Brent Keyes has his senior season off to a strong start with the Marywood University men’s basketball team.

The 6-foot-6 forward is one of two seniors from Susquehanna playing for the Pacers. He is joined by 5-10 guard Kirk Fallon.

Keyes, a secondary education/social studies major who was a Colonial States Athletic Conference all-academic selection last season, was selected as one of the team captains prior to the season.

When Marywood opened the season with a trip to West Point, N.Y. to play Division I Army, Keyes was the team’s leading scorer.

Keyes followed that up by making the all-tournament team at the Laurel Line Tournament where the Pacers reached the final before losing, 62-60 to unbeaten Misericordia University, which hosted the event.

In last week's CSAC opener, Keyes had 11 points, nine rebounds and three steals in a 72-69 road victory over Immaculata University.

Through a 2-2 start, Keyes is the team’s leading scorer with 12.3 points per game. He also leads in steals and 3-pointers made with seven.

Keyes is playing an average of 33.8 minutes per game. He is 20-for-46 (43.5 percent) from the floor, 7-for-23 (30.4 percent) on 3-pointers and 2-for-6 (33.3 percent) from the line. He is tied for second on the team with an average of 5.5 rebounds while adding four assists and a blocked shot.

Fallon has appeared in all four games, playing an average of 4.3 minutes. He has two points, two assists, a rebound and a steal.

Keyes had 14 points in the 95-40 loss to Army. He went 3-for-5 on 3-pointers while scoring 11 points in the team’s first win, 70-60, over Arcadia in the Laurel Line opener. He had 13 points in the loss to Misericordia.

In his first three seasons, Keyes appeared in 50 games. He made his first 23 starts last season while averaging 7.2 points and 3.6 rebounds.

Fallon played in 23 games for the Pacers over the past two seasons.

WEEK IN REVIEW

The fall sports season is over for all District 2 teams now that three teams, including two from the Lackawanna Football Conference, were eliminated in high-scoring games Friday night in the first round of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association playoffs.

Allentown Central Catholic downed Valley View, 61-54, in a Class AAA game in Bethlehem when South Carolina recruit Brendan Nosovitch threw for a state playoff-record eight touchdowns and ran for the other score.

Nosovitch went 22-for-35 for 492 yards passing. He hit Kevin Gulyas on a 23-yard pass on fourth-and-17 with 31 seconds remaining to break a 54-54 tie.

Gulyas, the state’s all-time leading receiver, caught nine passes for 226 yards and five touchdowns.

“Our guys did a great job,” said Valley View coach George Howanitz, who started out as a quarterback at Montrose in his playing days before transferring to Valley View where he led the Cougars to the 1992 state Class AA championship. “They did the same thing they did all year.

“They gave us everything we had. We just didn’t stop them very well.”

Valley View ranked among the state leaders in fewest points allowed after giving up 69 points in 12 games with former Susquehanna head coach Joe Zabielski serving as defensive coordinator.

Eight of those points came against the Valley View offense while the Cougars defense gave up just nine touchdowns and 61 points in the regular season and district playoffs combined.

Allentown Central Catholic matched those 12-game totals in a single game, scoring at least 13 points in every quarter against a Valley View team that had not given up more than 12 in a game all season.

The Cougars did their best to counter the Vikings passing with their own potent ground game that helped Valley View move in front by eight late in the third quarter.

Valley View started the second half with 13 straight runs for 217 yards and three touchdowns to add to a score with six seconds left in the half and turn a 33-21 deficit into the 48-40 lead.

The Cougars piled up 29 first downs and outgained the Vikings, 607-596.

Valley View carried 57 times for 542 yards and had three running backs with at least 140.

Tyler Phillips carried 19 times for 184 yards and three touchdowns. Tyler Kapinus (15-for-160), Pat Jeffers (18-for-142) and quarterback Liam Callejas (5-for-56) each ran for a touchdown.

Matt Moore carried 16 times for 252 yards and four touchdowns, including the final two scores of the game, to rally Southern Columbia to a 45-34 victory over Old Forge in a Class A game at Shamokin.

Tyler Levan added 213 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries.

Colin Carey threw for four touchdowns and ran for the other for Old Forge. He went 17-for-31 for 328 yards and four touchdowns.

Dave Argust caught four of the passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns.

Dylan Evans carried 22 times for 189 yards and three touchdowns and also scored on an interception return to lead Pen Argyl to a 50-20 rout of Wilkes-Barre GAR in a Class AA game played at Wyoming Valley West in Kingston.

The games bring an end to our predictions on games involving LFC teams.

Our picks were 0-2 on the week, 9-4 (69.2 percent) for the playoffs and 99-28 (78.0 percent) for the season.

In professional hockey, Brendan DeFazio’s goal with 3:07 remaining lifted the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to a 3-2 victory over the host Binghamton Senators Saturday night.

Scott Munroe made 28 saves and defenseman Philip Samuelson had two assists in the win.

