Austin Cowperthwait admits being “in awe” of the Dream Game, which he witnessed for the first time last summer when he sat among the huge crowd at Scranton Memorial Stadium watching the 77th annual contest.

The wide receiver/cornerback from Susquehanna is one of four Susquehanna County players on the City roster that will take on the County Wednesday night at 8 in the Scranton Lions Club-sponsored all-star game for graduated high school football players.

“I’m just happy to be a part of it this year,” Cowperthwait said. “Through my whole senior football season, I was trying my hardest to make it on the team.

“It was one of my goals I set.”

Cowperthwait, who plans to play receiver at King’s College, is one of three former Sabers on the team.

Linebacker Jesse Pruitt and lineman Gage Piechocki, both Blue Ridge students who played at Susquehanna as part of the cooperative sponsorship in football, are the others.

Montrose had three players selected but only wide receiver and special teams player Jeremy Dibble will play in the game.

All three former Susquehanna players are using the game as a stepping stone toward playing in college.

Piechocki is also headed to King’s, a Division III program. Pruitt plans to play on the Division II level at Lock Haven University.

Cowperthwait and Dibble are both learning new offenses while playing receiver under Delaware Valley coach Keith Olsommer, a former Penn State tight end.

“It’s different after all the years of running under coach (Dick) Bagnall’s (veer) offense,” said Cowperthwait, who is a candidate for significant time on offense while also being available to fill in defensively. “It’s been difficult, but when the coaches run it over and over again, you start to catch on and learn it.”

Dibble is also facing a change in offensive style from what the Meteors used during a winless 2011 season in Russell Canevari’s first year as coach.

“As far as wide receiver, the routes at the same,” Dibble said. “But, we’re running a completely different offense that what I was used to. There are a lot of formations.

“The first few days were tough.”

The blocking schemes for Piechocki, who has been working at left tackle, are also different than those used in an option offense.

“It’s a huge adjustment,” he said. “The system’s pretty different, but most guys are going through that.”

Cowperthwait was a second-team Lackawanna Football Conference Division III all-star on both sides of the ball last season, according to <http://www.northeastpafootball.com/>www.northeastpafootball.com.

Pruitt, who also played fullback, was Susquehanna’s only first-team division all-star for his play at linebacker. That is where he is most likely to be found during the Dream Game.

Piechocki was a second-team all-star in the defensive line. He is working at tackle on both sides of the ball.

“The linemen we have are good,” said Olsommer, who plans to use most of them both ways. “We just don’t have a lot of them.”

Dibble said he is considering enlisting in the Navy but has not ruled out a future in football if he takes the college route instead.

The Dream Game, which benefits blindness prevention programs, annually draws crowds in the 6,000-8,000 range.

“It’s going to be good,” Cowperthwait said. “I’ll just have to calm my nerves and play football.”

THE WEEK AHEAD

The complete schedule of events for Pennsylvania 400 weekend at Pocono Raceway Friday through Sunday has been announced.

Grandstand admission gates open Friday through Sunday at 8 a.m.

NASCAR Truck Series final practice is scheduled for Friday at 9 a.m. followed by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at noon and the final ARCA practice at 1:40 p.m. The final Sprint Cup practice at 3:30 is followed by ARCA qualifying at 5:15.

Saturday morning features qualifying with the Truck Series at 9:35 and Sprint Cup at 10:40. The afternoon has races with the Pocono Mountains 125 Truck Series race at 1 and the Pennsylvania 125 ARCA race at 3.

Sunday’s pre-race festivities begin at noon with driver introductions at 12:30. The Pennsylvania 400, a Sprint Cup race, is set for 1 p.m.

LOOKING AHEAD

All possible Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees home playoff games will be held at Frontier Field in Rochester, N.Y.

The Yankees moved into first place in the International League North Division for the first time in more than a year July 21 and were back in first place at the time of the announcement.

The IL playoffs include three division champions and a wild-card team. Dates and times of possible playoff games are to be determined.

The Yankees have rotated temporary home sites throughout the 2012 season while PNC Field in Moosic is being rebuilt. They played 38 of the home games in Rochester, the most of any one site.

TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can be reached online at <mailto:RobbyTR@aol.com>RobbyTR@aol.com or followed on Twitter at @tomjrobinson.

JOHNSON GETS FOURTH BRICKYARD VICTORY

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Jimmie Johnson powered his way to his fourth career Sprint Cup Brickyard 400 victory. He led 99 laps of the 160-lap race, finished nearly five seconds ahead of runner-up driver Kyle Busch, and completely dominated the last 30 laps.

His teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished fifth, said, “He had it easy, there was no that could race with him.”

Johnson took command with 31-laps remaining and pulled away from the rest of the field.

“To get four wins at this track is awesome,” said Johnson. “We put it on them today, but it was a total team effort. The guys in the pits got me out, and I never lost any positions on the track.”

Jimmie Johnson gets his fourth Brickyard victory

Kyle Busch had an up and down race, but near the end he clearly had the second-best car.

“I had to congratulate Jimmie and his team,” said Busch. “They really had the car dialed in. We couldn’t even get close to them.”

Greg Biffle led four laps, but at the end, his No. 16 Ford was no match for Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet, and he was third.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished fourth to take over the points lead. This is the first time he’s led the points since 2004.

