Elk Lake’s Taylor Watkins finished sixth in the Class AA girls’ javelin Saturday morning at Shippensburg University to capture Susquehanna County’s only medal at this year’s Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Track and Field Championships.

The senior exceeded her District 2-winning throw by 3 ½ feet with a heave of 129-9.

Taylor’s brother, Hunter Watkins, also competed in the PIAA championships, placing 13th out of 26 in the boys’ javelin with a throw of 159-8.

All of the county’s track athletes were eliminated during Friday’s qualifying, except Montrose’s Myra Lattimore, who reached the Saturday morning semifinals in the 200-meter dash before being eliminated.

Lattimore advanced to the semifinals by running a 26.23 to place 15th out of the 26 girls fighting for 16 places. She wound up 15th when she finished in 26.43 seconds Saturday.

Montrose came within one place and less than a second of earning a medal in the 1600-meter girls relay for the second straight year. The Lady Meteors, who were seventh last year, took ninth out of 25 teams in qualifying with a finish of 4:05.96.

Blue Ridge’s Brett Hepler led county boys by finishing 12th in the discus Saturday with a throw of 133-11.

Montrose’s Allison Lewis also placed 12th. She finished the 400-meter dash in 59.44 seconds during qualifying where she was among 27 runners trying to make eight spots in Saturday’s final.

The Elk Lake 3200-meter relay team narrowly missed the girls’ final. The Lady Warriors finished in 9:59.05 to take 14th out of 27 teams in an event where the top 12 make the final.

Blue Ridge’s Lindsey Rupakus tied for 14th and Montrose’s Rebecca Timm was 29th in the 300 hurdles where 33 girls tried to qualify for eight spots in the final.

District 2 claimed two individual titles.

Valley View junior Ryan Wilkes won the Class AAA boys pole vault title Friday by clearing 15-6.

Lake-Lehman sophomore Dominic Hockenbury won the Class AA boys 1600-meter run by more than 14 seconds Saturday in 9:17.18.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Alyssa Hubal and Miranda Groover delivered back-to-back doubles with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning Thursday to lift Susquehanna to a 2-1 victory over Blue Ridge and into its first District 2 Class A softball championship game.

The Lady Sabers were scheduled to face the Old Forge in Tuesday’s championship game.

Top-seeded Susquehanna posted its third win of the season over perennial power Blue Ridge and had its toughest time doing so.

The Lady Sabers needed another strong pitching effort by Micaela Rhone as well as both offensive and defensive contributions from Groover and Nicole Shay, who went 2-for-2 to finish as the only player in the game with more than one hit.

Rhone struck out nine while throwing a five-hitter and not walking a batter.

After Rhone struck out five of first six batters in the first two innings, Blue Ridge put together most of its offense in the third.

Hits by Callie Wyatt and Taylor Hall put two runners in scoring position. Shania Yachymiak then singled to center to score Wyatt with Blue Ridge’s only run.

Hall also tried to score on the play, but a strong throw by Groover was able to get the out with the help of a nice catch and tag by Shay, who had the plate blocked.

Blue Ridge only managed runners in the third and seventh innings.

After stranding four runners in scoring position in the first three innings, the Lady Sabers tied the game in the fourth.

Haley Aldrich singled and scored on a Taryn Tross double.

Blue Ridge reached the semifinals with an 8-5 victory over Northwest May 20.

The Lady Raiders were hitting early, taking a 4-1 lead after one inning and 7-3 after three innings.

Brooke Marvin went 2-for-2 while Yachymiak and Wyatt also had two hits.

Forest City was eliminated in the quarterfinals with a 9-1 loss to Old Forge.

In Class AA, Mountain View and Montrose each reached the quarterfinals where they were shut out and eliminated.

Makenna Whitaker had Mountain View’s only hit Wednesday when the Lady Eagles were knocked out by Holy Cross, 5-0.

Sarah Nichols hit a game-winning, three-run double to complete a rally in the bottom of the seventh inning and lift Mountain View over Lakeland, 5-4, May 19.

The Lady Eagles trailed, 4-0, going into the inning.

Nichols and Ariana Gabriel each had two hits.

Samantha Krisa threw a three-hitter.

Lacy Nealy threw a two-hitter and went 2-for-3 when Montrose opened with an 11-1, five-inning romp over GAR in the first round May 19.

Anastasia Hester had a triple.

Hanover Area then stopped Montrose, 8-0, Thursday.

