Success was spread around Susquehanna County in high school team sports during 2016.

Four of the six county schools placed a team among the top eight in the state, each coming in a different sport.

Elk Lake led the way with its girls' cross country team again finishing second in the state in Class A, coming up only a tiebreaker short of a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association championship.

Montrose placed fifth in Class A in boys' cross country.

Two other teams reached the quarterfinals of their state tournament brackets, finishing the equivalent of a four-way tie for fifth place. Blue Ridge made it that far in girls' volleyball and Forest City did so in baseball, each advancing with state wins for the first time in school history.

The finish among state title contenders for those four teams was just part of the success story for county teams and athletes during 2016.

Here's a review of some of the many other highlights of the past year:

INDIVIDUAL SUCCESS

In addition to the four top-eight finishes by teams, there were four top-eight state individual finishes in track and field alone, Memorial Day weekend in Shippensburg.

With their results, all six county schools had either a team or individual finish among the top eight in the state.

Susquehanna sophomore Skyla Wilson finished third in Class 2A girls in the 100-meter hurdles.

Elk Lake's Hunter Watkins medaled for the second time, taking third in Class 2A boys in the javelin.

Mountain View's Joe Nally tied for third in the pole vault.

Forest City's Jennifer Korty, competing for Carbondale as part of a cooperative sponsorship between the two schools in the sport, placed eighth in the 1600-meter run.

STATE MEDALS

All top eight finishers in state track and field events earn medals.

At state cross country, the top 25 in each race earn medals.

Elk Lake's Justine Johns did so for the fourth straight year making her one of three state medalists from the county.

Owen Brewer from Montrose was 13th in Class A boys.

Johns was 18th and Forest City's Korty was 23rd in Class A girls.

ALL-STATE

Hayleigh Fekette and Megan Houlihan each made the all-state team in girls' volleyball after helping Blue Ridge to the state quarterfinals. The team was selected by the Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association.

Axel Mejia from Blue Ridge made the boys' all-state team selected by the Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association.

Five county girls made the all-state softball team.

Montrose catcher Anastasia Hester and Elk Lake first baseman Darci Warner were first-team choices in Class 2A.

Pitcher Madelynn Guinane and shortstop Katie Warner, both from Montrose, received honorable mention in Class 2A. Mountain View's Lucy Adams was honorable mention in Class A.

STATE FINALISTS

Montrose's Zach Mead was among the 12 runners to advance to the Class 2A boys' 1600-meter run final, but fell short of a medal, settling for 11th place.

DISTRICT CHAMPIONS

Blue Ridge repeated its District 2 Class A girls' volleyball title and was joined as district champion by other teams.

The Elk Lake girls' cross country team, Montrose boys' cross country team and Forest City baseball team all earned their state tournament chances with District 2 Class A championships.

The Mountain View boys' soccer and Forest City girls' basketball teams also won district titles in Class A.

INDIVIDUAL GOLD

Forest City's Korty won three individual District 2 gold medals.

Korty won the Class A girls' cross country title. She had won both the 800- and 1600-meter run titles for Carbondale during track and field in the spring.

Montrose's Zach Mead won the district Class A boys' cross country title.

Susquehanna's Wilson won district gold in the 300-meter hurdles, an event in which she was 12th in the state.

Elk Lake's Wtakins (boys' javelin) and Lydia Ofalt (girls' 400) also won district titles.

STATE QUALIFIERS

Wilson, in the 100 hurdles, and Mountain View's Nally, in the boys' pole vault, qualified for the state track meet without winning a district title in those events, but still turned their chances into state medals.

Blue Ridge's Lindsey Rupakus was part of the school's district champion and state qualifying 400- and 1600-meter relay teams and also qualified on her own in the 300 hurdles. She was the county's only three-event participant in state track.

Elk Lake reached the state tournament in Class 2A boys' basketball.

BIG STAGE

District 2 held its basketball championships at the Mohegan Sun Arena for the first time and Susquehanna County teams occupied three of the 16 spots.

That meant one out of every four county basketball teams made it to the arena while roughly one out of every 5 1/2 made it from the rest of the district.

Forest City sent both its boys' and girls' teams to the arena while Elk Lake made the boys' final.

The Lady Foresters beat Lackawanna Trail, 40-29, for the Class A title. Kendra Bendyk led the way, hitting four 3-pointers while scoring 16 of her 17 points in the first half.

A title rematch between county teams capped the Memorial Day quadrupleheader at PNC Field in Moosic for the District 2 baseball championships.

