Jennifer Korty from Forest City and Mary Ann Lawrenson from Thompson each won age group titles Sunday at the third annual Scranton Half Marathon.

Korty, 16, won the Female 18-and-under division by finishing the 13.1-mile course in 1:36:31.23. She was 133th overall out of 2,547 finishers.

Lawrenson won the Female 50-54 age group in 1:40:15.02. She was 192nd overall.

Aaron Griggs, a 29-year-old from Montrose, was the top Susquehanna County finisher. He completed the course in 1:24:44.45 to take 28th place overall.

Suleman Shifa from Alexandria, Va. won in 1:05:30.41, four minutes in front of Thomas Porter from New Haven, Conn.

Kevin Borrelli from Dickson City and Rob Ahrens from Clarks Summit were third and fourth.

Dickson Mercer from Washington, D.C. was the fifth runner to finish faster than 1:10.

Heidi Peoples from Scranton was the women’s winner in 1:18:48.75.

Paul Leonard from Scranton was the Masters champion. The 52-year-old, who won the first Steamtown Marathon, was 18th in 1:18:56.47.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Elk Lake swept Blue Ridge in boys’ and girls’ track and field, becoming the first Lackawanna Track Conference team in each to improve to 3-0, including crossovers.

The Warriors won the Division 4 openers with a 106-37 boys’ romp and an 85-65 victory in the girls’ meet.

In boys’ volleyball, Mountain View swept three-game matches from Susquehanna and Forest City to improve to 4-0 good for a one-half match lead over defending Lackawanna League champion Abington Heights (3-0).

In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins clinched their 14th straight American Hockey League playoff berth with Saturday’s 4-3 win over the host Hershey Bears.

Dominik Simon scored two goals, Tom Kostopolous had two assists and Brian Foster made 21 saves in the win.

The Penguins opened a 4-1 lead on the Atlantic Division leaders in the second period.

In professional baseball, both the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders and Binghamton Mets got their seasons started in weather-abbreviated schedules.

During the first days of the schedule, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre had one game postponed and one suspended while Binghamton had two games postponed.

After waiting through a rain delay to start late on Opening Night Thursday in Moosic, the RailRiders wound up in a suspended game after four innings because of rain.

That led to a doubleheader Friday.

After losing 3-0 in the conclusion of the suspended game, the RailRiders scored six runs in the bottom of the sixth of the seven-inning second game to pull out a 7-2 victory over the Rochester Red Wings in the International League.

Eddy Rodriguez drove in the tying and winning runs with a bases-loaded single.

Binghamton waited an extra day and opened its season Friday with a 2-1 Eastern League win over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats at NYSEG Stadium.

Jeff McNeil had a double and home run while driving in both Binghamton runs. Robert Gsellman struck out seven in the win.

COLLEGE CORNER

Curtis Spila, a freshman from Elk Lake, has been in the Keystone College men’s golf lineup for all four matches this season.

After five rounds, Spila is still attempting to break 100 for the first time in college.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Montrose is at Mountain View in baseball and softball Wednesday in what could be two of the better early-season matchups in Lackawanna League Division 4 play.

Lackawanna Trail is at Elk Lake Tuesday, April 19 in a meeting of Lackawanna Track Conference Division 4 boys teams that took 1-0 division and 2-0 overall record into their meets earlier this week.

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 AND TEAM ARE HOT

Kyle Busch Wins at Texas

FT. WORTH, Tex.--Kyle Busch became the second driver since Harry Gant in 1991 to sweep two national series races in back-to-back weekends.

Two weeks ago he won both the NASCAR Truck Series and Sprint Cup races at Martinsville. Last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, he swept the Xfinity and Sprint Cup races.

While he might not have had the fastest car in the Texas Cup race, leading only 34 laps of the 334-lap race, he had fresher tires than the other leaders at the end. His margin of victory over the second-place finisher Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 3.90-seconds.

“You've got to have all the pieces of the puzzle put together, but I think more importantly we've got good cars, but the crew chiefs are just doing a really good job right now,” said Busch. “I think, just being able to apply all the things that we've learned over the past couple of years is what makes the difference. We knew we were behind, and when we were struggling a couple years ago we were working in all areas of the race car trying to make it better, and when those guys caught up, man, it was easy. It was easy for us to gain speed because that's a huge proponent of what we do each and every weekend, which is all about the engine.”

Busch started in the middle of the field and got banged into by Jimmie Johnson early in the race during a pit stop.

“With getting hit by Jimmie on pit road, that was no big deal,” continued Busch. “I'm just glad it didn't cause any serious damage to either of our cars. It was just kind of a freak deal with the way Harvick came out of his pits. I just had to check up in order to not run into the back of him, and I really didn't have anywhere to go because somebody was coming on my right side, and Jimmie just hit me in the rear.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. started the race 16th, but quickly began to work his way through the field.

