Defenses are a lot different now,” said Bagnall, who announced his retirement earlier this month at the end of the Sabers’ season. “They’re a lot more sophisticated.”

Most coaches went with entirely different alignments and/or responsibilities than their defenses used throughout the rest of the season. Bagnall learned to anticipate some of those adjustments, but also had to prepare for multiple variations until he saw what defense a team was actually in early in games.

Bagnall spent his entire coaching career at Susquehanna, playing almost exclusively against larger schools until the number of available players evened out in recent years with the cooperative sponsorship that allowed Blue Ridge students to play for the Sabers in football.

At Susquehanna’s final home game, Bagnall was honored for coaching in his 300th game. He finished 169-129-3 for a career that ran from 1976 through 1995 and 2004 through 2011. He spent three earlier seasons as an assistant coach of the Sabers and one season as an assistant between his two head-coaching stints.

Bagnall had teams with a strong passing game, even using several shot gun sets, in his first two years before switching to the option style that he had been interesting in since reading a book by Lou Holtz.

“I started running the option in ’78,” Bagnall said. “It was a power-I option, very much like the wishbone. We just moved the positioning of the players a little bit.

“We went to split back in ’79.”

Bagnall mixed in different plays and some option from I-formation, but he was most comfortable coaching a split-back option game, which he always insisted were best when it had a mirror look, operating equally on each side of the center.

“It’s a great offense even though very few people run the veer anymore,” Bagnall said. “You don’t block some people.”

Instead the offense forces that defender to stop one of two players and tries to quickly make the right decision to leave the ball in the opposite player’s hands.

“If you don’t have to block a 300-pounder, why bother?” Bagnall said. “Why try to block everyone when you don’t have to?

“If you don’t always have the kids to line up and play smash-mouth football, why try to teach it? We could have some years, like last year when we had good-sized linemen. But this offense has been good to us.”

The highlight of the first part of Bagnall's coaching career was a number-two ranking in the state in Class A following the 1994 season when the Sabers reached the state semifinals. The second stage of his career included a Lackawanna Football Conference Division 3 title last season.

Bagnall tried to prepare his quarterbacks to take charge of the game, allowing for increasing use of audibles through the years.

“He’s on the field, I’m not,” Bagnall said. “The sideline is the worst place to call plays. If he would see something, it might just be to the run the same play, but run a veer left, instead of veer right. If they had 4 1/2 people on one side of the ball and 6 1/2 on the other side, we want to run against 4 1/2.

“We wanted to go the easiest route.”

WEEK IN REVIEW

Scott Munroe made 25 saves in just his third start of the season Nov. 15 to lead the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to a 3-0 American Hockey League shutout of the visiting Binghamton Senators.

Munroe’s win for the first-place Penguins came a day after Penguins forward Ben Street received the AHL Player of the Week award for the time period ending Nov. 13.

Street had two goals and six assists and a plus-5 rating in three games to help Wilkes-Barre/Scranton take over first place with three straight wins.

COLLEGE CORNER

Elk Lake graduate Bryan Grosvenor played in two games as a freshman midfielder on the Baptist Bible College men’s soccer team.

Grosvenor took one shot, which was on goal.

The Defenders finished 1-7-1 in the Colonial States Athletic Conference and 7-10-1 overall.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Two Lackawanna Football Conference teams continued into the state playoffs by winning district titles. Valley View won the District 2 Class AAA championship and Old Forge won Class A.

Our predictions from last week were 3-0 (100.0 percent), making our record 9-2 (81.8 percent) for the playoffs and 99-26 (79.2 percent) for the season.

This week’s predictions: Valley View 26, Allentown Central Catholic 24; Old Forge 28, Southern Columbia 22.

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

Stewart Wins It All

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - Tony Stewart led Carl Edwards across the finish line to win Sunday’s Ford 400 and claim the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.

The pair finished in a dead heat in points (2403), but Stewart’s five wins was the tiebreaker.

Tony Stewart celebrates winning the 2011 Sprint Cup Championship.

“We did exactly what we had to do and that was to win the race,” said Stewart. “This is for all the people that have helped us. Darian (crew chief Darian Grubb) never gave up. There were times I was so far down, but he always pulled me back up.”

The championship was Stewart’s third. His other two came in 2002 and 2005.

In what was the closest points battle for the championship, Stewart had to come from the tail end of the field twice, after some type of debris punched a hole in his grille during lap 17. His team made repairs under caution.

After another caution on lap 34, Stewart brought the car back to pit road and his crew applied tape to hold the grille in place.

Stewart gradually pulled away after a restart on Lap 231 of the 267-lap race, and claimed his third Cup title, ending Jimmie Johnson’s five consecutive championships.

Carl Edwards started on the pole, led the most laps, but near the end of the race, his Ford was no match for Stewart’s Chevrolet.

“They beat us fair and square,” said Edwards. “I gave it all I had. I said before this thing started that I would give it everything I had. And that’s all I can say.

