ARCHBALD – One practice with the Red team in preparation for the March 26 Lackawanna League Boys’ Basketball All-Star Game gave Sawyer Dearborn an indication that the squad would be in good shape for the game at Valley View High School.

“I knew on Sunday when the team showed up at practice that we had the upper hand,” Blue Ridge’s Dearborn said.

Dearborn then made sure the Red lived up to his hopes in the seniors-only game, earning team Most Valuable Player honors in a 101-87 victory over the Blue.

“It was a nice collection of guys,” Dearborn said. “You could tell we would do some special things.”

Dearborn provided an early highlight with an alley-oop dunk in transition off a pass from Wallenpaupack’s Jake Brown.

Brown finished with 15 points, sharing the team scoring lead with John Rinaldi of Dunmore.

Dearborn added 14 points and was the only Red player with two steals. He also had five rebounds and a blocked shot.

The Red team included four Susquehanna County players – Dearborn, Susquehanna’s Cole Mallery and Andrzej Tomczyk and Elk Lake’s Rob Heft.

The Susquehanna County players were joined by players from state Class AA finalist Holy Cross, Dunmore, Lakeland, Wallenpaupack and Mid Valley.

Dave Rosenkrans of Lakeland coached the Red.

Joe Ferguson of Scranton Prep coached the Blue, which featured players from Abington Heights, Scranton, Scranton Prep, Riverside, Old Forge, North Pocono, Valley View and Honesdale.

Heft went 4-for-8 shooting, including 2-for-4 on 3-pointers, while adding 10 points for the Red. He also grabbed two rebounds.

Mallery had two points, four rebounds and two assists. Tomczyk had three points, two rebounds and one assist.

T.J. Murray of Abington Heights was the Blue MVP.

Murray and Scranton’s Andrew Moran, who had 12 rebounds and five assists, led the Blue with 13 points each.

Liam Callejas of Valley View and Matt Knowles and Mac Temples of Scranton Prep all added 10 points. Temples also had four steals.

The Blue answered Dearborn’s dunk with eight straight points for a 13-10 lead.

Kyle Kiehart of Lakeland converted a Tomczyk pass for a 3-pointer to put the Red ahead to stay, 17-16, with 2:46 left in the first quarter.

Kiehart’s 3-pointer started a streak of 16 straight points in less than 2 ½ minutes for a 30-16 lead. Kiehart had all eight of his points during that streak and assisted on a 3-pointer and another basket by Rinaldi.

Mallery scored during an 11-1, second-quarter run that extended the Red lead to 45-27.

A 51-32 halftime advantage grew into the game’s biggest lead, 29 points, three times in the third quarter.

Dearborn created the first of those leads with consecutive baskets to cap a streak of nine straight points for a 65-36 advantage with 5:06 left.

Heft scored off a rebound for a 67-38 lead. He hit two 3-pointers in the first 1:24 of the fourth quarter.

After Heft’s last score, the Blue made it a game by scoring 20 straight points, including four consecutive 3-pointers, two of them by Murray.

The streak closed the gap to 82-79 and the Blue eventually closed within 84-82.

Brown then hit a 3-pointer with 3:50 left and made a steal to set up a Dearborn basket on the fastbreak. The Red did not get closer than six the rest of the way as Brown scored nine points in the final four minutes.

“Jake Brown was the glue that kept us together,” Dearborn said.

North Pocono’s Marty Kelly won the 3-point contest that preceded the game.

GIRLS’ ALL-STAR GAME

FOREST CITY – The Lackawanna League Girls’ Basketball All-Star Game turned into a mismatch with the decision to go with a large school vs. small school format.

The Blue team, made up of players from Divisions 1 and 2, crushed the Red team, with players from Divisions 3 and 4, by a 97-44 margin.

The Blue shut out the Red in the second quarter while taking a 53-10 lead. The only Red points in a stretch of nearly 15 minutes were a three-point play by Katie Purcell of Holy Cross, against limited opposition, while playing with a boot on her injured right foot in the first five seconds of the second half.

The Blue followed with a 13-point streak for a 66-13 lead before the Red scored again with 5:27 left in the third quarter.

Mountain View’s Victoria Sterling, Forest City’s Kyle Borick and Elk Lake’s Meghan Bush played for the Red in the loss.

Sterling hit a 3-pointer and also had a rebound and an assist.

Borick had two points, two rebounds and a steal.

Bush had a game-high four steals along with a point and a rebound.

The Wallenpaupack combination of Alexix Roman and Kaelyn Ragonese led the Blue to victory.

Roman, a 6-footer, had game-high totals of 23 points and 14 rebounds. She grabbed 11 offensive rebounds to help the Blue destroy the Red on the boards, 74-30.

Roman was named Blue Most Valuable Player and also won the pregame free throw shooting contest.

Ragonese added 17 points.

Kat Rosencrance of Abington Heights had 12 points, six rebounds and two steals while Danielle Dalessandro of Scranton Prep had 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Emily Mineo of Holy Cross was the Red MVP and the 3-point shooting contest winner. Mineo went 2-for-4 on 3-pointers during the game and finished with 11 points and four rebounds.