Elk Lake was eliminated with a 10-1 loss to Northwest, which got two homers, six RBI and a 3-for-3 day from Jaden Perrillo in the first-round game May 19.

Amy Roman had two hits for Elk Lake.

In baseball, Blue Ridge entered the District 2 Class A tournament as the fifth seed in the six-team field but reached the final by beating a pair of higher-seeded teams, including Friday’s major upset, 6-2, over top-seeded Lackawanna Trail.

Lackawanna Trail had gone 10-2 in the regular season when Blue Ridge was 3-9. The Lions won the two league meetings between the teams by a total of 18 runs.

Curtis Mills had a double and two RBI while Trey Hillard and Nick Folk had two hits for Blue Ridge. Matthew Laubach also had a double, an RBI and a run scored to help back winning pitcher Jake Decker, who went the distance.

Blue Ridge reached the championship game at PNC Field in Moosic Monday against MMI Prep.

The Raiders defeated Forest City, 8-2, May 19 in the district quarterfinals.

Mountain View won a Lackawanna League Division 4 title to land the second seed and a first-round bye in the District 2 Class AA tournament, but the Eagles never managed a hit in the playoffs.

Chris Roche threw a no-hitter as Lakeland edged Mountain View, 3-2, in the quarterfinals May 20.

Chris White struck out 11 in the loss.

Elk Lake and Montrose were each eliminated in the first round in Class AA.

Northwest defeated Elk Lake, 5-1, and Lakeland downed Montrose, 7-4.

In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins advanced to the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup Eastern Conference finals when they held on for a 5-4 victory over the Providence Bruins in Game Seven on home ice Wednesday night.

The Penguins scored five times in less than six minutes to take a 5-0 lead 7:16 into the second period. They held off the latest Providence comeback (the Bruins had won one game after scoring in the final second of regulation to force overtime) to advance to play the St. John’s IceCaps.

Anton Zlobin and Conor Sheary each scored their fifth goals of the playoffs for a 2-0 lead. Jayson Megna and Brian Gibbons scored 13 seconds apart during a 4-on-4 situation to knock Providence goalie Nicklas Svedberg out of the game. Brendan Mikkelson then scored on the first shot against back-up Malcolm Subban.

The Penguins had to hold on through 58 seconds of a late power play in which the Bruins pulled their goalie for a two-skater advantage.

Providence had a 13-3 shot advantage while scoring three times in the third period.

A 37-15 shot advantage was not enough for the Penguins in Game Six May 19.

Providence stretched the series to its limit when Svedberg made 36 saves and Alexander Khokhlachev had a goal and two assists in the 4-1 victory.

The Penguins followed up the win over Providence by opening the best-of-seven conference finals Friday night at St. John's and taking a 3-2 win over the IceCaps when Peter Mannino made 31 saves.

THE WEEK AHEAD

The PIAA state baseball and softball tournaments are scheduled to open Monday, June 2.

If Susquehanna’s softball team or Blue Ridge’s baseball team won in their district finals, they will play June 2.

In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins are home Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday in Games Three through Five of the Calder Cup Eastern Conference Finals against the St. John’s IceCaps.

The best-of-seven series started in Canada and will end there if it continues to at least a sixth game.

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.

NASCAR ANNOUNCES 2015 HOF INDUCTEES

1960 NASCAR champion Rex White and crew chief, Charles "Slick" Owens in 2004

Five new drivers have been voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. They are: Bill Elliott, Fred Lorenzen, Joe Weatherly, Rex White, and Wendell Scott.

By most racing standards White did not always have the fastest car, but from 1959 through 1963, Rex White won more races than any other driver.

He captured 36 poles and 28 victories in 233 starts in only nine years.

His competition included the best racers; Fireball Roberts, Lee Petty, Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett, Curtis Turner, Buck Baker and Joe Weatherly.

A look at his accomplishments reveals that he was Chevrolet’s best driver in the early 60’s and one of the most consistent drivers in the history of NASCAR.

Charles “Slick” Owens was his crew chief when he won the 1960 NASCAR Grand National championship, with six victories.

But his entire racing career was done on a shoestring budget.

“I don’t have any idea what it cost to run a season, but it was more than I had,” said White. “Remembering all those figures 50-something years ago is kind of tough for me. I probably didn’t keep up with the costs even back then.

“I kept books in my left, rear pocket. When there wasn’t any money there, I wasn’t taking in enough.

“We didn’t write down anything. We had no bookkeeping system. But it got the job done. When I won the championship, I got almost $13,000. You can see what a big difference there is between then and now.

