The start of high school football season turned out to be a rough one Saturday for both Susquehanna County teams.

Facing experienced opponents while their own lineups went through major adjustments from last season, Susquehanna and Montrose were each rocked in their openers.

Western Wayne came to Susquehanna and pounded the Sabers, 50-0, in the debut of John Salinkas as head coach.

Montrose had its opener postponed Friday and moved to a new site and time.

The Meteors fell to Carbondale, 34-8, in a Saturday night game at Western Wayne. Construction work at Carbondale forced the game to be moved.

Western Wayne showed off a lineup that returned five all-stars and got back standout running back Rob Siclari, who missed most of last season with a serious knee injury. Siclari had four touchdowns in the win over Susquehanna.

Carbondale returned starters at 21 of 22 positions.

The Wildcats and Chargers were too much for the Sabers and Meteors.

Western Wayne took a 13-0 lead after one quarter. After stopping three early Susquehanna scoring threats, the Wildcats broke the game open, running their lead to 34-0 at halftime and 50-0 by the midway point in the third quarter.

Carbondale scored the first 34 points before Evan Castrogiavanni broke a 20-yard touchdown run for Montrose.

While most of the Lackawanna Football Conference teams played outside their divisions on the first weekend, Montrose and Carbondale played the Division 3 opener.

Siclari and Jayson Figueroa, who scored on three of his four carries, each ran for more than 100 yards for Western Wayne. Siclari carried eight times for 106 yards and two of his four touchdowns. Figueroa carried four times for 116 yards.

C.J. Monks helped Susquehanna cross midfield on each of its first three possessions.

Monks pulled in a 54-yard pass from Cole Mallery to the Wildcats 14. The Sabers pushed to fourth-and-one at the 5 on the game's opening possession before Siclari led the charge to throw Mallery for an eight-yard loss on fourth down.

Figueroa went around left end for a 53-yard touchdown on Western Wayne's fourth play for a 7-0 lead.

Monks returned the ensuing kickoff 36 yards to midfield and James Murnock ran twice for a first down at the Western Wayne 39.

A first-down sack and a second-down interception by Siclari ended the threat.

Siclari returned the interception 29 yards to set up a 37-yard drive and his own 3-yard touchdown for a 13-0 lead after one quarter.

Monks again broke off a long kick return, carrying it 45 yards to the Western Wayne 27.

After getting to the 12, the Sabers had consecutive penalties before James Berger came up with the second on three Western Wayne interceptions.

The Sabers came up with one big defensive stop to try to remain in the game. They recovered a fumble at the 3, but got pinned there.

Siclari then returned the punt 34 yards for a touchdown before adding the two-point run for a 21-0 lead.

After gaining 64 yards on the first three possessions, the Sabers gained 12 the rest of the game. They had minus-13 yards in the second half when they were unable to produce a first down.

During that time, Western Wayne blew the game open.

Figueroa ran 16 and 45 yards for touchdowns and a 34-0 halftime lead.

Western Wayne scored three more times by the midway point in the third quarter.

Siclari ran 66 yards for a touchdown, Mallery was sacked for a safety and Siclari ran back the free kick 61 yards for a touchdown.

In addition to his two kickoffs for 81 yards and reception for 54 yards, Monks made five tackles.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Elk Lake won the junior girls' title Saturday in the season-opening Cliff Robbins Memorial Cross Country Invitational at Leatherkenny Fields in Dallas.

Susquehanna joined Elk Lake in competing in the event.

Elk Lake placed six girls in the top 11 to win in a junior high girls' field of 15 teams and 147 runners. They outscored Holy Cross, 33-65, for the title.

Keri Jones finished third. Justine Johns, Korena Kraynak, Lexus Hemenway, Katie Bennett and Julie Vanetten finished in order from seventh to 11th place.

Susquehanna finished 13th. Taylor Williams and Lauren Soden took 53rd and 54th place.

Elk Lake was fourth in the varsity girls' race while Susquehanna was 17th out of 18 teams.

Jenny Vanetten led Elk Lake by placing eighth out of 198 runners. Lainey Bedell was 23rd and Kenzie Jones 29th.

Ivy Christenson was 27th to lead Susquehanna.

The Elk Lake boys were sixth and Susquehanna 19th of 23.

Luke Jones finished third out of the 238 runners in the race.

Susquehanna's Brandon Soden was 32nd.

Hunter Bedell was 34th and Dalton Sherman 36th for Elk Lake.

Elk Lake was seventh and Susquehanna last in the 17-team junior high boys' race.

