Joseph Hester won the 132-pound title Saturday while leading Montrose to a tie for fourth place out of 14 teams in the Lackawanna League Wrestling Tournament at Wallenpaupack.
Hester won three straight decisions to claim the championship. He defeated Scranton Prep’s Oliver Egan, 8-2, and Machias Magill from team champion Delaware Valley, 6-4, before winning the championship match, 6-1, over West Scranton’s Garrett Walsh.
Delaware Valley ran away with the team title with 256.5 points, well in front of second-place Scranton’s 151.
West Scranton was third with 142, followed by Honesdale and Montrose with 133 each.
Blue Ridge placed 10th with 49 points, Elk Lake was 13th with 24 and Mountain View was 14th with 19 ½.
Cole Aukema finished second for Montrose at 170 pounds. He was pinned by Delaware Valley’s Jason Henderson in 1:59 of the final.
Aukema had reached the final with two pins in under a minute.
Andrew Rosevear finished third at 113 pounds when he pinned West Scranton’s Anthony Caramanno in 4:25 of the consolation final.
Chuck Rohan (138), Makeela Fabrizio (145) and Marc Avila (195) finished fourth.
Mikyle Fabrizio was fifth at 152 while Bryan Ryan and Justin Kelly were sixth at 182 and 220.
Adam Roe, the only Blue Ridge wrestler to reach the semifinals, also moved on to the final and placed second at 152 pounds.
Rome followed up a pin in the preliminary round by winning a pair of two-point decisions before being pinned by Scranton’s William Evanitsky in 3:35 of the final.
Nathaniel McArthur put together three straight wins in the consolation bracket to place third at 120.
Nate Barton was sixth at 138.
Elk Lake’s Jerry Fassett used a 10-8 overtime decision over R.J. Knott from Abington Heights in the consolation finals to place third at 285 pounds.
Chris Kinder took sixth at 160 for the Warriors.
Barry Spriggs was fourth at 120 pounds as the only wrestler to place in the top six for Mountain View.
LFC REALIGNMENT
The Lackawanna Football Conference was realigned from three divisions to four during a Lackawanna Interscholastic Athletic Association meeting last week.
Each division will have five teams.
Montrose and Susquehanna will remain in the smallest division, dropping from the old 10-team Division 3 to the new Division 4.
Old Forge, Holy Cross and Lackawanna Trail, the LFC’s three Class A schools, will join the Meteors and Sabers in Division 4.
The LFC agreed to keep Montrose in with the smallest schools for the next two-year cycle despite an impending jump to Class 4A with the inclusion of athletes from Elk Lake and Mountain View in a cooperative sponsorship.
In the new set-up, North Pocono will move from the old Division 2 to Division 1. The Trojans will join Delaware Valley, Scranton, Wallenpaupack and Abington Heights, leaving Scranton Prep, Valley View, Western Wayne, West Scranton and Honesdale in Division 2.
Division 3 will feature Dunmore, Lakeland, Riverside, Carbondale and Mid Valley, previously division rivals of Susquehanna and Montrose.
The LFC still has to determine how to fill out schedules beyond the four conference games and will work with the Wyoming Valley Conference on that process. It remains to be determined how much of the 10-game schedule will be completed by agreements between the conferences and if teams will be free to fill out remaining games, leaving open the possibility of Susquehanna returning to its early days by playing some New York State small schools or Montrose to pick up on old rivalries with schools from the Northern Tier League to the west.
WEEK IN REVIEW
Susquehanna, Elk Lake and Montrose each picked up their first girls’ basketball wins of the season.
Taylor Huyck and Mackenzie Steele each scored 18 points and finished in double figures in rebounds Dec. 11 when Susquehanna defeated Lackawanna Trail, 56-42.
Huyck had 14 rebounds. Steele had 10 rebounds and 5 blocked shots.
The Lady Sabers (1-1) had their other two games for the week postponed.
Elk Lake (1-2) won Dec. 12 when Tamara Voda had 10 points while Eliza Bosscher and Rose Warner added nine each in a 48-25 win over GAR.
Montrose was 0-3 and trailing late in its fourth game Saturday before rallying with the final eight points for a 38-31 victory over Wilkes-Barre Coughlin.
Radvile Vaiciulyte led the way with 10 points.
Forest City had won its opener against Lakeland Dec. 9, then dropped two games.
Mountain View fell to 0-2 Saturday afternoon when Wyoming Area used a 22-1 second quarter to run away to a 66-31 win.
Sarah Holweg scored 20 points while Addison Orzel had 16 points and 23 rebounds for Wyoming Area.
Erika Freely had 13 points in the loss.
Blue Ridge slipped to 0-3.
In boys’ basketball, Susquehanna County teams combined to go 0-10 on the week.
Only Susquehanna has a win so far this season.
COLLEGE CORNER
Mike Pettit is a distance swimmer at Wilkes University, which is 5-4 at the semester break.
Pettit won the 500- and 1000-yard freestyle events during a 110-70 win over Penn State-Altoona in the last meet of the first semester.
The Montrose graduate swam for Elk Lake as part of a cooperative sponsorship of swimming between the two schools. He was a District 2 Class 2A bronze medalist in the 200 freestyle.
THE WEEK AHEAD
The Forest City Rotary Tournament is scheduled to begin Friday when Western Wayne plays Mountain View at 5 and Wyalusing plays Forest City at 7 in a boys basketball doubleheader.
