The Montrose Area School Board hired Eric Nichols as head varsity football coach during its March meeting.

Nichols, who served as defensive coordinator the past two seasons, replaces Lou Cella, who resigned followed the 2015 season.

Prior to joining Cella’s staff at Montrose, Nichols was also an assistant coach in New York State at Owego Free Academy.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Mountain View recovered from dropping the first game to defeat Western Wayne, 21-25, 25-21, 25-18, 19-25, 15-13 Thursday in a match between Lackawanna League boys’ volleyball contenders.

Keegan Mack had eight kills and Jesse Gerfin had seven for Mountain View, which improved to 2-0 with the win, tied for first with defending champion Abington Heights.

Last season, Mountain View finished second and Western Wayne third in the Lackawanna League.

Emmet Jodan had 24 assists in the win.

Mountain View had defeated Blue Ridge, 25-21, 25-22, 25-9, two days earlier in the league opener.

Blue Ridge bounced back to defeat Susquehanna, 25-13, 25-8, 25-9, Thursday and is 1-1.

In boys’ tennis, Montrose dropped its first two matches.

Elk Lake, which had tentative plans to field a team this year, is not taking part in the Lackawanna League.

In track and field, Elk Lake was the only Susquehanna County school to win both its boys’ and girls’ openers when the Lackawanna Track Conference held crossover meets that will not be part of the division standings.

Elk Lake downed Dunmore, 79-60, in boys and, 84-57, in girls.

The Montrose boys beat Holy Cross, 92-55.

The Blue Ridge girls defeated Carbondale, 88-57.

COLLEGE CORNER

Susquehanna graduate Nicole Shay is a freshman third baseman/pitcher for the Keystone College softball team.

Shay had a two-run double to help the Lady Giants defeat Wilkes University, 13-5, in five inning March 23. She went 2-for-3 and drove in four runs earlier in the year in a 20-2 win over Southern Vermont.

In seven games, including six starts, she is batting .286 (4-for-14) with a double, a walk, a stolen base, three runs and six runs batted in.

Shay made her first two pitching appearances, including a start, during a doubleheader loss to Misericordia University March 29. She is 0-1 with a 7.00 earned run average, giving up 11 hits and six walks while striking out one in four innings.

Keystone is 5-7.

THE WEEK AHEAD

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders will open their International League season Thursday at 7:05 at PNC Field in Moosic against the Rochester Red Wings.

The teams play again Friday at 6:35 before the RailRiders head on the road for the first time.

The Binghamton Mets also open at home Thursday, beginning their Eastern League series with four games against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. The teams meet Thursday at 6:35, Friday at 7:05, Saturday at 1:05 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.

KYLE BUSCH SWEEPS MARTINSVILLE

Kyle Busch Sweeps Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Vir.--Kyle Busch had the force with him this past weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

He led over half the laps in Saturday's truck race, then on Sunday, he completely dominated the 500 lap Sprint Cup race by leading 352 laps.

“Yeah, it was a really good car, obviously with practice and everything and learning some things about the car and the track yesterday, we were able to have a really good piece, and we knew that, understood that, and then we were able to come out here today and put it all together and have a really good piece all throughout the race, as well,” said Busch. “Leading as many laps as we did, that was really good for us. It was a confidence boost for me as well, too, just being up front that much. I've never really felt like I've had a car to be able to do that in years past.

“I think the biggest thing about Martinsville is the amount of off throttle time that you have here is greater than the amount of time on throttle that you have. I was able to put together lift techniques and braking techniques and utilize the speed of the car without trying to go fast. You're trying to go fast, but you're trying to do it while slowing down. That's probably one of the biggest things.  I've never been very good at slowing down.”

Busch was able to stay out front most of the day and avoided much of the fender-rubbing and scraping so typical of Martinsville racing.

A. J. Allmedinger finished second, .66-seconds behind Busch. The runner-up finish was his best ever.

 “I'm thrilled,” he said. “We were able to race for the lead there at the end, and I passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville, that's pretty cool.

“I'm trying my butt off. I didn't like myself last year. I didn't like who I was for the team. I was frustrated. I want to be better for these guys -- guys that when they step up, they make me better.”

Kyle Larson did not lead any laps but finished third. He was followed by Austin Dillon, Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards, Brian Vickers, Paul Menard, Jimmie Johnson, and Ryan Newman.

Joey Logano, the pole-setter, led 21 laps, but during lap 390, his crew lost control of a tire, and he had to serve a pass-through penalty. He did not have enough time left in the race to work his way back to the front and finished 11th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was involved in several altercations and finished 14th.

Hard luck driver of the race was Denny Hamlin. First, he received a pit road penalty for speeding, and then he wrecked during lap 221, and wound up with a 39th place finish.

