Elk Lake and Forest City have been the two-most successful Small School, public school athletic programs in all of District 2 through two of the first three sports seasons of the 2015-16 academic year.
According to the latest point totals released by NPFSports.com for its new Toyota of Scranton All-Sports Cup, Elk Lake ranks third among District 2 Small Schools. Forest City ranks fifth.
Three of District 2’s four small private schools join the Susquehanna County schools in the top five of the rankings.
Holy Redeemer leads the rankings with 208 points, followed by Holy Cross with 195. Elk Lake is third with 184.
Wyoming Seminary is fourth with 177 points. Forest City and Dunmore are tied for fifth with 168, but Forest City has done so with fewer sports, leaving it in better position to add to its totals during the spring.
Toyota of Scranton and NPF Sports will award the cups to the one Big School and one Small School that achieve the most athletic excellence during the 2015-16 school year.
Teams earn points based on regular season, district postseason and state postseason team success. The cups will be awarded following the completion of spring sports.
Montrose, Blue Ridge and Mountain View are 10th, 11th and 12th of the 22 Small Schools. The Meteors have 104 points, the Raiders 90 and the Eagles 70.
Susquehanna remains last with nine points.
Dallas leads Scranton Prep, 356-344, in the Big School race. Abington Heights is third with 344.
WEEK IN REVIEW
BETHLEHEM – The winter high school sports season came to an end with Dunmore being eliminated in the semifinals of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class AA girls’ basketball tournament to finish tied for third and Scranton Prep placing ninth in PIAA Class AA girls’ swimming.
Neumann-Goretti from Philadelphia used a 12-point streak in the first quarter and a 14-0, fourth-quarter advantage to eliminate Dunmore, 52-26, March 15 at Freedom High School in Bethlehem.
Scranton Prep’s 200 medley relay team finished fifth in Class AA boys and several District 2 swimmers were responsible for sixth-place finishes in events during the PIAA Swimming and Diving Championships Wednesday through Saturday at Bucknell University in Lewisburg.
COLLEGE CORNER
Dallas Ely’s brilliant career on the West Chester University women’s basketball team came to end in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Tournament March 11.
The Montrose graduate scored nine points when the Rams dropped an Atlantic Region first-round game to Wheeling Jesuit, 71-69, in Richmond, Va. to finish the season 21-8.
Ely finished her career as the second-leading scorer in West Chester history with 1,607 points. She beat teammate Brittany Sicinski to the school record earlier this season, but Sicinski passed her and finished with the school record of 1,624 points, including 15 in the final game.
West Chester appeared in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for the first time in school history. The Rams went 79-35 during Ely’s four years and ended Bloomsburg’s five-year run as Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Eastern Division champion this year.
Ely was part of a senior class that combined to score 5,975 points while at West Chester. She also ranks 10th in school history with 308 career assists and grabbed 559 rebounds.
As a senior, Ely started all 28 games and averaged 13.5 points in 32.3 minutes per game. She also averaged 5.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.6 steals. She shot 36.1 percent from the floor, 28.5 percent on 3-pointers and 84.8 percent from the line.
THE WEEK AHEAD
The Lackawanna League boys’ volleyball season gets underway Tuesday, March 29 with Mountain View at Blue Ridge, Forest City at Western Wayne and Abington Heights at Susquehanna.
Lackawanna League boys’ tennis starts the same day with Montrose at Abington Heights and Scranton at Elk Lake as part of the schedule.
In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Binghamton Senators meet twice in three days.
The teams play Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre and Friday in Binghamton, both in 7:05 starts.
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.
JOHNSON OUTDUELS HARVICK IN CALIFORNIA
Jimmie Johnson Outduels Harvick in California
FONTANA, Calif.--Jimmie Johnson saved his best for last. The fastest lap he ran all day was the last one as he outdueled Kevin Harvick for his second Sprint Cup win of the season.
Kyle Busch had a right front tire blow out on lap 198 of the 200-lap race, causing an overtime, green-white-checkered finish.
At that point Harvick was the leader and Johnson was running fourth.
All the leaders pitted for tires.
Denny Hamlin was the new leader on the restart, followed by Harvick, Johnson, and Joey Logano.
Johnson gave Harvick a push, helping him clear Hamlin, and then tucked in behind him. Harvick was driving the high side of the race track. As the leaders took the white flag, signifying the last lap, Johnson moved down to the low side of the track. The momentum propelled him past Harvick, and that was all she wrote. Harvick was unable to recover before Johnson had taken the checkered flag.
“This is cool,” said Johnson. “I knew we had a great car, but it really took off on that last lap. Once I cleared him (Harvick), I knew that was it.”
Harvick, who led the most laps ( 142 ) was in no mood to talk, but did say, “That was a bad restart. We just didn't have what we needed on that last lap. You want to stay in control of the race, and we lost it there at the end.”
After dominating the race I'm sure Harvick wonders how they let it get away.
Hamlin, had a fast car and ran up front for most of the early stages of the race.
“Disappointed, that's all I can say,” Hamlin said. “I can tell you there were a lot of mistakes on my part. You can only come back so many times, and we ran out of opportunities today.”
Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Penske Ford was fourth.
“We had an up and down day,” Logano said. “We were able to run up front and lead, but at other times the car just didn't seem to do what I wanted it to. It wasn't our greatest day, but we'll figure it out, and be in position for a win next time.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr was fifth, his highest finish of the season.
Chase Elliott finished sixth and is currently the highest rookie in points.
“We were able to improve the car all day,” said Elliott. “First off, my guys have been bringing such fast race cars to the racetrack every week since Daytona, and I haven't been doing a very good job of getting the finishes that they deserve. I'm just happy today that we could finally finish one of these things and get a solid top-10 finish. I felt like we made gains throughout the day. The guys did a great job on pit road. Alan (Gustafson) made good adjustments, and I'm proud of the effort and hopefully we can take it and try to get a little better.”
Carl Edwards, A. J. Allmendinger, Brad Keselowski, and Jamie McMurray, rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Danica Patrick was involved in an incident during lap 120 and was unable to finish the race. She was scored with a 38th place finish.
AUSTIN DILLON WINS CALIFORNIA XFINITY RACE
With one-lap remaining in Saturday's Xfinity Series race at Fontana, Kyle Busch blew a tire and lost the lead to Daniel Suarez, who ran out of fuel in turn-3, allowing Austin Dillon to get the win.
Dillon was initially upset at Busch for what he felt was as an attempt to wreck him, but he toned down his statements during the post-race interview.
“It's just racing,” Dillon said. “I probably would have done the same thing. He made the move to try to hold off, to win the race. Anybody in their right mind would have made the move. It just made the race more exciting.”
While Busch and his team fought tire problems throughout the weekend, he may be in big trouble with NASCAR over comments he made on his car radio during the Xfinity Series race.
“Debris all over the race track and they don’t throw a yellow. I’m just so pleased with you, NASCAR. Thanks. Y’all are awesome. Fixing races. ”
While his comment on the track debris might be acceptable, his alluding to NASCAR race fixing is a no-no, and might cause him to be fined. From my interpretation of the ruleboook, he could be placed on probation and fined up to $100,000.
The remaining top-10 finishers were: Kyle Busch, Darrell Wallace Jr., Daniel Suarez, Elliott Sadler, Kevin Harvick, Brendan Gaughan, Kyle Larson, Brandon Jones, and Justin Allgaier.
Top-10 leaders after 5 of 33: 1. Suarez-182, 2. Sadler-173, 3. Allgaier-163, 4. B. Jones-161, 5. T. Dillon-159, 6. Gaughan-154, 7. E. Jones-152, 8. Wallace Jr.-134, 9. Reed-133, 10. Poole-130.
CUP DRIVERS ARE UNDERMINING XFINITY SERIES
Five races into the Xfinity Series and Sprint Cup driver Kyle Busch has won three, while Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon have won the other two.
My question is, should NASCAR allow Sprint Cup regulars to dominate the Xfinity Series?
A lot of fans that communicate with me have a problem with Cup drivers like Kyle Busch running a full Xfinity Series. The Cup regulars are too overpowering for most of the regular Xfinity drivers.
Busch has every right to compete in the second-tier series. But with his advantages in manpower and sponsorship money, it would be a major upset if Busch failed to dominate every Xfinity race he enters.
After five races into the 33 race schedule, Busch has led 626 of 713 laps en route to three straight wins.
At Las Vegas, he controlled every lap but one.
Busch has won a record 79 Xfinity races and that figure will likely soar unless something is done.
NASCAR's argument that Xfinity regulars learn by racing with the likes of Busch is a slap in the face to teams and fans. No matter what drivers say under the spotlight of network TV interviews, the Xfinity gang never actually races with Busch or with drivers who are backed by other Sprint Cup owners. Mostly, they just move aside, and allow them to cruise away.
The tracks and television respond by saying they need Cup regulars like Busch, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano to attract spectators, television viewers and new sponsors.
NASCAR instituted a Chase format for the Xfinity Series this year in hopes it would generate more excitement. There’s just one problem with that idea. No Xfinity regulars have a chance to win and thus earn an automatic Chase berth as long as Busch and other Cup drivers are on the track.
Many longtime Xfinity car owners complained for years over the financial disparity. Nobody listened or seemed to care, so those owners either left the sport or turned to the Truck Series.
Several of the few remaining Xfinity independent teams have only a handful of workers in the race shop and must rely on volunteers to help in the pits during races. How are those teams supposed to compete with the likes of Busch, who is supported by a dozen engineers at Joe Gibbs Racing?
Increasingly, the Xfinity teams features kids who are supported by rich fathers. The veterans have long departed.
There are no easy answers to solve the domination of the big boys, but it’s past time for some type of solution. NASCAR needs to come up with a better scenario.
Weekend Racing: NASCAR will hold no races this weekend. It is Easter and all teams have an off week. The Cup and Truck teams return April 2-3 at Martinsville.
Racing Trivia Question: How many Sprint Cup teams does Roger Penske operate?
Last Week’s Question: Which Cup team does Ryan Blaney drive for? Answer. He drives the No. 21 Wood Bros. Ford.
You may contact the Racing Reporter by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com.
