District 2 has set plans for this year’s wrestling championship tournaments.
Montrose is the only Susquehanna County team that is likely to make the Dual Meet Championships.
Seedings and plans for the team tournament will be finalized in a meeting Jan. 31 at Hanover Area.
The dual meet tournaments will open at four sites – two for Class 3A, two for Class 2A – Feb. 1. The top team from each division – Lackawanna League and Wyoming Valley Conference Divisions 1 and 2 – will host the first round.
Two rounds of wrestling will be held the first night, determining finalists and four consolation finalists that will advance to Feb. 4 at Pittston Area High School.
The consolation semifinals will begin at 9 a.m. on Feb 4.
District championship teams will advance to the state final at the Giant Center in Hershey Feb. 9-11.
Montrose is likely to end up at Western Wayne, Lake-Lehman or Meyers to start the tournament.
The championship tournaments to progress individuals toward the state tournament will begin later in February.
Individual seeding will be done in a meeting Feb. 22 at Pittston Area.
The tournament is scheduled Feb. 24 and 25 at the Kingston Armory.
Class 2A wrestlers advance to the Northeast Regional in Williamsport March 3-4.
The state tournament is scheduled for March 10-12 in Hershey.
WEEK IN REVIEW
Both Blue Ridge teams, the Elk Lake and Mountain View boys and the Forest City girls all had leads in some type of basketball races heading into this week.
Blue Ridge is 9-4 in both boys’ and girls’ basketball to lead the races for the top seeds in the District 2 Class 2A playoffs. Holy Cross (6-6) is chasing the Raiders while Northwest (10-6) is the closest pursuer to the Lady Raiders.
Elk Lake and Mountain View are tied for the Lackawanna League Division 4 boys’ lead at 3-1.
Matthew Lavin scored 20 points when Mountain View defeated Montrose, 49-41, Friday to move into a tie for the lead.
Blue Ridge had handed Elk Lake its first league loss Thursday, 57-55, when Jeff Morris scored 20 points and Sam Cosmello added 15. Reirdan Reyan and Griffin Bunnell had 19 points each.
Elk Lake had defeated Susquehanna, 47-41, Jan. 16.
The Sabers lost again Friday, 54-48, to Lackawanna Trail despite going 25-for-29 from the foul line.
Mason Deakin was 13-for-15 while scoring 19 points and Garret Grausgruber was 6-for-6 while adding 13.
Forest City improved to 4-0 in Lackawanna League Division 4 girls’ basketball by beating Montrose, 46-26, Jan. 16 and Blue Ridge, 51-44, Thursday.
Kendra Bendyk had 20 points against Montrose. Mackenzie Hartman scored 27 against Blue Ridge.
In wrestling, Montrose picked up a pair of wins during a Lackawanna League Division 2 triple-dual at Mountain View.
The Meteors defeated Elk Lake, 45-25, and the host Eagles, 55-6.
Bryan Ryan (138), Makeela Fabriazio (152), Marc Avila (160) and Robert Gregory (285) had pins in both wins.
In boys swimming, Elk Lake suffered its first Lackawanna League loss by a single point on the road, falling at Scranton Prep, 85-84.
In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins fell, 5-3, at the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the first of 11 meetings between the Pennsylvania rivals in the American Hockey League between then and April 12.
The teams, top affiliates of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers, rank first and second in the Atlantic Division and first and third in the entire AHL. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is 30-9-3-0. Lehigh Valley is 26-11-2-0.
COLLEGE CORNER
Dempsey Hollenbeck, a freshman outside hitter on the Misericordia University women’s volleyball team, was one of two Mountain View graduates to make the Middle Atlantic Conference Fall Academic Honor Roll for grade point averages of 3.2 or higher.
Hollenbeck played in two matches and had two kills for the Cougars during the 2016 fall season.
Colby Thomas, a junior who started on the Messiah College NCAA Division III Tournament-qualifying men’s soccer team, was also honored.
THE WEEK AHEAD
The Lackawanna League Division 4 boys’ basketball first-half title race will probably go down to the last night of the half – if not into a playoff.
Elk Lake and Mountain View each entered the week in a tie for first at 3-1. Each had a road game scheduled Tuesday and then will be at home against two-loss teams on Thursday. Elk Lake will host Lackawanna Trail and Mountain View will face Blue Ridge.
In girls’ basketball, defending champion Forest City entered the final week of the first half alone in first place at 4-0 but with games against the two teams tied for second at 3-1. The Lady Foresters, who were scheduled to play at Elk Lake Monday, are at Susquehanna Wednesday.
In boys’ swimming, Elk Lake entered the week in a three-way tie for second place at 3-1. It is on the road Monday, Jan. 30 against first-place Delaware Valley (4-0).
In professional hockey, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins are at the Binghamton Senators in an American Hockey League game Saturday night at 7:05.
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.
NASCAR HOF INDUCTS NEW MEMBERS
Richard Childress at Talladega in 2011
CHARLOTTE,N.C.--Fivenew members were inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. They are: Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, Mark Martin, Raymond Parks, and Benny Parsons.
Real heroes know how to persevere in the face of disaster, and that is why Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, and Mark Martin, three living legends were chosen.
Childress, who started off as a driver, almost left the sport after his friend and driver, Dale Earnhardt was killed at Daytona in 2001.
"Losing Dale was like losing a part of myself," said Childress. "It wasn't just me that was affected, it was the entire team. He represented so much to the organization. After Dale won his last championship, we got complacent. For a couple years we didn't do too well. We had been relying on Dale's driving ability and got behind the technology curve.
"Not only was he a great driver, but almost everyone revolved around him. I mean, we depended on him. He was our leader.
