Russell Canevari has resigned as head football coach at Montrose after three seasons.
The Northeast PA Football Network reported the resignation last week.
Canevari led the Meteors to three wins in three seasons, including helping the program break out of its 35-game losing streak during his second season in 2012.
The Meteors went 1-9 this season and finished fifth out of six teams in Division 3 of the Lackawanna Football Conference. They were 3-27 under Canevari.
During his playing days, Canevari was the leading rusher on Valley View’s 1992 Class AA state championship team. He played in the same backfield with current Valley View coach George Howanitz, who transferred from Montrose and quarterbacked the Cougars to the 15-0 season.
WEEK IN REVIEW
District 2 had two teams advance to the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association football state semifinals and both got there with Mercy Rule wins Friday night.
Old Forge shut out Schuylkill Haven, 35-0, at Blue Mountain High School in Orwigsburg in Class A.
Berwick handled Clearfield, 44-7, at Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall in Class AAA.
Old Forge scored on the game’s first play when Jake Manetti found Joey Gutowski for a 66-yard touchdown and 7-0 lead after just 15 seconds.
Brandon Yescavage carried 13 times for 191 yards and three touchdowns while Brandon Vahey returned a punt 55 yards for the other score.
The game reached the Mercy Rule on Yescavage’s third touchdown with 3:48 left in the third quarter. Old Forge scored four times from beyond 50 yards and the other time from 26 yards.
Berwick had a harder time before eventually breaking its game open.
The Bulldogs trailed, 7-0, after one quarter and did not take charge until the final play of the first half when Dain Kowalski returned an interception 76 yards for a score and a 21-7 lead.
Quarterback C.J. Curry made it a Mercy Rule game with his 70-yard touchdown run with 5:28 left. Curry carried 13 times for 147 yards and three touchdowns while Kowalski carried 20 times for 127 yards.
In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins moved back into a first-place tie in the American Hockey League East Division with the rival Binghamton Senators by winning their head-to-head match-up, 1-0, Friday night in Wilkes-Barre.
Eric Hartzell made 25 saves for the Penguins.
Harry Zolnierczyk scored at 15:46 of the second period on assists from Brian Gibbons and Philip Samuelsson.
COLLEGE CORNER
Dallas Ely scored a career-high 23 points Nov. 26 to lead West Chester University to a 65-57 victory over host Holy Family in Philadelphia.
The 5-foot-9 sophomore guard from Montrose helped West Chester improve to 4-2. Holy Family had been among the teams receiving votes in the national top 25 poll for National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II schools.
In 37 minutes, Ely went 6-for-13 from the floor, including 5-for-10 from 3-point range, and 6-for-8 from the line. She also grabbed six rebounds, dished out two assists and made a steal.
Ely scored in double figures in five of the first six games, averaging 16.5 points. She also averaged 5.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.3 steals. Ely was 32-for-79 (40.5 percent) from the floor, 15-for-47 (31.9) on 3-pointers and 20-for-28 (71.4) on free throws. She started every game, averaging almost 33 minutes.
As a freshman, Ely played in 24 games, including 10 starts. She hit 38.4 percent of her 3-pointers and led the team in 3-pointers made (43) and free throw percentage (82.0) while averaging 9.5 points per game.
West Chester was picked fourth out of nine teams in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division in a preseason poll of coaches.
THE WEEK AHEAD
The winter high school sports season opens Friday night, highlighted by the Red Wallace Memorial Scholarship Game, which features Carbondale at Elk Lake in boys’ basketball.
Other boys’ openers Friday night include Susquehanna at Northeast Bradford, Blue Ridge at Western Wayne at Montrose at Riverside.
Forest City begins its season Sunday in the Finan Memorial Tournament at Carbondale.
In girls’ basketball, Blue Ridge is at the Towanda Tournament Friday and Saturday. The other Friday openers include Valley View at Montrose, Forest City at Lakeland and Mountain View at Holy Cross.
Susquehanna opens Monday, December 9 at Deposit, N.Y.
In high school wrestling, Elk Lake and Blue Ridge open Saturday morning in the Ram Duals at Wyalusing.
In high school swimming, Elk Lake is at Berwick in a boys’ and girls’ Wyoming Valley Conference crossover meet Tuesday, Dec. 10 to open its season.
In high school football, Old Forge (12-1) will play District 3 champion Steelton-Highspire (12-1) Friday night at 7 at Hazleton in the state semifinals. The winner will play the winner of the other semifinal between unbeaten Clairton and North Catholic Dec. 13 at 1 p.m. at Hersheypark Stadium.
Last week’s prediction was correct. After going 1-0, our predictions on games involving LFC teams are 9-5 (64.3 percent) for the postseason and 106-30 (77.9 percent) for the year.
This week’s prediction: Old Forge 35, Steelton-Highspire 24.
Berwick (14-0) plays District 12 champion Archbishop Wood of Philadelphia (10-3) Friday night in Allentown.
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.
KENSETH ON HIS 2013 RACING SEASON
Matt Kenseth and teammate Kyle Busch in 2013
By now everyone knows that Jimmie Johnson won this year’s Sprint Cup championship, while Matt Kenseth was second.
In his 14th full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, Kenseth put together one of the best seasons of his career in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing.
Except for one bad finish, he would have won his second Cup championship.
