WEST CHESTER – Clifford Township resident Elijah Latimer is headed to a USA Hockey national championship tournament for the third straight year.

Latimer will try to win his second national title and make it to the final four for the third straight season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights.

The Knights won the Atlantic District 16-and-Under Tier I championship by winning a best-of-three series from Team Comcast March 14-16 at the Ice Line Quad Rinks.

Latimer is one of eight players on this year’s roster from the Knights squad that won the 14-and-Under Tier I national title in 2012 and five that went to the 16-U semifinals last season.

Team Comcast won the series opener, 4-3, in double overtime.

The Knights forced a deciding game by coming back the next day and winning, 5-3.

Latimer is part of a Wilkes-Barre/Scranton defensive unit that carried a shutout into the final two minutes of a 3-1 win in Game Three.

WEEK IN REVIEW

A successful season for District 2 teams in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state basketball tournaments came to an end without a state title.

The Old Forge girls finished as runner-up after reaching the final in Class A.

The Meyers boys and Holy Redeemer and Dunmore girls all reached the semifinals before being eliminated as District 2 teams combined to go 22-16 in state play.

Old Forge made it to the final with a 43-31 victory over Phil-Mont Christian, but then fell short against Vincentian Academy, 58-34, in Saturday afternoon’s final at the Giant Center in Hershey.

Vincentian Academy is 2-2 in state finals since 2002.

Brenna Wise, who had 38 points in the state semifinals, led the way for Vincentian Academy with 21 points and 11 rebounds.

Lauren Carey had 18 points and Taylor Nemetz grabbed eight rebounds for Old Forge.

Vincentian Academy used a strong run from midway through the first quarter to late in the half to open a 27-10 lead. Old Forge scored the last six points of the second quarter to close within 11 at the half, but Vincentian Academy pulled away for good early in the second half.

The other three teams had their seasons come to an end March 18, the same night Old Forge was defeating Phil-Mont Christian.

Neumann-Goretti defeated Dunmore, 55-30, in Class AA girls and Archbishop Wood topped Holy Redeemer, 74-56, in Class AAA girls.

Constitution downed Wilkes-Barre Meyers, 55-44, in Class AA boys.

COLLEGE CORNER

Honors continue to roll in for Montrose graduate Dallas Ely after her outstanding season with the West Chester University women’s basketball team.

The sophomore guard was named to the Daktronics, Inc., NCAA Division II All-Atlantic Region squad. The team includes players from three conferences, the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, Mountain East Conference and Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, with first-team selections like Ely becoming nominees for All-American honors.

The region encompasses 42 colleges from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Maryland.

Ely led the PSAC in scoring with 19.4 points per game. Her 543 points, 73 3-pointers and 218 3-point attempts are all the second-highest total in school history. Ely became the first player in Deirdre Kane’s 27 years as head coach to lead the PSAC in scoring.

Ely was also second on the team and fourth in the conference with 2.5 steals per game while playing a league-high 35.5 minutes.

When two players became unavailable to West Chester at the start of the season, Ely switched from shooting guard to point guard. She responded to lead the Golden Rams to a 13-3 PSAC record and a 19-9 overall mark.

Ely was joined on the first team by West Virginia State’s Lexy Carson, Urbana’s DeVonyea Johnson, Edinboro’s Valerie Majewski and Bloomsburg’s Catherine Noack.

THE WEEK AHEAD

The Lackawanna League baseball and softball seasons are scheduled to open Tuesday, April 1.

The openers in both Division 4 baseball and softball are Susquehanna at Forest City, Elk Lake at Mountain View and Montrose at Blue Ridge.

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.

KYLE AND KYLE SWEEP FONTANA

Kyle Busch winner of California Sprint race

FONTANA, Calif.—Kyle Busch and rookie Kyle Larson finished 1-2 in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at California Speedway.

The race ended under a green-white-checker finish, and for a while it looked like Larson might pull off a big upset, but Busch rallied back to win by .21-seconds.

“What do you expect when there’s a green-white-checkered finish and everyone has to come in for fresh tires,” said Busch. “Holy cow, the fans really got to see a show today.”

The race’s g-w-c ending was set up on lap 198 of the 200-lap race. With Jeff Gordon leading, Clint Bowyer had a flat tire and spun down onto the infield grass. All the cars on the lead lap pitted except Landon Cassill.

On the restart, the leaders were: Cassill, Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Paul Menard, and Matt Kenseth.

Cassill lost the lead early. Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart raced each other almost side-by-side for most of that lap. About the time the white flag was given, signifying the final lap, Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson had gotten by all the other drivers and stormed to the front.

At one point, young Larson pulled even with Busch, but could not get around him.

“I don’t know how I did it,” said Larson. “I just worked my way through the other cars. Whenever I found a hole, I went through it. We almost did it.”