Daniel Bell, Ty Moon and Dakota Oswald were 19th through 21st to lead Elk Lake.

In high school golf, Mountain View defeated Carbondale, Forest City and Riverside to improve to 3-1 in Lackawanna League Division 2.

Montrose, last year's Northern Division champion, suffered its first two losses and fell to 2-2 in Division 2.

In girls' volleyball, Susquehanna gave Dunmore a tough battle before falling, 25-21, 25-15, 25-21, in Friday's Lackawanna League opener.

The two teams won division titles last season when the league operated under a two-division format.

The win was the 17th straight for Dunmore, dating back to 2010, in league play.

In Minor League Baseball, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees won their fifth International League North Division title in six years and Dave Miley was selected IL Manager of the Year.

COLLEGE CORNER

William Paterson scored a touchdown with seven seconds left to spoil the football season opener for King's College, 9-3, Saturday.

Dan Kempa, a former Blue Ridge student and Susquehanna player, caught two passes for 23 yards and returned a punt 10 yards for King's. He is a sophomore wide receiver.

The King's roster also includes Ethan Jones, a sophomore linebacker from Montrose; and Austin Cowperthwait, a freshman wide receiver from Susquehanna.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Susquehanna and Montrose will travel to Wyoming Valley Conference schools for Friday night football games.

The Sabers (0-1) will be at Northwest (1-0) while the Meteors (0-1) will be at Lake-Lehman (0-1).

Our opening weekend high school football predictions were 12-3 (80.0 percent).

This week's predictions, with home teams in CAPS: NORTHWEST 32, Susquehanna 21; LAKE-LEHMAN 36, Montrose 17; Wyoming Valley West 29, DELAWARE VALLEY 15; SCRANTON 27, Pittston Area 7; WALLENPAUPACK 30, Honesdale 26; DUNMORE 27, Gar 0; LAKELAND 37, Valley View 24; MID VALLEY 41, Wyoming Area 23; RIVERSIDE 30, Carbondale 7; Scranton Prep 26, WESTERN WAYNE 9; LACKAWANNA TRAIL 35, Hanover Area 0; CRESTWOOD 32, North Pocono 31; West Scranton 17, TUNKHANNOCK 6; Old Forge 48, MEYERS 15; DALLAS 18, Abington Heights 6; Holy Cross 34, HOLY REDEEMER 31.

In high school cross country, the Lackawanna League season opens Wednesday with several cluster meets.

Elk Lake, Blue Ridge and Montrose will each compete against Delaware Valley and host Wallenpaupack.

Susquehanna and Mountain View each face Dunmore and Riverside at Lackawanna Trail.

Forest City will face North Pocono, Valley View and host Abington Heights.

In boys' soccer, the Lackawanna League Division 3 schedule opens Monday, Sept. 10. Elk Lake is at Old Forge, Mountain View is at Holy Cross, Montrose is at Lakeland, Forest City is at Mountain View and Blue Ridge is at Riverside.

In Minor League Baseball, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees open the best-of-five International League semifinal in Pawtucket Wednesday. After playing Game Two in Pawtucket Thursday, the next three games, if needed, will be played in Rochester, N.Y. with the Yankees as the home team.

The Yankees won the North Division despite spending the entire season away from home while PNC Field in Moosic is being reconstructed.

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

STEWART ON WRECKING AND RUMORS

Rumors have been circulating that Tony Stewart might switch crew chief Greg Zipadelli from the No. 10 team, driven by Danica Patrick to his No. 14.

However, Stewart denied a media report that Zipadelli would become his crew chief in 2013.

“No, that's not true,”' Stewart said during a promotion this past week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “That's the first I've even heard about it. Nobody has thought about that or discussed that. We're pretty comfortable where we're at with our lineup right now.”

Tony Stewart

Stewart and Zipadelli won two Sprint Cup titles together at Joe Gibbs Racing before Stewart became the driver/owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009. Zipadelli joined Stewart as competition director at SHR this season. Zipadelli also is the crew chief for Danica Patrick's 10 Cup races this season. Stewart said there are no plans to leave Zipadelli with Patrick when she moves to Cup full time in 2013.

Stewart seemed to have put most of the frustration from a crash involving Matt Kenseth at Bristol last week behind him.

“You get over that stuff,” he said. “That's part of racing for as long as I can remember, and that won't be the last time you ever see two drivers have a disagreement.”

Stewart tossed his helmet at Kenseth after the pair had tangled on the track, and said, “I checked-up twice to not run over him (Kenseth) and I learned my lesson there. I'm going to run over him every chance I've got from now 'til the end of the year … every chance I've got.”