By Lap 101, he had moved into second. He raced in the top-three until the next pit stop, remaining in the top five and in the race for the victory despite a small fire in his stall as he was exiting pit lane.

“Well, we had a great car, said Earnhardt. “We didn't really know we had that good a car, but when the race started, we were real tight. We made some good adjustments to get the car handling well, and then really controlled the balance of the car the rest of the night with the track bar. We had about a second or third-place car.

“We got lucky at the end to be able to restart on the inside. The outside was kind of difficult, and we restarted fifth and were able to get up to third and raced the 22 (Joey Logano) at the end. It was fun. I enjoyed driving the car tonight. The car was very loose and very challenging but a lot of fun for me.  Obviously our car was good, so passing guys with the '16 setup was pretty cool., I'd have never got by Joey, so it was fun to have an opportunity to sort of set somebody up and get by him there at the end, and that's due to the direction we went this year with the low downforce.  Pretty cool.”

 Joey Logano was third, while Jimmie Johnson was fourth, and rookie Chase Elliott rounded out the top-five.

Perhaps the most disappointed driver of the race was Martin Truex, who came in sixth. A strategy call turned out to be the wrong one for his team.

Truex led a race-high 141 laps. However, things went sour late in the race when crew chief Cole Pearn decided to stay out under caution while most of the leaders came to pit road for fresh tires. On what turned out to be the last restart of the night, the call proved devastating for Truex Jr. who could not fight off eventual race winner Kyle Busch who did pit for fresh rubber.

Pole-sitter Carl Edwards led 124 laps, but a loose wheel on a Lap 222 restart forced the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing driver to pit under green, putting him a lap down. However, Edwards was able to battle back for a seventh-place finish.

The remaining top-10 were: 8. Kasey Kahne, 9. Kurt Busch, 10. Kevin Harvick.

Top-10 leaders after 7 of 36: 1. Kyle Busch-259, 2. Johnson-258, 3. Harvick-252, 4. Edwards-251, 5. Logano-234, 6. Earnhardt-211, 7. Kurt Busch-208, 8. Hamlin-201, 9. Keselowski-201, 10. A. Dillon-198.

KYLE BUSCH CRUISES TO XFINITY WIN

Joe Gibbs Racing teams finished 1-2 as Kyle Busch easily outclassed the field for his 80th career Xfinity win, while teammate Erik Jones was runner up.

Busch started on the pole, led four times for 150 laps of the 200-lap race, and finished over three-seconds ahead of Jones.

“We've had some really good runs here over the years, and we've been really fast,” said Busch. "We got our money's worth out of it and (crew chief Chris) Gayle got his money's worth out of it, too, on the pit box today. We had to make some adjustments to it and fine-tune on it to make it better and better.”

The remaining top-10:  3. Brad Keselowski, 4. Chase Elliott, 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 6. Justin Allgaier, 7. Elliott Sadler, 8. Austin Dillon, 9. Brandon Jones, 10. Ryan Sieg.

Top-10 leaders after 6 of 33: 1. Suarez-207, 2. Sadler-206, 3. Allgaier-198, 4. B. Jones-193, 5. E. Jones-192, 6. T. Dillon-187, 7. Gaughan-187, 8. Wallace Jr.-160, 9. Reed-160, 10. Poole-152.

STEWART STILL UNSURE OF RETURN

Brian Vickers start in Saturday night's Sprint Cup race at Texas was his third consecutive race for the injured Tony Stewart.

Stewart said he feels good but needs to wait for a scan on his broken back later this month to determine when he will return to the driver's seat. The three-time Sprint Cup champion, speaking Thursday, said some days it has been hard and some days it has been easy not racing this year while his back heals.

“I don't [know my return] -- not until they do the next set of scans,” Stewart said. “The first thing they did were X-rays [in early March] just to make sure the rods and screws were in place. When we do the scans at the end of the month, then they'll be able to have an idea exactly when it's going to happen.”

Stewart suffered a burst fracture of his L1 vertebra in a Jan. 31 dune buggy accident. He was going 5 mph but landed hard in a drop he estimated was 20 to 25 feet in the California sand dunes.

“I feel great,” Stewart continued. “I've been doing everything now over the last week that I've wanted to do. If you step off a curb wrong or step too hard, you're definitely reminded you have these rods in your back.

“Other than that, I feel really well. I'm anxious to get the scans. It's driving me crazy wanting to see what it looks like and what is the diagnosis and when they think they're going to let me go.

“Then (doctors) will be able to have an idea of when exactly it's going to happen. The hard part is just waiting until we get scanned.”