“I don't know how many pit-road penalties I've had here at this race track or why I choose to push it on pit road knowing that I have the speed on the race track that we've shown,” Hamlin said, “The bonehead things that I've done—I've had my penalties in the race where what does it really matter on Lap 80 if you gain a spot on pit road since you have so many more laps.”

Top-10 leaders after 6 of 36: 1. Harvick-220, 2. Johnson-216, 3. Kyle Busch-215, 4. Edwards-206, 5. Logano-196, 6. Keselowski-178, 7. A. Dillon-176, 8. Kurt Busch-116, 9. Hamlin-172, 10. Earnhardt-172.

“ROWDY” KYLE BUSCH TAKES TRUCK RACE

Kyle Busch led 123 laps to win Saturday's Martinsville truck race. It was his 45th  Truck Series victory and the first of 2016.

“This is just a day we’ve been looking for, for a long, long time,” Busch said. “We’ve never necessarily had all the pieces go together like we should have. And I didn’t know the pieces were going to go together today, the way the cautions (11 of them) played out, the way the tire strategy was playing out — when to pit, when not to pit, how to do all that.”

John H. Nemechek was second, followed by William Byron, Kyle Larson, Timothy Peters, Spencer Gallagher, Matt Crafton, Parker Kligerman, Cameron Hayley, and Rico Abreu.

Top-10 leaders after 3 of 23: 1. Nemechek-83, 2. Kligerman-80, 3. Peters-77, 4. Young-67, 5. Hayley-66, 6. R. Truex-66, 7. Hemric-65, 8. Brown-62, 9. Gallagher-62, 10. Rhodes-61.

BOO'S BRING IN FANS AT MARTINSVILLE

Joey Logano led the way at Martinsville, starting on the pole, but he didn't expect a standing ovation during Sunday's driver introduction.

He wasn't disappointed. Thousands of fans booed him.

The cause of the fan reaction goes back to last year's Kansas race. Matt Kenseth was leading, and Logano bumped him into the wall, and went on to win the race.

Kenseth said Logano did it on purpose.

Logano said it was just hard racing.

Kenseth vowed to retaliate.

Two races later at Martinsville, Kenseth put Logano into the outside wall. The crash was so hard that Logano was unable to continue.

The fans loved it. Whether they were cheering for Kenseth, or just glad to see some action, they gave their approval to Kenseth's action.

As a result of his poor finish that day, Logano failed to make the final Chase segment.

Kenseth was fined and suspended for two races. His Chase chances were gone.

“I think Martinsville is one of those race tracks that is probably going to be fairly negative towards me,’’ Logano said Tuesday during a break in a Goodyear tire test at Richmond International Raceway. “Like I’ve said over the years, there’s only certain people that really know who I am, the people you let close into your life and know how you are. I don’t really take that stuff too personal. I know there’s only one person that can judge me.

“That’s a race track we’ve made progress on every time we’ve been there. I think if you look at years past we qualified well, but we ran eighth to 10th. OK, now we qualify well and we run fifth to sixth. We’re making progress. The last time we were there, we put it on the pole and quite possibly were going to win that race. It’s cool just to see the progress that is being made every time we go there.”

Clay Campbell, Martinsville's president doesn't offer any opinion on the feud between the pair of drivers, but he did use it to promote ticket sales.

The track used footage of the 2015 Logano/Kenseth crash in its television commercials to sell tickets to Sunday's STP 500.

“Yeah, it stirred up controversy but what do people want me to show, the pace laps?” Campbell told the Associated Press.

“I get paid to sell tickets. I don't think that crossed over the line.”

Throughout its 69-year history, Martinsville has produced plenty of high drama and will produce plenty more, which is a good thing, given the current calm racing we see on the 1-5-mile “cookie cutter” tracks.

Most fans understand that when one driver uses his car as weapon to put somebody into the wall it's not a good thing for either driver.

But like it or not, it's good for business.

Just ask Clay Campbell.

Weekend Racing: The Cup and Xfinity teams are at the 1.5 mile Texas Motor Speedway, just outside Ft. Worth. The trucks do not race again until May 6.

Fri., Apr. 8; Xfinity Series race 6 of 33; Starting time: 8:30 pm ET; TV: Foxsports1.

Sat., Apr. 9; Sprint Cup Series race 7 of 36; Starting time: 7:30 pm ET; TV: Fox.

Racing Trivia Question: Which driver has the most Cup wins at Texas?

Last Week's Question. Which is the oldest track on the NASCAR circuit? Answer. Martinsville. The first race was run September 25, 1949. It was won by Red Byron in a Raymond Parks Oldsmobile.

You may contact the Racing Reporter by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com.