“We’ll be back next year, and hopefully with what we’ve learned, can pull it off.”

Martin Truex ran third, followed by Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, and Jeff Burton.

Final top-25 leaders: 1. Stewart-2403, 2. Edwards-2403, 3. Harvick-2345, 4. Kenseth-2330, 5. Keselowski-2319, 6. Johnson-2304, 7. Earnhardt-2290, 8. J. Gordon-2287, 9. Hamlin-2284, 10. Newman-2284, 11. Kurt Busch-2264, 12. Kyle Busch-2246, 13. Bowyer-1047, 14. Kahne-1041, 15. Allmendinger-1013, 16. Biffle-997, 17. Menard-947, 18. Truex-937, 19. Ambrose-936, 20. Burton-935, 21. Montoya-932, 22. Martin-930, 23. Ragan-906, 24. Logano-846, 25. Vickers-846

STENHOUSE CLAIMS NATIONWIDE CHAMPIONSHIP

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., finished second behind Brad Keselowski in the season finale at Homestead-Miami and clinched the 2011 Nationwide Series Championship.

“It was just a lot of hard work by all these guys - Jack Roush, Ford Racing, everybody -this crew right here, they didn’t give up on me,” said Stenhouse. “They were with us all through last year and I’m just glad to be here.

“This is just awesome what this team has done, what Jack Roush has done and everybody at Ford Racing and Nationwide Insurance for giving us this great series to run in and all the fans that come out to watch every week. We really appreciate that, especially the ones that support us.”

Carl Edwards finished third and secured the 2011 Nationwide Series Owner’s Championship for Roush Fenway.

Final top-10 leaders: 1. Stenhouse-1222, 2. Sadler-1177, 3. Allgaier-1105, 4. Almirola-1095, 5. Sorenson-1062, 6. Leffler-1028, 7. K. Wallace-963, 8. Scott-947, 9. Annett-921, 10. S. Wallace-921

DILLON GETS TRUCK TITLE

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - Austin Dillon withstood a strong challenge from race winner Johnny Sauter to win the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship in Friday night’s Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

NASCAR called the event with 15 laps left with Sauter in the lead and Dillon in 10th place, giving Dillon, 21, the youngest champion in series history, a six-point edge over Sauter in the final series standings.

“The fender got bent in - I don’t know how it happened,” Dillon said. “I didn’t hit anybody on the track, but I think it happened on pit road. We got real tight once I got back there (in traffic).”

“I remember my first championship with Dale Earnhardt," said team owner Richard Childress, Dillon’s grandfather. “I had the same feeling tonight watching my grandson.”

Denny Hamlin finished second in the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports truck, followed by Kevin Harvick, Nelson Piquet Jr. and Joey Coulter, who won the 2011 rookie of the year title. Coulter is a teammate of Dillon’s at Richard Childress Racing.

Final top-10 leaders: 1. Dillon-888, 2. Sauter-882, 3. Buescher-859, 4. Hornaday-838, 5. Peters-832, 6. Bodine-803, 7. Coulter-796, 8. Carfton-785, 9. Whitt-764, 10. Piguet-752

RUSTY WALLACE HONORED

Rusty Wallace, who climbed out of his No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge for the last time at the end of the 2005 NASCAR Cup Series season, was inducted into the St. Louis, Missouri Hall of Fame last week.

Wallace, a 55-time winner in NASCAR’s top series and the 1989 NASCAR Cup champion, is lead analyst for ESPN’s NASCAR studio programs. He also calls selected NASCAR Nationwide Series races from the booth.

He spent the 2006 season as an analyst for ESPN’s coverage of the IndyCar Series before moving to NASCAR in 2007 as the stock car racing series returned to ESPN.

Wallace, whose 706th career start ended his 2005 season-long “Last Call” tour in the No. 2 Dodge, fell just 28 laps short of leading 20,000 laps in his 25-year career. The 1984 Rookie of the Year ended his 22nd consecutive full-time Cup season eighth in the standings, the 17th time he finished among the top 10. At the time of his retirement, Wallace ranked as one of the top five money winners in NASCAR history, with nearly $50 million in career earnings.

In 1991, Wallace helped form Penske Racing South with Roger Penske and Don Miller, as the Penske name returned to NASCAR after an 11-year absence. Wallace sold his interest when he retired in 2005.

In 1998, NASCAR named him one of its 50 greatest drivers of all time.

Wallace is owner of RWI Racing, which fields the No. 66 Chevrolet, driven by his son, Steve Wallace in the Nationwide Series. In addition, he helped design Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa. He is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) Hall of Fame.

Racing Trivia Question: Which city will host the 2011 Sprint Cup Banquet?

Last Week’s Question: Which Cup team will Kasey Kahne drive for in 2012? Answer. He is replacing Mark Martin at Hendrick Motorsports, who is moving to Michael Waltrip Racing.

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