The championship and consolation games are scheduled at Forest City Tuesday, Dec. 26.
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.
CHRISTMAS WITH “THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER”
Bobby Ward after winning the 1975 World Supermodified title in Albuquerque, NM
NOTE: Each year during Christmas we break from our traditional NASCAR racing news in order to bring a timeless Christmas story from Bobby Ward, an early sprint car racer from Arkansas. While he was not well known along the east coast, he was a household name among racing fans in the Midwest. When Ward showed up at the race track, he was always the “one to beat.”
He is a member of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.
Bobby had a stroke five years ago, but is doing well. He and his wife sold their “homeplace,” and moved to Conway, Arkansas, so he could be closer to a medical facility.
“I think that sometimes people overvalue the things of Christmas, and forget to really focus on their friends and the actual holiday season,” said Ward. “I certainly have more material things now, which I thoroughly enjoy, but as far as true happiness goes, I’m not so sure that we weren’t just as happy back in my early years.”
Ward was born in 1935 in the community of Bee Branch, Arkansas, about 40 miles north of Little Rock, in a one-room log cabin. His racing career began in 1956.
He raced hard, traveled long distances, won many, many championships, accumulated a large fan following, and became known as “The Arkansas Traveler.”
“Christmas for us was very light,” continued Ward. “Mom and dad, and sometimes all the family would go out on Christmas Eve and cut down a tree. It wasn’t always a cedar tree. Sometimes it was a pine. After getting it set up in the house we would decorate it. The decorations consisted of some colorful ribbon that had been cut in strips, and strings of popcorn.
“That was all the decorations we used. There were no lights, or anything shiny.
“My three sisters and I each got one toy. That’s the only time of the year we got any store bought toys. But I don’t ever remember a Christmas when we didn’t get that one toy.
“On my sixth birthday I had asked my mom for some type of Tinker Toy. On Christmas Eve, I happened by the bedroom and saw a Tinker Toy sticking out from under the bed. Mom saw me, and said, ‘Son, would you believe that Santa Claus came by earlier today and left this for you? And he might even come back again tonight.’
“Well, I believed her, and sure enough, the next morning Santa had paid us a second visit and left some oranges, apples, and cookies.
“Our Christmas dinner consisted of chicken and dumplings, and dressing, along with ham and some other vegetables, plus a cake and pie.
“We never had turkey or anything you had to buy.
“Around Christmastime, daddy would kill some hogs and cure the meat. He would take some type sugar cure and put it all over the ham, and inject it all around the bone. This not only flavored the meat, but preserved it. The meat would keep in a smoke house for at least a month.
“In my very early childhood, we had Christmas by ourselves. We lived a pretty good way from our neighbors, and traveling in our wagon would have taken too long.
“As I got older, we moved and dad bought a car, and we visited my father’s mother and dad on Christmas. I had a cousin that always got lots of toys and we were allowed to play with them while the rest of the family visited.
“I never said anything to mother and dad about the single toy I got, because I knew how things were with us.
“During the year, I was able to make homemade cars out of blocks of wood.
“We used our imagination and what we had, to entertain ourselves.
“We always ate well, even outside the holidays. We had pork, along with fried potatoes, pinto beans, and corn bread. Every Thursday night we had corn bread and buttermilk.
“There was no electricity in my early years. Our traditional lighting was a simple kerosene lamp. One day my dad brought home a new type of kerosene lamp, called a “Latin Lamp.” It gave a much brighter light, and that was the first time my sister and I had been able to do our homework together at the kitchen table.
“Sometimes at night I would get a glass of milk, and only drink half of it. I would leave the rest of it setting in the kitchen. When it was really cold, the next morning I would have a half glass of ice cream.
“When we moved from Bee Branch to Shirley, Arkansas, there weren’t any boys around to play with, just girls. Mother made me a doll on her old treadmill sewing machine, and filled it with straw and rags, so I would have something to play with.
“It might seem funny now, but I had the time of my life playing with that doll, along with my three sisters and the other girls.
“Whenever my dad took corn to the grist mill, to get it ground into meal and grits, I always went along. The corn was yellow. We never raised any white corn like they have now.
“My childhood was good. I thoroughly enjoyed growing up with my sisters and we were a loving family. We were also a working family. We worked hard, and loved each other. We didn’t go around hugging each other, saying, “I love you,” but we all shared a bond of love.
“I don’t ever remember a day growing up when I didn’t feel loved.
“I tried to race everyone just like I would want him to race me.
“I didn’t always win, but I knew it was important for me to try and finish each race. I think in order to enjoy our success we’ve got to put forth effort. The races that I enjoyed winning the most were those I really had to work for.
“Greater labor leads to greater love.
“To maximize our present enjoyment in life we might need to give up some of the comforts our easy life style brings us. Instead of buying a present ready-made this Christmas, why not see what kind of physical chore you could do for your neighbor. Instead of buying a pre-cooked pie or cake for Christmas dinner, why not bake it yourself?
“Christmas happiness can still be found. You just need to know how and where to look.”
Note: 2017 marks the 22nd year of this NASCAR column. To all my readers, I wish you and your family the Merriest of Holidays and Happiest of New Years. Thanks for your time. My prayer is that all of us will continue to be blessed in 2018.
Racing Trivia Question: What make of car will Richard Petty Racing teams run in 2018?
Last Week's Question: How many Cup races did Ryan Newman win in 2017? Answer. One, the Camping World 500 at Phoenix.
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.