Roman had six points and seven rebounds during the second quarter when the Blue stretched a 29-10, first-quarter lead to 53-10 at halftime.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Susquehanna is one of three teams to finish the first week 2-0 in Lackawanna League boys’ volleyball after defeating defending champion Lackawanna Trail Thursday.

The Sabers opened the season March 26 with a 25-10, 25-13, 25-15 romp over host Blue Ridge. They followed it up by squeezing out a 26-24, 25-21, 26-24 victory at home against Lackawanna Trail.

Western Wayne and Abington Heights are also 2-0.

Susquehanna was scheduled to play at Western Wayne Tuesday for a share of the lead. Western Wayne tied Lackawanna Trail for first place last year before losing in a playoff for the title.

In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins beat the American Hockey League rival Binghamton Senators twice in four days.

The Penguins won, 4-2, at home Wednesday.

Chad Kolarik assisted on the first goal and scored the second when Wilkes-Barre/Scranton put together the game’s first three goals in a span of less than five minutes during the first period.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton then won a shootout, 3-2, in Binghamton Saturday.

Kolarik and Trevor Smith scored in regulation and in the shootout for the Penguins.

Riley Holzapfel also connected in the shootout when Wilkes-Barre/Scranton went 3-for-4.

Jeff Zatkoff saved 27 of 29 shots in the game then stopped three of five shootout attempts for the Penguins.

COLLEGE CORNER

Karin Mowry is off to another strong start.

The senior catcher from Elk Lake is the latest Baptist Bible College women’s Athlete of the Week, taking the award for the second time in five weeks this softball season.

Mowry, one of the nation’s top Division III offensive players a year ago, leads BBC with a .405 average after 10 games. She went 5-for-6, hitting for the cycle in a March 23 doubleheader against Cabrini College, stealing two bases and scoring four of the team’s five runs in the process.

Baptist Bible is 0-2 in the Colonial States Athletic Conference and 3-7 overall.

Mowry is 15-for-37 with 10 runs and four RBI in 10 games. She has six stolen bases, two doubles, two triples and a home run.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Susquehanna is at Abington Heights Thursday in a boys’ volleyball match between two of the three teams that entered the week tied for first place in the Lackawanna League with 2-0 records.

In professional baseball, the rebuilt PNC Field will be unveiled Thursday at 7 p.m. with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders International League home opener in Moosic against the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Hall of Fame slugger Reggie Jackson is scheduled to throw out the first pitch.

Jackson hit 563 career regular-season home runs and was a two-time World Series MVP, including 1977 when he hit five home runs in the World Series.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre spent the entire 2012 season on the road. The team was them renamed from the Yankees to the RailRiders.

The Binghamton Mets open the Eastern League schedule the same day on the road with a game in Akron at 6:35.

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

LARSON IS QUITE A SURPRISE

Kyle Larson at phoenix in 2013. Furnished by NASCAR

Kyle Larson, the 20-year-old Japanese-American driver has turned out to be one of the biggest surprises in this year’s Nationwide Series. After battling Kyle Busch to the finish line two weeks ago at Bristol, he is 7th in points.

That’s quite an achievement for such a young driver.

In Larson's first four races of the 2013 season, also the first of his NASCAR Nationwide career, he opened the season with a pair of 13th-place finishes at Daytona and Phoenix followed by a 32nd-place finish at Las Vegas after an accident ended his day 18 laps shy of the scheduled 200.

His runner-up finish at Bristol moved Larson up five positions in the standings and has some considering him as a possible dark horse in the championship race. The way in which he raced Busch in the closing laps drew praise from the driver of the No. 54 Toyota and opened a lot of eyes throughout the garage.

“You know, you know, I just want go out there and win more races, really,” said Larson. “I don't usually worry too much about points races, so this year was kind of a shocker to me that I was up there in the points just because it seems like my driving style is more of a go out there and try and win races. Just keep on winning races and running up front, and if I run for points again in something, it would be nice to win a championship.”

Larson was signed for the 2012 racing season by Earnhardt Ganassi Racing (EGR) as part of the team's driver development program. In February 2012, at the Pete Orr Memorial Orange Blossom 100 at New Smyrna Speedway, Larson made his first start in a full-bodied stock car, and won the event, leading only the final lap of the race. He won again at the speedway a week later during the World Series of Asphalt.

Expect to see and hear more about this young driver.

HAMLIN OUT SIX WEEKS

Denny Hamlin will miss at least five races as he recovers from a compression fracture in his lower back suffered in a crash March 17 at California Speedway.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver visited neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty last week, and Petty determined that Hamlin would not need surgery but would need an “estimated around six weeks time” to heal, according to a JGR news release.

The main factors in determining when Hamlin can race will be his ability to work the pedals, the potential for a more serious injury if he is involved in another crash, and his pain threshold since NASCAR’s substance-abuse policy restricts the amount of painkillers Hamlin can have in his system.

“This one is tough because it’s your core, it’s the whole centerpiece of your body that really takes a lot of (G-forces) and things like that anyway,” Hamlin told reporters when he left the hospital Monday.