Forest City scored four runs in the top of the seventh to defeat Blue Ridge, 6-5, for the title.

YEAR OF CHANGE

The basketball title games moving to the arena was just one of many changes in PIAA and District 2 sports.

The PIAA expanded from four to six classes in football, boys' basketball and girls' basketball and added classes in other sports.

Those changes led to some realignment, according to class, whenever possible, within the Lackawanna League, including a switch from six to 10 teams in Division 3 of the Lackawanna Football Conference.

District 2 playoff formats also went through necessary adjustments and the district committee decided on two major changes for basketball. Classes with more than eight schools will now have eight-team tournaments, instead of tournaments that are open for all, and a ratings formula taking in results of all games will determine playoff qualifiers and seeds instead of the old system that used league records and titles only.

LEAGUE/DIVISION CHAMPIONS

The Montrose boys' cross country team went 23-0 to repeat as Lackawanna League champion.

The Blue Ridge girls' volleyball team also repeated as Lackawanna champion. It joined the Forest City girls' basketball team in sweeping both regular season and division titles.

Forest City defeated Elk Lake, 48-45, in overtime in a playoff for the Lackawanna Division 4 girls' title.

The Blue Ridge boys' soccer team in Division 3; and the Montrose softball, Montrose girls' track, Elk Lake girls' track, and Elk Lake boys' basketball, all in Division 4, were unbeaten in league play to take titles.

Montrose won the Lackawanna Division 4 baseball championship.

Elk Lake's Watkins in the boys' javelin, Mountain View's Nally in the boys' pole vault and Blue Ridge's Rupakus in the girls' 300 hurdles all won events at the Robert Spagna Lackawanna Track Conference Championships.

WRESTLING

Montrose had the county's three most successful wrstlers in the postseason, all in the first three weight classes in Class 2A.

Jacob O'Brien was the only one to win a Northeast Regional match on the way to taking third at 120 pounds.

Joseph Hester and Chuck Rohan, at 106 and 113, were the county's only District 2 finalists.

FOOTBALL RECAP

Susquehanna went just 5-6, including a stretch where it lost six of seven games, but it started and ended the football season well.

The Sabers won their first two games and their last two, culminating in a title in the Class A game for the Eastern Conference, a playoff for the best teams that do not make the district or state playoff.

Susquehanna opened by getting the Battle for the Bluestone Trophy back, winning the game for the fourth time in its five years with a 21-7 victory at Montrose.

Kyle Donovan, playing for the first time after the death of his mother Leslie less than a month earlier, earned the Thomas E. Robinson Memorial Award for his performance in the game. Donovan carried 19 times for 127 yards and hit five of seven passes for 63 yards.

Susquehanna followed up that effort by shutting out Holy Redeemer, 8-0, as its defense held the Royals to minus-55 yards rushing and minus-13 yards total offense.

Jarred Mills ran for a career-high 203 yards and scored all of his team's points in a 24-8 win over Holy Cross in the regular-season finale.

The Sabers had their season extended into a trip to Old Forge for the Eastern Conference championship game.

Susquehanna pounded the host Blue Devils, 40-13, with Mills and Donovan each accounting for three touchdowns.

Mills carried 16 times for 135 yards and two scores. He caught a touchdown pass from Donovan, who finished with 159 yards and two touchdowns passing while also running for a score.

ALL-STAR GAMES

Zach Conrad continued the recently tendency of former Susquehanna players excelling in the Dream Game, the football all-star contest that annually draws the largest crowd of any event featuring District 2 athletes.

Conrad had a game-high 10 tackles while teammate Evan Aldrich and Montrose's Derek Nunez also played well defensively as the City defeated the County, 35-8, before a crowd of 7,468 at John Henzes/Veterans Memorial Stadium in Peckville.

They were among many county athletes who performed well in the various senior all-star games.

Blue Ridge's Tyrell Cheeseboro was named Most Valuable Player of the White's 5-0 win over the Green in the UNICO Cup.

Cheeseboro had a goal and an assist and county players produced all the scoring, including two goals by Elk Lake's Ben Woolcock.

Montrose's Giovanni Amato and Christopher Spence also scored goals while Blue Ridge's Corbin French had two assists.

Amanda Mowry from Elk Lake had a goal and an assist to help the Pink beat the Green, 6-1, in the girls' game that was also part of the doubleheader.

Similar to soccer, multiple county players led the way for the winning boys' team and one was prominent in the girls' win in the Lackawanna League's basketball all-star games.

John Warnero, who resigned after Elk Lake's championship season, coached the Red to a 126-122 win over the Blue in the boys' game with the help of double figures scoring from four county players.

