MOOSIC – Mountain View catcher Sam Flannery and Montrose third baseman Chris Lee each had one of the Lackawanna League’s five hits Sunday night during a 4-2 victory over the Wyoming Valley Conference in the fourth annual Field of Dreams Game.
Blue Ridge outfielder Jordan Goff and Montrose infielder Hunter Traver also contributed to the win.
All four county players came off the bench in the game, which matches graduating high school players from the two conferences.
Goff was the only one to play more than half the game. He played right field and finished 0-for-3 at the plate.
Flannery played catcher and batted twice, reaching third base both times. He had the third of five straight walks during the fourth inning to give the Lackawanna the game’s first two runs. He singled and stole second base in the sixth inning.
Lee had the game’s last hit, a two-out single in the bottom of the eighth after the Lackawanna had scored two runs to pull out the win.
Both teams made a series of quality defensive plays. Traver was part of turning one of the winning team’s two double plays.
Delaware Valley’s Lawrence Cecilio tripled in the game-winning run in the bottom of the third, then scored an insurance run. He was the game’s top offensive player, going 2-for-3 with a triple and walk while scoring two runs.
Lackawanna pitchers were working on a combined two-hitter before the WVC tied the game with two runs in the top of the eighth inning.
WEEK IN REVIEW
Six Susquehanna County athletes are among the nominees for the District 2 Male and Female Athletes of the Year, according to NPFSports.com.
The website is conducting a preliminary round of fan voting to reduce the 25 boys and 25 girls to lists of 10 each.
There are three boys and three girls from the county.
Montrose’s Austin Smith, Forest City’s Adam Kowalewski and Elk Lake’s Hunter Watkins are among the boys listed while Montrose’s Madison Gilhool, Blue Ridge’s Isabella Cosmello and Elk Lake’s Justine Johns are among the girls.
Smith, the Susquehanna County Transcript Athlete of the Year for 2015, was a state qualifier in golf and an all-star in basketball.
Kowalewski was a key member of golf and baseball teams that won district titles and finished among the top eight in their class as well as a district finalist basketball team.
Watkins was a state medalist javelin thrower and a key member of the Lackawanna League Division 4 championship basketball team.
Gilhool earned all-state recognition in soccer and excelled as a sprinter on the track team.
Cosmello sprinted her way to a district title as a two-event state track and field qualifier in relays. She was also a division all-star basketball player.
Johns was a state medalist in cross country, also ran distance races in track and field and was a division all-star basketball players.
In boys volleyball, Mountain View setter Emmett Jodon was a second-team all-District 2 selection by NPFSports.com. The selection placed Jodon among the top 13 players in the district.
In softball, Holy Redeemer defeated Moniteau, 9-3, Thursday at Penn State to repeat as Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class AA state champion.
The Royals scored five runs in the top of the first on the way to the win. Leadoff hitter Morgan Bienkowski had four hits and came on in relief to allow just two hits in four innings.
The quick start was in contrast to the first game of the playoff run for Holy Redeemer.
The Royals got started in the District 2 quarterfinals where they needed a run on a rundown play in the bottom of the seventh to pull out a 3-2 victory over Elk Lake.
In professional baseball, Kyle Higashioka from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders was named International League Batter of the Week for the period ending June 6-12.
Higashioka became the first RailRider to win an IL weekly award this season.
During the week, Higashioka led the IL in batting average (.545), RBI (13), extra-base hits (7), total bases (25) and slugging percentage (1.136).
Higashioka had four hits, including a home run, in an 11-10 victory over the Charlotte Knights. He had multiple hits in four of his five games, had the first two-homer game of his nine-year professional career and reached a career-high with five RBI in a 10-7 win over the Columbus Clippers.
TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can be reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com and followed on Twitter at @tomjrobinson.
LOGANO POWERS TO MICHIGAN WIN
Joey Logano Powers to Michigan Win
BROOKLYN, Mich.--Joey Logano got a jump on the rest of the field during the race's last restart on lap 192 and went on to score his first Sprint Cup win of the season, leading 138 laps of the 200-lap race.
Logano, the polesitter, along with all the other drivers had to fight a new aerodynamics package, NASCAR had instituted just for this race. The restarts were especially difficult, with cars bunched up and sliding as they entered the turns.
Logano was among the first to learn the handling of the NASCAR-mandated smaller spoilers and splitters, along with other items that had been changed. All drivers had more slipping and sliding, which made for harder to handle driving conditions.
“I'll remember that one for sure,” Logano said in victory lane. “What a crazy race with the low downforce, more cautions and more chances to screw up. There were times I wasn't sure what the car was going to do. The team kept telling me how good we were doing, but I wasn't sure about whether the car would do what I needed it to.”
Chase Elliott continues to push for his first Sprint Cup win. He led 38 laps on the way to a runner-up finish.
Kyle Larson was third, with Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart, Austin Dillon, Jamie McMurray, and Kurt Busch finishing out the top-10.
Jimmie Johnson, who finished 16th slapped the outside wall and blamed it on Trevor Bayne.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. got tangled up in a wreck that involved AJ Allmendinger and Chris Buescher during lap 61, and could not continue. He was credited with a 39th place finish.
Earnhardt was attempting to shoot the gap between the cars of Allmendinger on his outside and Chris Buescher on the inside when Buescher appeared to slide up into Earnhardt's No. 88. That was all it took to set off a chain reaction, as Earnhardt's car immediately got loose and into the No. 47 of Allmendinger -- sending both cars hard into the outside wall.
Earnhardt then spun and slid down the track before taking his heavily-damaged car to the garage. He blamed Buescher for the incident and was not too happy about it.