“I just don’t know how my body will react to being in a car, and obviously we’ve got some obstacles just as far as getting in the car with the bracing I need. There’s no way at this point I could get in a car with no bracing. … If we don’t do surgery, you do have a fracture, so I don’t want to make it worse. It’s not worth that.”

Hamlin is the second title contender in less than a year to have to miss races because of injury. Dale Earnhardt Jr. missed two races in the Chase last year after suffering two concussions within six weeks.

Missing at least five races will likely end Hamlin’s Chase hopes because he does not have a victory in the first five races of this season and will fall out of the top-10 in the standings following Martinsville.

After 26 races, the top-10 drivers plus the two drivers in 11th to 20th place with the most wins make the Chase. That means a driver can miss races, but no more than three or four, and still make the Chase.

Hamlin has not missed a Cup race since he stepped into the seat of the No. 11 car with seven races left in the 2005 season, a streak of 264 races that will come to an end at Martinsville.

Mark Martin will fill in for Hamlin next weekend at Martinsville Speedway. Martin will return to the No. 55 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota at Texas Motor Speedway on April 13 and resume his previously scheduled run of events with MWR for the remainder of the 2013 NASCAR Sprint cup season.

DOUBLE STANDARD FOR STEWART

Tony Stewart talks out of both sides of his mouth. Usually, his left hand doesn’t know what the right one is doing.

Joey Logano did what just about any driver would have done Sunday when he blocked Tony Stewart on the final restart to keep Stewart from taking the lead. Stewart took exception and tried to start a fight after the race, even though he’s done the same thing several times in the past

I recall that Stewart intentionally crashed Brian Vickers in 2011 at Sonoma after Vickers blocked him earlier in the race.

Still, Stewart thought Logano’s actions at California Speedway were completely unacceptable.

“That little &*$#@ runs us clear down to the infield,” Stewart said. “He wants to $%^*! about everybody else; he’s the one that drives like a little &*?@!. I’m going to bust his a--.”

Whether or not Stewart actually comes through on that threat is debatable, but NASCAR could’ve fined him for the language he used in the post-race interview. In this year alone, the sanctioning body has already suspended Nationwide Series driver Jeremy Clements for inappropriate comments he made in an off-the-record conversation, and it fined Denny Hamlin $25,000 three weeks ago for saying the Generation-6 car didn’t race well.

But this type of double standard is something Stewart has been known for throughout his career.

ART MALONE PASSES

Art Malone, a legendary driver in drag racing and other motorsports, died March 29 at the age of 76. Few racers have enjoyed a more varied and exciting career than Malone, who not only was a successful dragstrip owner and driver, but also gained fame as a driver at the legendary Indy 500 [running two Indy 500's].

Raised in Tampa, Fla., Malone got his first taste of drag racing when he and a group of teenage buddies made a trip to the West Coast to attend the first NHRA event in Pomona in 1953. Upon returning to Florida, he began staging races at Henderson Airfield in Tampa, charging 25 cents a head to cover the cost of trophies for the winners.

After substituting as a driver for “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, who was recovering from burns suffered when a dragster engine exploded, Malone began racing on his own.

He soon ventured into the world of circle-track competition, where he became the first driver to exceed 180 mph on an oval course with a 181.561-mph lap at Daytona International Speedway in 1961.

Weekend Racing: The Truck and Cup teams will be at Martinsville Speedway. At .526-miles, it is the smallest NASCAR track on the circuit. The Nationwide Series does not race again until April 12.

Sat., Apr. 6, Camping World Truck Series, race 2 of 22; Starting time: 1:30 pm ET; TV: SPEED.

Sun., Apr. 7, Sprint Cup Series, race 6 of 36; Starting time: 1 pm ET; TV: Fox.

Racing Trivia Question: What was the first year Kasey Kahne ran the Sprint Cup series?

Last Week’s Question: Who won the inaugural Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway? Answer. Jeff Burton was the winner of the 1997 inaugural race at TMS.

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

Sarah Ficarro

SUNY Fredonia senior Sarah Ficarro completed her NCAA Division III springboard diving career this past week becoming a seven-time All-American in the process. In her final season on the swimming and diving team she was elected as a team co-captain, selected to the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) first team all-conference team and a campus finalist for the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence.

Ficarro was selected to attend this year’s national event in Shenandoah, TX by placing first in the 1 meter 11 dive event with a conference record score of 517.65 and by placing 2nd in the 3 meter 11 dive event with a score of 532.1 at the first ever NCAA Division III zone meet held March 1st and 2nd, 2013 in Ithaca, NY. Only twenty-four women were selected from the four zones across America to compete at the national event. A two-time National runner-up, Ficarro received an honorable mention All-American award for her 11th place finish on the 3 meter spring board but finished 23rd on the 1 meter springboard when her knee buckled on her first dive resulting in a failed dive.

Sarah is a speech pathology major with a minor in psychology. She is the daughter of Jay and Jerri Ficarro of Owego, NY and the granddaughter of Viola Ficarro of Susquehanna.