Winning a series-high seven Sprint Cup Series races was just one of his personal career bests. His 1,783 laps led were 651 better than his previous single-season high and his 8.7 average starting position was nearly five positions better than his previous best.
He began the Chase as the No. 1 seed, won the first two races and took the championship battle all the way to the final laps at Homestead before finishing second in the point standings for the second time in his career.
“Obviously it’s been a great year, best year I’ve ever had,” said Kenseth. “I think when you look at our season overall, when I talk about it being the best season of my career, we didn’t come up with the championship, the championship is the ultimate goal, you always want that, but from a competitive standpoint it’s been by far the best season of my career.
“You got to control the things that you can control to the best of your ability. You have to go out there with the idea of trying to win and run up toward the front.
“I guess if you're running well and you feel like you have a solid team, a solid year going on, that kind of gives you some Mulligans earlier in the year. You can have some bad races, have things go wrong, kind of get reset when you get to the Chase.”
Things were going right for Kenseth until the next to last race of the season at Phoenix. He was the points leader going into the race, but after a dismal 23nd-place finish, he lost the lead to Johnson, and was unable to regain it.
“Yeah, I mean, it was obviously a really poor performance all around (at Phoenix),” he continued. “It was probably our worst performance of the year and really couldn't have came at a worse time.
“On the other hand, that says a lot about our season, how great our season has been, that that was our worst race. It was a tough week.
“We went back and tried to figure out what went wrong. We think we have a handle on what went wrong, tried to figure it out for the next time. Certainly wanted to win.
“But it's been obviously an incredible year. It's been a great challenge personally and professionally. I've had a great time this year. I'm actually already looking forward to next season, as well.”
Kenseth moved to Joe Gibbs Racing after the close of the 2012 season from Roush Fenway. He won the 2003 Sprint Cup championship while at Roush. His 2013 teammates at JGR are Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.
TV AUDIENCE UP, TRACK ATTENDANCE DOWN
Television viewership of NASCAR races in 2013 appeared to be a little above the previous year, but track attendance continues to slide.
NASCAR and television executives expressed confidence that its multiyear ratings decline has been slowed. The races averaged 5.8 million viewers per race this season on Fox, TNT, ABC and ESPN. This marks the third time in the last four years NASCAR has drawn right around 5.8 million viewers, a consistent performance that stands in contrast to the five seasons of declining numbers NASCAR posted between 2005 and 2010.
Due to lack of fans, several speedways have chosen to remove seats.
Talladega Superspeedway, which once boasted some of the largest crowds to see NASCAR races, will see its seating capacity reduced to approximately 80,000 seats by next season. The largest change will come from the recent demolition of the Allison Grandstands, located on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile speedway which had a seating capacity this season of 18,000. In recent seasons, many of the track's frontstretch seats have been tarped over while the speedway still sold tickets - usually at lower price - for the backstretch.
“The changes are simply a reflection of our current attendance trends,” track spokesman Russell Branham told The Charlotte Observer. “The goal will be a better fan experience and that will be entirely on the frontstretch from now on.”
In 2007, the track's listed capacity was 147,000 grandstand seats. This season, the track's listed capacity was listed at 109,000.
Meanwhile Texas Motor Speedway will usher in a new era in 2014 by closing the backstretch seating. The move will reduce the overall grandstand seating capacity from nearly 160,000 to 112,552.
Daytona has already done away with 45,000 seats and Phoenix is getting rid of 20,000 seats.
While it might seem like track profits are being squeezed, that’s not the case.
NASCAR’s $8.2 billion, 10-year contract with Fox and NBC means tracks don’t have to worry about their bottom lines. Unlike years ago, when tickets were the primary source of income, today, television is the big revenue-producer.
NASCAR BUYS IOWA SPEEDWAY
NASCAR announced that it has purchased Iowa Speedway, in Newton, Iowa.
What makes this announcement newsworthy is that the NASCAR organization doesn’t buy race tracks. International Speedway Corporation, headed by the France family, buys racetracks.
Iowa Speedway is host to some NASCAR events as well as an IndyCar race. Since NASCAR obviously schedules those events, the possibility of a conflict-of-interest is very real.
“Iowa Speedway is a great entertainment facility with a very bright future,” said Eric Nyquist, NASCAR vice president, strategic development. “The facility has the support of the region, it’s positioned well in the heart of the Midwest, and year in and year out it provides great short-track racing action for motorsports fans.”
The facility, located 30 miles east of Des Moines, features a fast, .875-mile asphalt paved tri-oval designed by NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace.
The Speedway released its 2014 schedule earlier this month, encompassing three weekends, one each in May, July and August. The schedule will include two NASCAR Nationwide Series races, a combination NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and IndyCar Series weekend, plus two additional NASCAR K&N Pro Series support races. NASCAR has no plans for Iowa Speedway to host a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race next year or in the immediate future.
NASCAR SPRINT CUP AWARD SHOW
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Awards, which will take place at Wynn Las Vegas on Friday, Dec. 6, will begin at 8:00 pm/ET, and be shown on FoxSports 2.
Racing Trivia Question: What is the maximum number of cars that start Cup and Nationwide races?
Last Week’s Question: When did Tony Stewart win his three Cup championships? Answer. It was 2002, 2005, and 2011.
You may e-mail any questions to the Racing Reporter at: hodges@race500.com.