Kurt Busch was able to stay ahead of his boss and teammate Tony Stewart for third.

“Our emotions were running high today,” said Busch. “The guys in the pits did a great job, but we were racing for first. We will get it. We’ll make it.”

Matt Kenseth, the polesitter finished fourth, followed by Tony Stewart, Jamie McMurray, Brian Vickers, A. J. Allmendinger, Paul Menard, and Carl Edwards.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew missed the setup on his car. He was unable to lead a lap and was lucky to finish 12th.

Jeff Gordon led 4 times for 23 laps, but got shuffled back on the last restart and wound up 13th.

Jimmie Johnson appeared to have the fastest car. He had a 2.5-second lead over Jeff Gordon when a tire blew out on lap 193. He finished 24th.

The race included 35 lead changes, the most since 2008.

Top-10 leaders after 5 of 33: 1. Edwards-186, 2. Earnhardt-185, 3. Gordon-184, 4. Keselowski-182, 5. Kenseth-179, 6. Johnson-165, 7. Kyle Busch-158, 8. Newman-150, 9. A. Dillon-150, 10. Logano-146.

LARSON GETS FIRST NATIONWIDE WIN

Kyle Larson won his first Nationwide Series race in his 37th attempt. He took the lead in Saturday’s Fontana, CA race after a restart on Lap 135 of the 150-lap race and out lasted Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.

Overall, it was a great win for the young driver, as he did a terrific job of holding off two veterans.

“I’m shaking still; this is awesome,” said Larson. “I thought maybe we could get away after the last restart, but the 54 (Busch) and 5 (Harvick) were really good behind us, and I had to race with those guys.

“Man, it was amazing. Those last 11 or 12 laps were the longest laps of my life. It was pretty cool to beat those guys. The 54 and the 22 (Joey Logano) have dominated the series for a while now, and Harvick’s with a good team. It was a blast.”

Kevin Harvick finished second, followed by Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Elliott Sadler, Chase Elliott, Matt Kenseth, Ty Dillon, Trevor Bayne, and Regan Smith.

Top-10 leaders after 5 of 33: 1. Smith-185, 2. Bayne-185, 3. T. Dillon-179, 4. Elliott-177, 5. Sadler-174, 6. Gaughan-160, 7. Scott-160, 8. Kwasniewski-149, 9. Buescher-145, 10. Bliss-125.

When Chip Ganassi announced last season that 21-year-old Kyle Larson would be moved up to his No. 42 Sprint Cup car, replacing Juan Montoya, many folks wondered if that was a good decision.

Did the 21-year-old Larson have enough experience to run in the Cup Series?

Larson, a Japanese American driver who was born in California, July 31, 1992, started his racing career in sprint cars, because he could drive those at an earlier age than he could NASCAR stock cars. He switched to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series in 2012 and won the championship. In 2013, he moved up to the Nationwide Series and won Rookie of the Year.

During an interview session last week, Larson answered questions about his switch to the Cup series.

“I think the biggest change between everything versus Cup is just the competition level,” he said. “You've grown up racing winged Sprint cars, I used to think the best drivers in the world were in the World of Outlaws Series. I still think they are very good, but the depth of the really good drivers in the Cup Series is really amazing. That's what makes it really tough, there's 25 to 30 drivers out there each week that are extremely good and fast. You go to the World of Outlaws race, there might be seven or eight guys you have to beat.

“The biggest adjustment I’ve had is getting my feedback right to the crew chief from Happy Hour to the race,” he continued. “That's something we've struggled with at Phoenix and Vegas, making the right adjustments on the car to start out the race good. We got behind a little bit in the beginning of both races and it's hard to come back from those.

“I've been competitive each week, maybe not at Daytona, but every week since then I feel like I've been pretty competitive. I hope they see that.”

Larson is currently behind Austin Dillon in points and for Rookie of the Year Honors, but ahead of the other rookies, Justin Allgaier, Michael Annett, and Parker Kligerman. In addition he is ahead of veteran drivers, Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex, and Kurt Busch in overall points.

There are folks in the NASCAR garage that think this young star might burn out before reaching his full potential, but after his runner-up finish in the Cup race at California, I think he has what it takes to make it in NASCAR’s premier circuit.

Weekend Racing: The Sprint Cup cars and Camping World trucks are at Martinsville Speedway, the smallest track (.52-miles) on the circuit. The Nationwide teams have an off week.

Sat., Mar. 29 Camping World trucks race 2 of 22; Starting time: 2 pm ET; TV: FoxSports1.

Sun., Mar. 30, Sprint Cup race 6 of 36; Starting time: 12:30 pm ET; TV: Fox.

Racing Trivia Question: Who was the first Canadian to drive in NASCAR?

Last Week’s Question: Who is Ryan Newman driving for this season? He is driving the No. 31 Richard Childress Chevrolet.

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