Riley Brown and Isaac Walker won both individual and better-ball matches Aug. 28 when Montrose posted its first golf victory of the season by beating Mountain View, 5 ½-3 ½, in a Lackawanna League Class Division 2 match at Rock Creek.

Through the first 10 days of the season, Susquehanna County teams were a combined 2-17-1 in golf with the only wins coming when they played against each other. Blue Ridge has the other win, over Montrose earlier in the season.

Montrose, the only county team with girls’ tennis, was off to an 0-3 start in the Lackawanna League.

Girls’ volleyball was entering into league play on the Labor Day weekend.

WEEK IN REVIEW

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders clinched their third straight International League North Division title when they hit three home runs Aug. 25 in a 5-3 victory over the visiting Rochester Red Wings.

The franchise, formerly the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, has now won nine division championships in 12 seasons. The RailRiders are also defending national Triple-A champions after following up an International League Governors’ Cup title by winning the championship game that pits the IL winner against the Pacific Coast League champion.

Jake Cave, Mason Williams ad Cito Culver hit the home runs.

RailRIders manager Al Pedrique repeated as the IL Manager of the hYear when season-ending awards were announced Wednesday.

Tyler Wade was named IL all-star at shortstop. Through 81 games, he was third in the league with 26 stolen bases and fourth with a .305 batting average in the IL.

During the season, Wade also made his Major League Baseball debut and played 21 games with the New York Yankees.

LOOKING BACK

Keitaro Miyahara drove in five runs on three hits when Kitasuna from Tokyo, Japan defeated Lufkin, Tex., 12-2, in five innings Aug. 27 in the Little League Baseball World Series in South Williamsport.

Kitasuna broke open a 3-2 game with four runs in the fourth, then ended it on the 10-run rule with five more in the fifth.

Lufkin had taken a 2-0 lead with two home runs in the top of the first, including one on the first pitch.

COLLEGE CORNER

The Misericordia University football roster includes two freshmen from the county.

John Giangrieco is a Binghamton Seton Catholic graduate who lives in the Montrose Area School District.

Giangrieco, a 5-foot-11, 195-pound wide receiver, shares the New York State high school for touchdown receptions in a game with five.

Susquehanna graduate Michael Hilkert is a freshman defensive end for the Cougars.

Misericordia is coming off a 1-9 season.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Susquehanna and Montrose are both on the road Friday night in Lackawanna Football Conference Division 3 games.

The Sabers are at Riverside and the Meteors are at Old Forge.

Our high school football predictions, with home teams in CAPS: RIVERSIDE 22, Susquehanna 18 … OLD FORGE 40, Montrose 17 … DUNMORE 54, Lakeland 12 … Mid Valley 22, CARBONDALE 12 … Valley View 41, SCRANTON 38 … Delaware Valley 38, WYOMING VALLEY WEST 21 … NORTH POCONO 16, Wallenpaupack 7 … Honesdale 17, TUNKHANNOCK 14 … Scranton Prep 37, LAKE-LEHMAN 12 … Western Wayne 23, NORTHWEST 14 … Lackawanna Trail 30, HOLY CROSS 16 … West Scranton 17, ABINGTON HEIGHTS 12.

Because of an early deadline for the holiday week, the predictions were made before the results of Week Two games were known.

In other high school sports, Lackawanna League cross country and girls’ soccer have their openers scheduled for Wednesday.

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.

LEGACY OF THE EARNHARDT FAMILY

The name Earnhardt is synonymous with NASCAR racing

Whether you love or hate them, their longevity in the sports is equal to that of any other racing family.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has said that when he finishes the last NASCAR race at Homestead, Florida this November, it will be his last Cup race.

He will give up driving duties, but remain in the sport. "Dale Earnhardt Jr. has over the years helped to increase the growth of the sport," said Bill Howard of Ladysmith, Wisconsin. "I am a die hard fan of his father, but after his death at Daytona, still had to follow Dale Earnhardt Inc., and support at the time all of their drivers. The Earnhardt legacy has endured for four generations.

Ralph was born Sept. 23, 1928 in Kannapolis, North Carolina to Effie Mae Barber and John Henderson Earnhardt. He spent many years working in a cotton mill in North Carolina. One of the only ways out of this poor living was racing.

He is the grandfather of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller, Taylor Putnam, and Kerry Earnhardt, and great grandfather of Jeffrey Earnhardt and Bobby Dale Earnhardt.
He started his racing career on dirt tracks in 1940 where he was famous for keeping his car in top condition throughout each race and was the first car builder/drivers to understand and use tire stagger.It was in 1953 that NASCAR made it possible for him to race full-time.

In 1956, he won the NASCAR Sportsman Championship. He had a second place finish in his first Grand National race in 1956. In 1961, Ralph had his highest finish (17th) in the Grand National point standings.

Ralph Earnhardt died at the age of 45 on September 26, 1973 from a heart attack in his garage while working beneath his car and was found shortly after by his son Dale Earnhardt, Sr. lying on the garage floor.