The Penguins lead the American Hockey League East Division with an 11-5-1-4 record. The Senators are last in the five-team division at 7-12-1-1.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Both regional AHL teams are home Friday before heading on the road.

Binghamton is home against Manchester Friday then plays at Worcester Saturday and Connecticut Sunday.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton hosts Portland Friday then plays at Syracuse Saturday.

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

One of the things Carl Edwards has going for him is character.

In his loss to Tony Stewart for this year’s Sprint Cup championship, Carl Edwards was the first to congratulate Stewart.

“He beat us fair and square,” Edwards said after the race.

Carl Edwards, at Pocono in 2011.

Edwards did virtually everything right in the Ford 400 Sunday in pursuit of his first Sprint Cup championship.

He led 119 laps, 54 more than anyone else. He led 90 of the first 112 laps without a serious challenge. He drove a mostly flawless race. He scored a second-place race finish for the third consecutive event.

Yet he fell short of the big prize by a margin so narrow that it really wasn’t a margin. Edwards and Tony Stewart tied for the championship at 2,403 points, but Stewart won the title using the first tiebreaker, race wins (five to one).

It was the first end-of-season tie atop the point standings in the history of NASCAR after a final race that already has been labeled as one of the greatest in the sport’s six decades.

Stewart won the race despite a laundry list of problems during the event, finishing 1.30 seconds ahead of Edwards. It was a tough loss after an eventful season, but a defeat that Edwards absorbed with class.

“Whether we won tonight or we lost, I mean, tomorrow is the start of the next season,” Edwards said. “I was prepared before this race began to do exactly what I'm going to go do, and that's to be even better next year and to apply what I've learned here.

“We knew we could come into this thing and we knew that of all of the circumstances that could happen, this one [the tie] was the least probable. I mean, for us to finish like that, tied, fighting for the win. That is the least probable outcome.

“And so I was prepared for anything. I knew that this was a possibility, though, and I was prepared for this. And I told myself, I told my family that the one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to walk back to that motor home, win, lose or draw, and I'm going to be a good example for my kids and work hard and go be better next season. Because, you know, we talked about it before the race, even if we won this thing, you go halfway through next season and struggle, that's quickly forgotten.

“As painful as this is right now, I know that we have - we are fortunate to have the opportunity to go to Daytona [in February] and just start all over again and go race."

After the race, Edwards met briefly with crew chief Bob Osborne, who seemed particularly shaken by the night’s results. They shook hands before Edwards continued with a raft of post-race media responsibilities.

“I just wanted to make sure that Bob knew that I believe he's the best crew chief here, and that he will be my crew chief for as long as he wants to be, and I'm behind him and his decisions 100 percent,” Edwards said.

“As tough as it is for me, you know, it's tougher, I think, for those guys, the guys that prepare these cars and determine which things we are going to work on throughout the year and what strategies we are going to use. They make some very, very big decisions that they can't turn around.”

Aside from the obvious disappointment of falling short of the championship, Edwards said the run through the Chase will make him a better racer for future title opportunities.

"There are lessons that I learned and things that I learned about myself, about competition, about failure and things about success; things that I could not have learned any other way,” he said. “If there weren't any pressure, there wouldn’t be any diamonds, that's what my trainer says.

“We dealt with a lot of pressure, and I feel very proud of the way our team and myself and everyone has handled everything through this, and I feel that we made it all the way through, and although we didn't come out with the outcome that we wanted, that we are better because of it, you know, and I'm not trying to be philosophical or anything.

“I'm truly telling you, if I'm in this position next year, I'm going to be better at it. I'm going to be - I'll be better. So that's cool. That's something you don't get every day is a lesson like this.”

It takes a real man to come through situations like Edwards did and still remain upbeat.

NATIONWIDE TO LOSE A RACE

The 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series will have one less race. It will be down from the 34-race schedule in 2011, to a 33-races

Nashville Superspeedway, which had two races this year, opted not to have any NASCAR races in 2012, and one of those races will go to Kentucky Speedway.

The race at Montreal, Canada is back on the schedule after months of speculation that it might be dropped after the promoter did not get financial incentives from the government to market the race.

TRUCK SERIES RACES CUT FROM 25 TO 22

NASCAR has reduced the number of races in the Camping World Truck Series from 25 to 22 for 2012.

NASCAR VP Steve O’Donnell indicated they will continue looking at other tracks.

“Looking ahead, interest in the Truck Series continues to grow in a number of different markets and we’re excited about what the future holds for next season and beyond,” O’Donnell said in a news release.

Nashville Superspeedway, which had two dates, has closed. The series also won’t return to Lucas Oil Raceway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway.

The series will go to Rockingham Speedway for the first time and it added a second date at Iowa Speedway.

Racing Trivia Question: What is the relationship between Austin Dillon, the 2011 Camping World Truck Series Champion and Richard Childress?

Last Week’s Question: Which city will host the 2011 Sprint Cup Banquet? Answer. It will be held in Las Vegas on Friday, Dec. 2. It will be shown on the Speed Channel beginning at 9 p.m. ET.

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