Forest City's Adam Kowalewski had 14 points, Elk Lake's Bailey Newhart had 13 and Elk Lake's Seth Tewksbury and Montrose's Austin Smith had 12 each.

Susquehanna's D.J. Decker was the second-leading scorer for the Blue (small schools) in a 65-54 win over the Red (big schools) in the girls' game, hosted by Forest City. Decker had 11 points, hitting two 3-pointers and scoring on a three-point play.

Chris Lee from Montrose had one of the hits in the game-winning, two-run eighth inning when the Lackawanna League defeated the Wyoming Valley Conference, 4-2, in the Field of Dreams Game at PNC Field, the home of the Triple-A champion Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.

THE NEXT LEVEL

Several county athletes continued to excel on the college level.

Montrose graduate Dallas Ely briefly became West Chester University's all-time leading women's basketball scorer before finishing her career second in school history behind teammate Brittany Sicinski.

Ely, who led the Lady Meteors to the 2012 Class 2A state semifinals, finished with 1,607 college points, along with 559 rebounds and 308 assists, the 10th-best total in school history.

Her career ended in a second straight trip to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II national tournament.

Mountain View graduates Colby Thomas and Zeb Cross, who won a state title and made two state championship game appearances with the Eagles, helped Messiah College to the third round of the NCAA Division III men's soccer tournament.

Thomas scored seven goals and led the team with 11 assists.

Elk Lake's Adam Phillips completed a successful NCAA Division I swimming career that included several wins in dual meets, invitationals and conference meets.

Phillips helped Rider College go 9-0 and win its fifth straight Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title.

Brooke Darling, who had pitched for two seasons on the Division I level at Columbia University, completed her career with two seasons in Division II at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Darling finished up by earning Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Central Division all-star honors for going 13-7 with a save and 1.90 earned run average in 25 games.

Austin White, a Blue Ridge graduate who played quarterback at Susquehanna as part of the cooperative sponsorship of the sport, caught passes in every game as a wide receiver for the King's College football team.

FAST START

Two days into the 2016-17 basketball season, the Blue Ridge boys had the county's first tournament title of the season with back-to-back wins in the Sayre Tip-Off Tournament, including over Susquehanna in the final.

IN THE LONG RUN

Mary Ann Lawrenson from Thompson won the 50-54 Female Division at the Steamtown Marathon.

Lawrenson and Korty won age group titles earlier in the year at the Scranton Half Marathon.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

The Susquehanna Junior Sabers C Team completed a 10-0 Southern Tier Youth Football Conference championship season.

The team of 7- and 8-year-olds outscored its opponents, 376-47, including three playoff games, culminating in a 19-0 "Super Bowl" win over Candor.

TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. he can reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com or followed on twitter at @tomjrobinson.

STEWART IS A PROVEN WINNER

Tony Stewart at Martinsville Speedway in 2006

The 2016 Sprint Cup season was Tony Stewart's last as a driver, but he will continue as a NASCAR owner, and open-wheel driver.

While he is best known as the driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, he has scored 12 driver championships since he first drove a go-kart in 1978 at a Westport, Indiana, just outside his hometown of Columbus.

No matter what series you name, he has probably been victorious in it.

In 1980 at the age of eight, Stewart had won his first championship, a 4-cycle rookie junior class championship at the Columbus Fairgrounds. Two more karting championships followed, but this time on a national level, the 1983 International Karting Federation Grand National championship and the 1987 World Karting Association National championship.

"I started racing competitively when I was about seven or eight, getting a trophy that was bigger than the other kids' was all I cared about," said Stewart in a 2009 interview. "I couldn't have asked for more out of this life. I feel like I'm a very, very fortunate person, so no matter what happens, no matter how long I race or don't race, the goals and everything that happens from here is just icing on the cake. I've been very lucky to do the things I've done."

Stewart's racing career began at age seven behind the wheel of a go-kart, with his father, Nelson, serving as car owner and crew chief.

"He (his father) never let me settle for second," Stewart continued. "He didn't like it when we ran second, and he knew that I didn't like it when we ran second. If he saw that I wasn't giving 100 percent, then he was on me pretty hard about it. He pushed me to be better."

Stewart came to NASCAR in 1999 by way of the IndyCar Series, where he was the series champion in 1997. Before he made his mark in Indy cars, Stewart made a name for himself in the rough-and-tumble world of the United States Auto Club (USAC). He has four USAC championships, including what at the time was an unprecedented win of USAC's "Triple Crown."