Until then, Stewart will continue in his role as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing while Brian Vickers and Ty Dillon share the role as the replacement driver in Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet.

Weekend Racing: the Cup and Xfinity teams are at Bristol Motor Speedway, another short track known for close exciting racing.

Sat., Apr. 16; Xfinity Series race 7 of 33; Starting time: 12:30 pm ET; TV: Foxsports1.

Sun., Apr. 17; Sprint Cup Series race 8 of 36; Starting time: 1 pm ET; TV: Foxsports1.

Racing Trivia Question: What is the maximum number of cars that NASCAR allows to start a Sprint Cup race?

Last Week's Question. Which driver has the most Cup wins at Texas?  Answer. Jimmie Johnson leads all driver with six. Carl Edwards is second with three wins.

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

D.J. Decker

D.J. Decker had relatively low expectations as she prepared for her appearance in the Lackawanna League Senior Girls’ Basketball All-Star Classic.

Decker had made the trip to Forest City last year to watch the Division 3-4 all-stars struggle to keep up with players from Divisions 1 and 2. A disappointingly light turnout for a practice in preparation for the game did nothing to boot the Susquehanna guard’s confidence.

“I figured we were going to get creamed,” Decker said.

When game night arrived, however, Decker was one of the player who made sure the small school team had more than enough firepower.

Decker scored 11 points to help the Blue Team (small schools) defeat the Red Team (big school), 65-54.

The all-star game effort made Decker the Susquehanna County Transcript Athlete of the Month for March.

Decker hit a pair of 3-point baskets and converted a three-point play while finishing second to only team MVP Kayla Agentowicz, a Division I recruit from Lakeland, in scoring.

“I was surprised by all the talent we had on our team,” Decker said. “After the first half, I felt like we were going to win so I was just happy I was a part of it.”

Decker was part of it. She led the Lady Sabers this season in scoring at about 10 points per game and 3-pointers with just under one per game.

Being surrounded by all-stars, many of whom she had never played with before, is a situation with which Decker said she normally would not be comfortable.

“I do really bad in those kind of situations, so I was afraid I was going to freeze up,” Decker said. “Everybody on the team was really good to me. There were no hard feelings.

“It was all a positive experience. It was really fun.”

Decker was a two-year starter and a three-year varsity player for the Lady Sabers. She also is early in her third season on the softball team after starting in left field as a sophomore and junior. In the fall, she was a football cheerleader.

D.J. is the daughter of Michael and Marika Decker of Susquehanna.

Middletown, Pa.- Penn State Harrisburg senior, Jackie Furch is a student athlete with a lot of ambition. She is currently studying Communications and will be graduating in May. She currently pitches for the women's softball team here on campus.

Jackie Furch in action

Furch has played softball since the age of five. "I was always a utility player, even when starting out young I had so much love for the game; the same amount that I do today," said Furch. She recalls her team making ECAC playoffs last season as being her most memorable moment during her collegiate athletic career. "I will never forget the homerun I hit in Myrtle Beach two years ago. Coach Sherman and I talked about it the other day. He still says that ball went 250 feet before it landed, but I was too busy running. I didn't realize it went over the fence until I got to second base and Coach D told me to slow down," said Furch.

If Furch had the opportunity to give advice to other student athletes throughout the world, she would say:

"Never back down! There are going to be so many people in this world that try to break you. They are either envious or they have doubt in you. You all have a few important gifts, 1) your athletic ability 2) the drive to get better and 3) the mind set to not let back. Take what is yours but be a team player at the same time. Do not stop till you are satisfied once you hit that point… KEEP GOING, the grind never stops," said Furch.

After transferring to Penn State Harrisburg from Penn State Hazleton her sophomore year, Furch has left her mark on this campus by being active in multiple organizations. She is the President of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.; Vice President of Sororities for the Greek Life Council; along with being a member of both the Public Relations Club and the WPSH Radio Club. Furch also volunteers at the In the Net Sports Complex once a week and she is also employed at the Capital Union Building (CUB) as well as LA Fitness.

Communication and criticism are two key things in life that Furch has learned over the years. "Communication is one major key to success and criticism is one of the best tools to help you in life, don't let any of that bring you down, learn from it," said Furch.

Her favorite sports team outside of the CAC is the University of North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team. Furch has always been a fan of basketball and UNC is her favorite university. If Furch had the opportunity to go to dinner with someone special, it would either be her favorite actor Heath Ledger, her all time favorite athlete Derek Jeter, or her late grandfather who she would give anything in the world just to see him again.

Jackie is the daughter of Greg and Nicole Furch, Hallstead, Pa. She graduated from Blue Ridge High School in 2012.