Dale Sr. is thought by some racing fans to have had some type negative or aggressive trait that made him the great racer that he was. When that competitive spirit of his came out on the race track, quite often other drivers would find themselves in the wall, or at the least, spinning around.
On the track, it was all about winning for him.

But off the track, I found him to be a congenial and socially- acceptable person. My first encounter with him came during the 1994 Bristol Spring race. My newspaper editor at the time had told me to be sure and get some good photographs of Earnhardt, so I had stationed myself in his pit area during morning practice.

Earnhardt was fiddling around with the engine in his car, when his pit crew decided it was time for a break. They went back to the team's hauler. This left Earnhardt all by himself, with his head stuck under the hood of the car. Pretty soon, he went over to the team's large toolbox and tried to pull it closer to the car. But it was too heavy for him to move by himself. "Think you could come over and give me a hand," he said as he looked at me.

I went over and pushed as he pulled until we finally got the toolbox in the position he wanted it. "Thanks, are you going to charge me," he asked. I explained that I was glad to help. "What are you doing here," he asked. I replied that I was covering the race, with instructions to get some good shots of him.

He stopped, stood up, and said, "Start shooting." I got several good shots of him and continued to hang around his pit area. When his crew and car owner Richard Childress came back, he pointed towards me and said, "Watch out for that fellow, because he's from Mobile, Alabama, and will take your picture." Dale Sr. was born April 29, 1951 at Kannapolis, North Carolina. He died on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 after hitting the outside wall.

He won 76 Cup races in 676 starts, dating back to the 1975 World 600 at Charlotte. The driver of the black No. 3 won NASCAR driving titles in 1980, '86, '87, '90, '91, '93, and ''94. From the middle 1990s, Earnhardt didn't spend a lot of time in the team's race shop. It was his policy to come in every Wednesday in order to be sure that the seat in new race cars was installed to suit him. Unlike most drivers, he liked his seat down low, and tilted backwards.

"We never had any problem working with him," said Childress. "He would drive you crazy sometimes with his jokes and fooling around, but Dale respected whatever the guys would tell him. He was my best friend. I loved him. He made the team what it is. We got behind the learning curve in the late 1990s because we relied on Dale's driving skills to win for us. He carried the team for many years." Dale Earnhardt Jr. said his career has far exceeded his expectations.

In a media session at Michigan International Speedway, Earnhardt said he got into NASCAR as a driver because he "didn't want to work for a living," and after he won a few Busch (now Xfinity) Series races in the late 1990s he was surprised and thrilled he'd be able to have a career in the sport.
"I hated working for a living," Earnhardt said. "This is silly, but the way I thought in '97, 'Man, if I could get into an Xfinity car and win just one race, what do I need to do just to say . that's enough to keep me around?'"

While it might sound like Earnhardt was lazy or hated work, the truth is he was working at a gas station, not earning much money. Who wouldn't feel that way? "So when I won my first few races in the Xfinity Series, I thought, 'Well, all right, I'll be able to keep a job in this sport for a while because of this little bit of success I've had," he continued. Of course, Earnhardt has done much more than win a couple of lower-series races. He won two Busch Series championships (1998-99).

He was still relying on his father's help when he won the two Busch championships. In 1999, he was living in a double-wide trailer outside Kannapolis and getting a $200 per week pay check.

The first Cup race he ran was the 1998 Exhibition race in Motegi, Japan. He finished 8th, two spots ahead of his dad. Since making his full-time NASCAR Cup Series debut in 2000, he's won 26 races, two Daytona 500s and the sport's all-star race.

Junior said he never expected he'd come into NASCAR and win seven series championships, like his father, Dale Sr.

"I didn't come here to be the most popular guy. I didn't come in here thinking I was going to win seven championships," Earnhardt said. "I just wanted to be able to do it. I didn't want to flame out in two years and be gone and have to work. I just wanted to be able to make a living doing it.

"It's turned out to be much, much more than that. Every time I win a race, it's a surprise to me. Any time we did anything really big, like win the Xfinity Series championships or the Daytona 500s, even to this day it's hard for me to believe that it happened to me."

Earnhardt also has been voted the sport's most popular driver 14 times, from 2003-16.

"Over the years fans have flocked to support Junior, partly because of his name, but also because of his character, and the kind person that he is," continued Howard. "Winning is what the sport is all about, but his influence in other areas, is also recognized and supported. Yes I will miss him driving after this year is over, but I still will support the charities and organizations that he is involved with."
Even though, Jeffrey Earnhardt, driver of the No. 33 in the Cup Series will remain in racing, it's like the end of an era with Junior gone.

But it won't be all bad, because Junior and his sister, Kelley, will continue to operate JR Motorsports, for Xfinity drivers. In addition he has signed on with NBC Sports as a NASCAR race analyst and commentator during the weekend.

Gerald Hodges is a syndicated NASCAR writer and author. His books may be viewed and ordered online at Amazon.com. You may contact him by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com.