“We've got a responsibility to take care of each other when we're three-wide, so I'm disappointed in that,” Earnhardt said. “We had a pretty good car and we were just kind of taking our time. The car was great, so it's a shame.”
Kyle Busch lost an engine in his car and was the first driver out of the race (40th).
Tony Stewart's sixth-place finish was his best of the season.
Top-10 leaders after 15 of 36: 1. Harvick-526, 2. Kurt Busch-496, 3. Keselowski-480, 4. Edwards-472, 5. Logano-455, 6. Elliott-453, 7. Johnson-441, 8. Truex-433, 9. Kyle Busch-417, 10. Kenseth-409.
SUAREZ GETS FIRST XFINITY CAREER WIN
Daniel Suárez won Saturday's Xfinity race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, to become the first Mexican-born driver to capture a NASCAR national series victory. With the victory, Suárez becomes only the fifth Latino driver to win a NASCAR national series race, joining Frank Mundy, Juan Pablo Montoya, Aric Almirola and Nelson Piquet Jr.
Suarez was determined that his teammate Kyle Busch was not going to win his fifth series race of the year. He pulled around Busch with two laps remaining in the 125-lap race to win by .028-seconds.
“Honestly, I was trying as hard as possible,” Suarez said. “I was driving a little more on the edge. Honestly, I was maybe risking a little more than I should have. Everything was about the win so I was trying as hard as possible and it seemed like we were good in points, but not very good in wins. I was just very hungry and I know this team was at the same spot, we were very hungry to win races and finally we got the first one.”
When asked how it felt to pass Kyle Busch, his teammate, Suarez replied, “Well, definitely Kyle has been super helpful to me, not just in the XFINITY Series but as well in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Since last year, he started to support me a lot, to give me information, advice, so many different kinds of information just to try to be a little bit more prepared.
“Last year I went to more than 80 per cent of the racetracks for first time. He was super helpful. This year hasn't been the exception. He been super helpful as well. We share a lot of information. He's just been a good friend. I can call him a good friend.
Busch finished second, followed by Paul Menard, Erik Jones, Elliott Sadler, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Justin Allgaier, Darrell Wallace Jr., and Brandon Jones.
Top-10 leaders after 13 of 33: 1. Suarez-452, 2. Sadler-434, 3. T. Dillon-416, 4. E. Jones-397, 5. Allgaier-388, 6. B. Jones-388, 7. Gaughan-386, 8. Poole-373, 9. Wallace-340, 10. Reed-301.
BYRON GETS TEXAS TRUCK RACE
William Byron won Friday night's Texas truck race after taking the lead from Matt Crafton with five laps to go.
“It’s huge,” said Byron, who drives for Kyle Busch Motorsports. “For our race team to get another win this year really solidifies us. We didn’t leave any doubt out there that we deserved to win.”
Matt Crafton, who held on for second, led 133 laps of the 167-lap race, but was unable to withstand the late charge by Byron.
Johnny Sauter was third, and then Ben Kennedy, Tyler Reddick, Timothy Peters, John Nemechek, German Quiroga, Rico Abreu, and Daniel Hemric were the remaining top-10 drivers.
Top-10 leaders after 7 of 23: 1. Crafton-194, 2. Peters-176, 3. Byron-171, 4. Hemric-168, 5. Nemechek-153, 6. Reddick-153, 7. Sauter-151, 8. Gallagher-145, 9. Kennedy-142, 10. R. Truex-129.
MORE RULES CHANGES
There is an old saying among NASCAR teams, that if you don't like the rules, just wait, and there will be some new ones next week.
That was exactly the case after the Charlotte race on May 29.
One week later, after the June 5th Pocono race weekend, NASCAR issued a second aerodynamic package to further reduce downforce and sideforce for this past weekend's Michigan race.
The bad part about an abrupt rule change isn't the rule itself, but how quickly teams must make adjustments. In the case of NASCAR's two latest changes, teams had only three days to prepare. As a result, several teams had problems getting their cars to pass qualifying prior to practice at Michigan.
“It’s different from what it was, no doubt,” said Jack Roush, who has three Cup teams. “Nobody had been on the race track with this package before. Everybody is struggling to find out where the sensitive adjustments are. The car has not been as loose as we expected. We thought that the problem would be flying out from underneath of you, loose on exit and entry. The entry has been a little bit of a problem, but the exit and center has not been a bigger problem than normal.
“The cars have gone from 3,000 pounds of downforce in 2014 to 2,700 last season, then 2,000 for the 2016 season before yet another reduction to 1,500 for MIS.
“It’s a big turn and it’s also disappointing to me that they decided to pick one of the races that I consider to be pivotal to my year and not make such a jump ball out of it. I wish they had left the rules the same and give us a practice session somewhere to really evaluate them, or a test session, but they decided to use the race to do it, so we’ll have to see what we can get.”
Roush's three teams finished 15th, 19th, and 29th at Michigan. They did not lead any laps.
Weekend Racing: The Trucks and Xfinity teams are at the seven-eighths mile Newton, Iowa facility. The Sprint Cup teams have an off week.
Sat., June 18; Truck Series race 8 of 23; Starting time: 8:30 pm ET; TV: Foxsports1.
Sun., June 19; Xfinity Series race 14 of 33; Starting time: 1:30 pm ET; TV: Foxsports1.
Racing Trivia Question: What year did the Iowa Speedway open?
Last Week's Question? The Wood Brothers team won the first NASCAR race held at Michigan in 1969. Who was the driver? Answer. It was Cale Yarborough.
You may contact the Racing Reporter by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com