But Stewart didn't completely back down from believing Kenseth wrecked him intentionally as payback for incidents between the two at Sonoma and Indianapolis.

Kenseth said Saturday he tried to clear the air after the Indianapolis wreck, and when Stewart wouldn't talk to him he decided to race the defending Cup champion the same way.

“He flat out said it was payback,” Stewart said.

After watching the Bristol replay, Stewart felt Kenseth was blocking him similar to the way he did at Indianapolis.

“You know what pace you're running, and his pace on the restart wasn't what it was before,” Stewart said. “When I passed him I wasn't trying to wreck him. I was trying to go on.

“When a guy is willing to risk wrecking himself leading the race with 180 (laps) to go with bonus points and all that … it's obvious. Why would you do that unless you were trying to?”

NASCAR released a statement that said they would not penalize Stewart for his helmet-throwing.

“I'm glad it's approved,” he continued. “I figured I would get some kind of penalty for it. It's nice to know that is something we can get away with.

“I just wish we could get a more lengthy list of what we can do and can't do. I think we could make it a lot more entertaining if we had a list of what we can do.”

KENSETH TO JOE GIBBS IN 2013

Joe Gibbs Racing plans to announce this week that Matt Kenseth will be its newest driver beginning in 2013.

According to ESPN, the 2003 Sprint Cup champion will take over the No. 20 team driven by Joey Logano with Home Depot as his primary sponsor. JGR president J.D. Gibbs said on Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway he still held out hope of re-signing Logano and adding a fourth team if sponsorship can be found.

Logano also is a candidate for the No. 22 Cup team at Penske Racing, currently being driven by Sam Hornish. He recently said he was not interested in a part-time Cup ride and full-time Nationwide Series ride, and that was one of his options at JGR.

“He was OK with that until another opportunity came up,” Gibbs said of Logano.

BIFFLE TO RACE MORE AGGRESSIVELY

Greg Biffle said now that his team is locked into the Chase, he plans to race more “aggressively.”

“We have been decent in the points so we have kind of tried to step out of the box and do some things to try and learn for the Chase and really be more aggressive with the setup and go for the win and say, ‘Hey, if it doesn’t work we won’t cry over spilled milk.’ That is all you can do,” said Biffle. “You can’t flip a switch. We are already running as hard as we can. The thing we can do is take some more chances on the setup, whether it might work for the race or not is basically what we have been doing.

“I think Richmond is a good track for that. It is a great short track, middle of the road for us and I would say it is a good track for the cut off. I like the tracks, and I am a little bias, but I like the tracks that are in the Chase. It is a good mix. The only ones that I would arguably say is that I would rather see something other than Martinsville.

“Having a restrictor plate race in it is kind of a bit of a gamble and bit of a roll of the dice. I think we need to go to Talladega for sure but I would rather see Atlanta in the Chase and Talladega prior to Richmond. Think about that. That would set up the wild card and the Chase or the run to getting in to the Chase and it would be just as exciting. You have a little more control of your destiny that way in the Chase than you would with a restrictor plate race. Everybody knows as well as I do that you could have a 15-20 car wreck at those places. It seems sometimes unfair that something like that can make or break your whole season.”

This weekend’s race at Richmond will be the last race before the Chase begins. NASCAR will reset the driver points and the first of 10 races for this year’s Chase will begin Sept. 16th at Chicagoland.

Weekend Racing: The Nationwide and Cup teams will have night races at the .75-mile Richmond, Virginia track. The trucks do not race again until Sept. 15th.

Fri., Sept. 7, Nationwide College Savings 250, race 25 of 33; Starting time: 7 pm ET; TV: ESPN2.

Sat., Sept. 8, Sprint Cup Pistachios 400, race 26 of 36; Starting time: 7 pm ET; TV: ABC.

Racing Trivia Question: Who won the first Cup race held at Chicagoland Speedway?

Last Week's Question: How many Cup teams does Richard Petty Motorsports field? Answer. Two; Team 43, driven by Aric Almirola, and Team 9, driven by Marcos Ambrose.

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

The Hallstead/Great Bend Lions held their annual golf tournament on August 5, 2012 at the Golden Oaks, Windsor, NY.

Pictured is the 1st place team: Brad Ferro, Matt Woosman, Mike Bloomer Jr. and Ben Hinkley.

It is one of our fund raisers for the year. The Hallstead/Great Bend Lions help out with eye glasses and hearing aids, sponsor the annual Hallstead Easter egg hunt and hold a senior’s dinner during the holidays. These are just a few of the things that we do throughout the year.