Mountain View remained unbeaten through three matches Thursday when it downed visiting Forest City, 25-16, 25-13, 25-11, Thursday in Lackawanna League boys’ volleyball.
The Eagles shared the league lead at 3-0 with Abington Heights heading into their road meeting with the Comets, which was scheduled for Tuesday.
Mountain View not only won its first three matches, but also did so in straight sets in each match.
Lucas LaRue led the way with 15 kills and four blocks in the win over the Foresters. Emmett Jodon had 19 assists and Bryan Owens contributed six service aces.
The fast start is not a surprise to coach Dave Breese, despite the Eagles losing four starters to graduation from last season’s second-place team.
“We anticipated this,” Breese said. “We knew how good Luke was and the players we have around him.”
Owens, a senior outside hitter, is the other returning starter.
Jodon joins Tristan Phillips, Dusty Denby, Keegan Mack and Joe Cerra in a five-player rotation to fill the other four spots.
Jodon, a junior, is the team’s setter. Seniors Phillips and Cerra are outside hitters who also play on the back row.
Denby is a junior back row specialist and Mack is a sophomore middle hitter and back row player.
WEEK IN REVIEW
The only Lackawanna Track Conference Division 4 meet conducted thus far saw two of the top programs going against each other with Blue Ridge winning the boys’ meet and Elk Lake taking the girls’ meet.
COLLEGE CORNER
Blue Ridge graduates account for three of the top five hitters and one of the top two pitchers who have helped make up a winning softball team at Penn State-Harrisburg.
Freshman shortstop Jenna Rupakus leads the team in batting average while Jackie Furch, a junior utility player, and senior Gabrielle Wolfe, a pitcher, rank fourth and fifth. Wolfe is also the team leader in runs batted in while ranking second in all the major pitching categories.
Wolfe was a first-team Capital Athletic Conference all-star selection as a utility player last season when she hit four home runs and scored 27 times in 40 games while also striking out 110 batters and posting a 3.76 earned run average.
This season, Wolfe ranks second on the team in ERA (4.17), pitching wins (five) and strikeouts (32). She is batting .333 with a home run, 14 RBI and 10 runs scored in 19 games.
Even after losing the last three games, Penn State-Harrisburg is 5-5 in the CAC and 12-8 overall.
Rupakus has made an immediate impact. She has eight doubles, 12 runs scored and eight RBI in 19 games while batting .468.
Furch is hitting .365 in 17 games with a home run, six RBI, two doubles and nine runs scored.
THE WEEK AHEAD
All of the Lackawanna League Division 4 baseball and softball games scheduled for this week have again been moved back to try to allow fields around the northern part of the league to become playable.
The latest tentative Opening Day is now set for Monday, April 13 with Blue Ridge at Susquehanna, Mountain View at Forest City and Elk Lake at Montrose.
In professional baseball, the Binghamton Mets are scheduled to open defense of their Eastern League title on the road Thursday at 6:35 against the Akron Rubber Ducks.
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders open the International League schedule at home at PNC Field in Moosic with a four-game series against the Syracuse Chiefs.
The RailRiders and Chiefs are scheduled to play Thursday and Friday at 7:05, Saturday at 4:05 and Sunday at 1:05.
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.
IS DANICA REALLY IMPROVING
Danica Patrick, driver of the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Chevrolet
During each weekly press conference, Danica Patrick talks about how improved her No. 10 Stewart-Haas racing team is. If you compare her seventh-place Martinsville finish against the previous 2015 finishes of 25th, 16th, 27th, 26th, 19th, there was a great improvement, but only for that one race.
“I'm proud of everyone for not giving up and for keeping their head in the game, and the pit crew did a good job,” said Danica. “They were frustrated last weekend after making a mistake on the last stop, and it's a team effort, you know. I'm going to make mistakes at the very end, too.”
Patrick is the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel racing. Her win in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 is the only women's victory in an IndyCar Series race, and her third place in the 2009 Indianapolis 500, the highest finish there ever by a woman.
In 2012, she moved to NASCAR and ran a full Nationwide schedule, plus a few Cup races. In 2013, she moved to the Cup Series full time. She wowed the racing world by winning the pole for the Daytona 500, becoming the first female NASCAR driver to accomplish the feat.
She finished eighth in that race, but could only manage a 27th-place final point standing. In 2014, she slipped to 28th in points.
At the beginning of this season, Daniel Knost became her new crew chief.
“I think Daniel and I have a very good working relationship, and I don't want that to sound cold,” Danica continued. “We get along great and we have a lot of fun. I think that the balance in the front of the hauler is with all the engineers, I think it's really good, and I think we have a lot of fun, but we also do good work.
“I think it shows because every weekend when we arrive, we're in the ballpark. We're not starting off and rolling off and being 36th on the board and trying to figure it out. We roll off and generally our problem is not where we start but where we go. We've got to make it better, and that also is in the same thread of the race. We've got to make it better.”
While Patrick has shown flashes of what it takes to make it in NASCAR, she has never been able to challenge for the lead very many times. In 2014 she led 15 total laps. After six races into the 2015 season, she has yet to lead a single lap.