“I don’t think racing itself is so much different. There was things back then that irritated you just like they have today. There’s a lot more rush and lot more coverage because it’s so much bigger, but I don’t think it’s any different.”

Bill Elliott started racing regularly in 1974 when he took to the Dixie Speedway, south of his hometown of Dawsonville, Georgia. It didn’t take Bill long to find victory lane, and just two years later, he made his first Winston Cup start at Rockingham.

“Well, as I look back on it, it was a family thing,” said Elliott. “My brothers helped, but it was my dad that really knew how to set up a car.”

In a 37-year driving career, Bill’s 44 wins rank 16th all-time and his 55 poles rank eighth. But his most prestigious accomplishment came in 1988 when he won the Winston Cup championship with six wins, 15 top fives and 22 top 10s in 29 races. In addition, he won a record 16 Most Popular Driver Awards, in part because of his excellence on the big stage; he won the Daytona 500 twice and the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway three times.

Fred Lorenzen was one of NASCAR’s first true superstars even though he was a “part-time” driver, never running more than 29 of the season’s 50-plus races. Lorenzen got his start in NASCAR as a mechanic with the famed Holman-Moody team in 1960, but was elevated to lead driver by the end of the year. He won three races in only 15 starts the following season. Lorenzen’s best overall season came in 1963 as he finished with six wins, 21 top-fives and 23 top-10s in 29 starts. Despite missing 26 races that season, he finished third in the standings. In 1965, he won two of NASCAR’s major events – the Daytona 500 and the World 600.

Joe Weatherly won two championships (1962-63) and 25 races in NASCAR’s premier series. But that’s only part of his story, which is long on versatility. A decade earlier in 1952-53, he won 101 races in the NASCAR Modified division, capturing that championship in 1953. He even tried his hand in NASCAR’s short-lived Convertible Division from 1956-59 winning 12 times. When he won his first NASCAR premier series championship, in 1962, he drove for legendary owner Bud Moore. When he repeated as champion a year later, he drove for nine different teams.

Wendell Scott was the first African-American to race fulltime in NASCAR’s premier series, as well as the first to win a NASCAR premier series race. Scott posted a remarkable 147 top 10s and 495 starts during his 13-year premier series career. He won more than 100 races at local tracks before making his premier series debut, including 22 races at Southside Speedway in Richmond, Virginia, in 1959 en route to capturing both the Sportsman Division and NASCAR Virginia Sportsman championships.

The five nominees will be inducted during a ceremony at the Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina on January 30, 2015.

WILL WISE WIN FAVORITE DRIVER VOTE

By now everyone has knows that Josh Wise’s sponsor, Dogecoin teamed up with Reddit.com to get him voted into the All-Star race at Charlotte as the fan favorite.

A lot of fans cried, “foul,” but I can’t agree with them.

The voting might have blindsided the NASCAR organization, but it was all done legally. The folks at Dogecoin/Redditt did their homework and discovered a way to make it happen.

They designed and built a better rat trap.

Their strategy wasn’t too much different from the Bill Elliott and Dale Earnhardt Jr. massive voting campaigns in the past which has earned of them, Favorite Driver of the Year Award, numerous times.

In this year’s Hall of Fame voting, which ended Wednesday, May 21, Elliott received 58 per cent of the vote. His fan club sent out tens of thousands of e-mails to members, asking them to vote as many times as they possibly could. It doesn’t make Elliott the world’s most favorite driver, it just means he had more fans voting for him.

I like Elliott, but my vote went to Rex White, who received 43 per cent of the count.

There is a rumor that Dogecoin/Reddit plans to work on strategy that will get Wise voted in as NASCAR’s 2014 Favorite Driver of the Year.

You can fool NASCAR once, but I don’t think the voting procedure used to get Wise into the All-Star race will work a second time. NASCAR has too much on the line.

Weekend Racing: The Cup, Nationwide, and truck teams will be at the 1-mile Dover, Delaware track.

Fri., May 30, Camping World truck race 5 of 22; Starting time: 5 pm ET; TV: FoxSports1.

Sat., May 31, Nationwide Series race 12 0f 33; Starting time: 2 pm ET; TV: ESPN.

Sun., June 1, Sprint Cup race 13 of 36; Starting time: 12:30 pm ET; TV: Fox.

Racing Trivia Question: Where is Joe Nemechek’s hometown?

Last Week’s Question: When was the first 600-lap race held at Charlotte? It was run in 1960 and known as the World 600. It was won by Joe Lee Johnson.

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