“We worked on the car all day,” said Earnhardt. “We were fast, but we only had about a fourth or fifth-place car. We’ve still got a long ways to go in the season, and I feel like we should be able to get some more wins.”

Jeff Gordon had a fast car, but he had problems in the pits, and finished fifth.

“Track position cost us,” he said. “We had a car that could compete with Jimmie, but we lost track position several times. On that last restart, I had to start on the outside, and that killed me.”

Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman, Martin Truex, Brad Keselowski, and Tony Stewart were the remaining top-10 finishers.

Carl Edwards, one of the drivers struggling to make the Chase field had engine problems and finished 29th, four laps off the pace.

Previous points leader Matt Kenseth was the victim of a Joey Logano spin during lap 133, and wound up 35th with a DNF.

Top-12 Chase leaders after 20 of 36: 1. Earnhardt-731, 2. Kenseth-717, 3. Biffle-709, 4. Johnson-704, 5. Hamlin-667, 6. Harvick-653, 7. Truex-653, 8. Stewart-652, 9. Keselowski-649, 10. Bowyer-643, 11. Kyle Busch-588, 12. Edwards-582.

KESELOWSKI WINS CONTROVERSIAL NATIONWIDE RACE

Brad Keselowski won Saturday’s Nationwide race at Indy, after Elliott Sadler was penalized for jumping a restart.

“NASCAR got it all wrong,” Sadler said.

Taking advantage of the NASCAR penalty to Elliott Sadler, Brad Keselowski cruised to victory ahead of Sam Hornish.

Sadler, who got a push into the lead from Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon on a restart late in the race, asserted that race leader Keselowski had spun his tires coming to the green flag, and that is why he crossed the stripe ahead of Keselowski, who was the leader.

“It's so wrong to penalize me for a mistake they made,” Sadler radioed to his crew. “NASCAR just took the championship away from me. They just took the damn championship right out of our hands.”

Keselowski beat Penske Racing teammate Sam Hornish Jr. to the finish line by 3.3 seconds. Ty Dillon ran third, followed by Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Michael Annett, Joey Logano, Paul Menard, Ricky Stenhouse, and Jeremy Clements.

Top-10 leaders after 19 of 33: 1. Sadler-704, 2. A. Dillon-703, 3. Stenhouse-691, 4. Hornish-676, 5. Allgaier-629, 6. Annett-607, 7. Whitt-577, 8. Bliss-525, 9. Scott-460, 10. Patrick-452.

FRANCE TO IMPROVE RACING

NASCAR chairman Brian France doesn't buy the argument that if it isn't broke, don't fix it. France said he is committed to ensuring the Cup series has the best racing possible, even if some believe there's nothing wrong with the current product.

“We can do better. We can have the packages better, tighter racing,” France told The Associated Press. “That's our stated goal and we have to get there. With the new car coming, we want to get this right. And we know it will be hard to keep it right.”

Fans have complained about stretches of racing this season, particularly a two-month swing that saw lots of strung-out, green-flag racing. NASCAR has made slight aerodynamic changes to the cars twice this season to try to make passing easier, and series leaders want the best possible package on next year's car. France said if there are improvements that can be implemented now; he won't wait for the 2013 car.

In other news, NASCAR is kicking around the idea of qualifying the top-38 drivers on time and cutting the number of provisionals down to four plus one for former champions. With sponsors at a premium right now, it could be catastrophic to eliminate provisionals altogether, particularly when a driver missing a race could result in a sponsor pulling out.

NASCAR is sticking to its policy of not disclosing the specific substances that cause positive drug tests. President Mike Helton said Thursday that even though the rulebook allows series officials to disclose which drugs a competitor has tested positive for, he does not intend to stray from the long-standing policy of keeping those results private.

Helton cited federal privacy laws as one reason the series has not publicly said what caused A.J. Allmendinger's positive test.

Allmendinger was suspended hours before the July 7 race and is now serving an indefinite suspension. His business manager, Tara Ragan, said he tested positive for an amphetamine.

Allmendinger has said he did not knowingly ingest a banned substance, and has hired an independent laboratory in an attempt to figure out how he tested positive. But Allmendinger is not fighting the suspension and has instead said he will participate in NASCAR's anti-drug program, which includes an evaluation by a substance abuse professional, along with potential counseling and rehabilitation, so he can be reinstated.

Weekend Racing: The Cup and truck teams will be at the 2.5-mile Pocono Raceway, while the Nationwide series is at the seven-eighths-mile Newton, Iowa track.

Sat., Aug. 4, Camping World Truck Series Pennsylvania Mountains 125, race 11 of 22; Starting time: 12:30 pm ET; TV: SPEED.

Sat., Aug. 4, Nationwide Series Iowa Summer 250, race 20 of 33; Starting time: 7:30 pm ET; TV: ESPN2.

Sun., Aug 5, Sprint Cup Pennsylvania 400, race 21 of 36; Starting time: 12 noon; TV: ESPN.

Racing Trivia Question: Which Cup team does Jeff Burton drive for?

Last Week's Question: Note: Last week’s question should have read: Who was the first driver to win three consecutive NASCAR Cup championships? Hint. They came in 1976, ’77, ’78. Answer. Cale Yarborough.

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