The seventh-place finish at Martinsville looked good, but during most races, her No. 10 Chevrolet is in the middle or near the end of the pack. It appears she tries to ride and stay out of trouble, hoping the other guys will wreck or fade. That type driving isn’t going to win many races.
I would love to see Danica move to the front and begin to mix it up with some of the leaders. Wouldn’t it be something, if this little 100-pound female could put a whipping on some of the regular leaders.
While most drivers look for wins, Danica and her team hope to finish in the top-20 at Texas, where she has respective finishes of 27th, and 28th.
“The car has to be good or I can't go fast,” she continued. “When the car is right you can go fast, but if the driver is making mistakes and not doing a good job and crashing or getting off line, that also won't help you have a good result. And then overall, we can't do well, I can't do well if the team doesn't provide the people and the equipment that I need to perform. And so a couple of years ago if you would have asked how everything was going on within the team, there probably wouldn't be a lot of positive things to say. But that's an example of an organization digging deep and finding ways, and by all means the last couple of years here, we've been much stronger, and it makes it much more fun out there.”
Meanwhile Kyle Larson has been cleared to race after his fainting spell at Martinsville and will return to the track this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. Chip Ganassi Racing made the announcement Thursday, three days after Larson was released from a Charlotte hospital where he underwent extensive testing.
“I feel great right now, and I felt perfectly fine shortly after I fainted the other day,” Larson said in a NASCAR teleconference Tuesday. “But yeah, I just had to get a lot of tests run on me to make sure nothing serious was wrong with me, and all the tests came back negative.”
NASCAR CHANGES SUPERSPEEDWAY QUALIFYING
A friend of mine made the remark last week that NASCAR was just like the weather in Chicago, constantly changing.
That’s right. If you don’t like what NASCAR is doing right now, give them a couple days and they will announce some type of change.
Last week, they unveiled modifications to the qualifying formats that will take effect at Talladega for the Xfinity Series and Sprint Cup Series. Qualifying for May's Talladega races, as well as the July events at Daytona, will consist of the following:
Two rounds of qualifying, with the top-12 posted lap speeds advancing to the second round.
Race vehicles taking one, timed lap in each round of qualifying.
Each race vehicle will be released in a predetermined timed interval as determined by NASCAR, with the sanctioning body reserving the right to have more than one vehicle engaging in qualifying runs at the same time.
Qualifying order for the first round will be determined by a random draw; final round qualifying order is determined by slowest to fastest speeds from the first round.
A 10-minute break will occur between the first qualifying round and the final round
Upon completion of the first qualifying round, the field will be set with positions 13 and beyond determined from first round qualifying speed.
The 12 fastest vehicles from the first round will have their speeds reset for the final round with starting positions 1-12 determined by the fastest laps in the final round.
Vehicles advancing to the final round will be allowed to adjust tape and utilize a cool-down unit during the 10-minute break only.
The Truck Series will utilize the format for the first time when the series returns to Talladega with the Sprint Cup Series in October. Qualifying procedures for the 2016 Daytona 500 will be announced at a later date.
This is the fourth time adjustments have been made in the Superspeedway qualifying. Will it be a month or two months before another one is announced.
Weekend Racing: The Cup and Xfinity teams are at the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway for two night races. The Trucks do not race again until May 8.
Fri., Apr 10; Xfinity race 6 of 32; Starting time: 8:30 pm ET; TV: FoxSports1.
Sat., Apr 11; Sprint Cup race 7 of 36; Starting time: 7:30 pm ET; TV: Fox.
Racing Trivia Question: How many children does Jeff Gordon have?
Last Week’s Question: Where is Cup driver Paul Menard’s hometown? Answer. It is Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
You may contact the Racing Reporter at: www.hodges@race500.com.
Lucas LaRue
Lucas LaRue did not start playing volleyball until he joined the Mountain View team as a high school sophomore.
Now, he hardly stops.
When he is not leading the Eagles into title contention in the high school season, LaRue is playing for the Northeast Alliance Volleyball Club out of Riverfront Sports in Scranton.
With LaRue leading the way, Mountain View won its first two matches, including one over defending champion Western Wayne.
For his efforts, LaRue has been named Susquehanna County Transcript Athlete of the Month for March.
LaRue had 12 kills and eight blocks to help the Eagles defeat host Blue Ridge, 25-20, 25-13, 25-22, in the opener.
Western Wayne was up next.
“We went into the match with a lot of confidence,” LaRue said. “We knew we had a lot of chemistry on our team and that we have a chance to make a splash this year.”
Against the only team to finish ahead of the Eagles in the 2014 standings, LaRue provided 10 kills and eight blocks in a 25-21, 25-22, 25-17 victory.
“Our passing was great,” LaRue said. “We never gave up on any balls.
“We just stayed together throughout the whole thing.”
The presence of LaRue, a first-team league all-star last season, boosts the confidence of Mountain View coach Dave Breese.
“He has really great power and his court vision is not common,” Breese said. “He controls our side of the court and directs our players as well as any coach could on the court.”
LaRue also played basketball as a senior at Mountain View. He expects to attend either Kutztown University of Bloomsburg University and since neither of them has men’s volleyball, LaRue hopes to find a club team to play on while in college.
Lucas is the son of Phillip and Julie LaRue of Brooklyn.