USAC's top-three national touring divisions are Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown. After winning the Midget title in 1994 and finishing 10th and sixth in the Sprint and Silver Crown divisions, respectively, Stewart went out and set a new standard of excellence in 1995 by winning all three divisions. No driver had ever won the Sprint, Midget and Silver Crown championships - divisions that run three very different types of race cars which compete on both asphalt and dirt - in a single season until Stewart came along.

He won the International Race of Champions (IROC) during that series' final year of operation in 2006, and it's clear that Stewart is in a league of his own.

He is the first and only driver to have won championships in stock cars, Indy cars and open-wheel Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown cars. And his three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships made him one of just nine drivers who have scored three or more Cup titles.

"My dad never pressured me to be the best race car driver in the world, but he did pressure me to be the best race car driver that I could be," Stewart said. "He never compared me to anybody else. He expected that what I could do was what I could do. He never said that because this guy over here could do something that I should be able to do it, too. He pushed me hard, but he was fair about it. That's probably why you see so much fire in me today, because he always wanted me to be the best that I could be."

FOUR TEAMS FORCED TO DOWNSIZE

This Christmas was not all rosy for several NASCAR Cup teams.

Four chartered teams will lose five cars for lack of sponsorship in 2017.

Topping the list is Roush Fenway Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, HScott Motorsports, and Tommy Baldwin Racing. HScott has closed their shop doors on both of their cars, while the other three organizations will lose just one team each.

Jack Roush was forced to cut one of his three teams in 2017, and send driver Chris Buescher to JTG Daugherty Racing until he can come up with enough sponsor money to return to a three-car operation.

"We have been able to shore up our plans for 2017 and we feel that this will continue to move us in a direction that will yield improved performance and results," Roush said in a statement.

The move allows Roush Fenway to keep Buescher under contract while trying to revitalize their own performance and secure needed sponsorship.

Roush lost Greg Biffle, driver of the No. 16 Ford, and has been winless the past two season. None of their drivers finished in the top-20 in the final 2016 standings.

Stenhouse and Bayne remain as Roush Fenway's full-time Cup drivers. The team's charter (NASCAR's version of a franchise) for what was Biffle's No. 16 car will be leased to JTG Daugherty Racing for Buescher in 2017. Stenhouse will have a new crew chief in 2017, as former Biffle crew chief Brian Pattie will replace Nick Sandler, who will head the Roush Fenway engineering department.

Richard Petty Motorsports will downsize from two Cup cars to one for 2017, making it the fourth organization to either cut its number of cars or close after the 2016 season.

Brian Scott, who brought sponsorship from Albertson's Grocery chain as well as his family's Shore Lodge, announced his retirement last month, and RPM announced Friday that it would not field the No. 44 car next year.

The charter (NASCAR's licenses that guarantee spots in Sprint Cup races) from the No. 44 car has been leased to Go FAS Racing and will return to RPM for 2018, where it must either field a team with it or sell it.

RPM has driver Aric Almirola and sponsor Smithfield signed for 2017. The move allows the organization to regroup without fielding the second car it has no funding for in 2017. Almirola was 26th in the standings in 2016 while Scott was 31st.

"We feel that it's in the best interest of our partners and for Richard Petty Motorsports to focus our resources on the No. 43 Ford Fusion and Aric in 2017," said RPM CEO Brian Moffitt.

"A concentrated effort on one team will position us for improvement while giving us adequate time to re-establish our two-car team in 2018."

RPM struggled this past season with both cars.

Almirola failed to make the 16-driver Chase and ended up 26th in the series standings with one top-10 finish in 36 starts. His teammate, Brian Scott, finished 31st in the standings, also with one top-10 finish in 36 starts. The two drivers combined to lead a total of only seven laps during the entire season.

RPM's last series win came in 2014 with Almirola in the July race at Daytona.

Petty, the seven-time Cup champion and Hall of Fame member, has been co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports since its 2009 formation, the result of a merger with Gillett Evernham Motorsports and the closure of the historic Petty Enterprises organization.

RPM then downsized to a two-car organization before the 2011 season.

Go Fas Racing owner Archie St. Hilaire on Thursday said he had leased the charter from RPM's No. 44 team and would use it for his No. 32 team in 2017. St. Hilaire had already leased his own charter to the Wood Brothers for 2017.

Racing Trivia Question: At which track will NASCAR open the 2017 racing season?

Last Week's Question: What famous family is Ben Kennedy, the Truck Series driver related to? Answer. He is the great-grandson of NASCAR founder, Bill France.

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