"So, it wasn't just an emotional time for us, we had to make a totally new adjustment in the way we raced. But during the turmoil we learned new things, others in the shop stepped up, and very slowly, things worked themselves out.
"It would have been easy with the number one driver in racing gone, to just give up. I couldn't do that, because the people around me wouldn't let me. If I had just decided to sell out and retire, I wouldn't be able to help my grandsons (Austin and Ty Dillon) develop their racing career.
"It's easy to use hindsight, but when hard times come, you've got to face them. Life is like racing in some ways. You're not going to win every time, but you've got to stay in the game."
Long before he became one of the preeminent car owners in NASCAR history, Childress was a race car driver with limited means. A self-made racer, he was respectable behind the wheel. Between 1969-81 he had six top-five finishes and 76 top-10s in 285 starts, finishing fifth in the NASCAR Cup Series standings in 1975. Having formed Richard Childress Racing in 1972, Childress retired from driving in 1981. He owned the cars that NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt drove to six championships and 67 wins between 1984-2000. In addition to Earnhardt's championships, Childress drivers have given him five others. Childress was the first NASCAR owner to win owner championships in all three of NASCAR's national series, and his 11 owner titles are second all time. Childress also owned the vehicles driven by NASCAR Xfinity Series driver champions Clint Bowyer (2008) and Austin Dillon (2013), as the 2011 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver champion Austin Dillon.
When Rick Hendrick was diagnosed with Leukemia in 1996, things looked bleak for him and his organization. But after months of treatment, and good leadership, Hendrick and his organization returned stronger than before his illness.
"I'm fortunate to be here," Hendrick said. "I have to go every 90 days to get blood work done. I've been in remission since 2000.
"I never thought I wasn't going to make it. I thought I'd make it and loved it so much. I had my brother and my dad, and my son working there.
"It was a family affair and it never crossed my mind to quit."
Another adversity struck Hendrick in 2004, when his brother and his son lost their lives when a Hendrick plane crashed into a mountain as it was preparing to land for the fall race at Martinsville. Hendrick never thought about getting out of the business then, either, and his appearance at the team shop in the days following the tragedy helped carry the organization through its grief.
He knew his family members would want him to continue racing.
The founder and owner of Hendrick Motorsports, Rick Hendrick's organization is recognized as one of NASCAR's most successful. Hendrick Motorsports owns an all-time record 11 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car owner championship titles - six with Jimmie Johnson, four with Jeff Gordon and one with NASCAR Hall of Famer Terry Labonte. Hendrick also has 14 total NASCAR national series owner championships, most in NASCAR history. Gordon and Labonte combined to win four consecutive titles from 1995-98. In 2010, Johnson won a record-extending fifth consecutive championship. Hendrick also owned the car driven by 2003 NASCAR Xfinity Series driver champion Brian Vickers. Hendrick's 242 owner wins in the premier series rank second all-time.
Mark Martin struggled to get a start in NASCAR.
Martin had a successful career in the American Speed Association (ASA), before his first attempt at NASCAR in 1982. He was able to use funds from the family trucking business, but he finished 14th in the standings. His family funding ran out and he had to auction his equipment. He landed a ride but was fired amid struggles, so he returned to the Midwest to compete on the short tracks with ASA for another two years.
"When I left NASCAR to go back to Wisconsin, I was a broken man;physically, emotionally, and economically," Martin said.
"I fell on my face and had to go home and start my career all over again. The perseverance ... and building my way back to a second chance is probably the biggest thing I've done."
He returned to NASCAR in 1987 to what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series, won two of his first 11 races and found himself back full time in Cup in 1988 with team owner Jack Roush.
Martin said he actually made the move back to NASCAR because he wanted his ASA crew chief Jimmy Fennig to move to NASCAR and the loyal Fennig said he would only leave Martin if Martin stopped running in the ASA. They were later reunited at Roush.
He is often described as the "greatest driver never to win a championship," but Martin's legendary career is so much more than that. He came incredibly close to that elusive title many times - finishing second in the championship standings five times. Over the course of his 31-year Cup Series career, Martin compiled 40 wins (17th all time) and 56 poles (seventh all time). Martin saw success at every level of NASCAR. He won 49 times in the Xfinity Series, holding the series wins record for 14 years. He retired with 96 wins across NASCAR's three national series, seventh on the all-time list. In 1998, Martin was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers.
The three living inductees joined 1973 Cup champion and broadcaster Benny Parsons and 1949 Cup championship team owner Raymond Parks as part of the 2017 class.
Raymond Parks is one of stock-car racing's earliest - and most successful - team owners. Funded by successful business and real estate ventures in Atlanta, Parks began his career as a stock-car owner in 1938 with drivers Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall. His pairing with another Atlantan, mechanic Red Vogt, produced equipment good enough to dominate the sport in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Red Byron won the first NASCAR title (modified, 1948) and first premier series title (1949) in a Parks-owned car. Parks' team produced two premier series wins, two poles, 11 top fives and 12 top-10s in 18 events.
Benny Parsons won the 1973 NASCAR premier series championship and could be called "Every Man's" champion: winning enough to be called one of the sport's stars but nearly always finishing well when he wasn't able to reach Victory Lane. He won 21 times in 526 career starts but finished among the top-10, 283 times - a 54 percent ratio. One of Parsons' biggest victories came in the 1975 Daytona 500. He was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998. Parsons also was known as a voice of the sport making a seamless transition to television following his NASCAR career. He was a commentator for NBC and TNT until his passing in 2007, at the age of 65.
Racing Trivia Question: Who was the winner of the 1959 Daytona 500?
Last Week's Question: What year was the first Daytona 500 held? Answer. 1959.
You may contact the Racing Reporter by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com.
