Susquehanna County had a half-dozen representatives on the Lackawanna League team for the Small School Game of the Field of Dreams doubleheader at PNC Field in Moosic Sunday. From left, Montrose's Keith Ely, Romey Washo and Bryden Jerauld, Montrose's Kyle Shema and Dakota Knehr-Cook and Montrose coach John Winn (Submitted Photo)
Dakota Knehr-Cook's two-run triple highlighted a five-run fifth inning, but it was not enough for the Lackawanna League, which wound up falling to the Wyoming Valley Conference, 11-7, to eight innings during Sunday's Field of Dreams Small School Game.
The sixth annual Field of Dreams split into Small School and Big School games in a doubleheader for the first time this year. The game features recent graduates of baseball teams in the two leagues.
Two seven-inning games were scheduled, but the opener wound up going an extra inning. The Big School game was halted in a 3-3 tie in the fifth inning because of lightning and will not be completed.
The WVC opened a 5-1 lead in the Small School game, but Forest City's Knehr-Cook helped the Lackawanna League take a 6-5 lead.
The WVC recovered to force an extra inning, then scored five times in the top of the eighth to win.
Montrose's Bryden Jerauld started the game in right field for the Lackawanna League.
The other Susquehanna County players – Montrose's Keith Ely and Romey Washo and Forest City's Knehr-Cook and Kyle Shema – all came off the bench.
Montrose's Josh Winn was one of four assistants for Lackawanna League head coach Sandy Menichetti from Holy Cross.
Knehr-Cook, Shema and Washo all pitched and played in the infield.
Washo walked a batter in a scoreless inning on the mound and went 2-for-2 with a run scored.
Jerauld finished 0-for-3.
Ely, who played catcher, walked and did not have an official at-bat.
Knehr-Cook did not allow a run despite giving up three hits in his inning. He finished 1-for-2 at the plate and scored a run.
Shema gave up an unearned run, along with a hit and a walk while striking out one. He was 0-for-2.
WEEK IN REVIEW
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders infielder Brandon Drury was named International League Batter of the Week for June 11-17.
Drury had five straight multi-hit games to end the week. He helped the RailRiders, top farm team of the New York Yankees, go 6-2 for the week by hitting .741 with 11 RBI during the week and IL highs of 16 hits, 25 total bases and 11 runs scored during that times.
The 25-year-old, who has almost 300 games of Major League experience with the Arizona Diamondbacks, raised his batting average to .360 through 39 games in his first season with the RailRiders.
Drury had four hits in a 14-2 rout of Syracuse June 15.
In professional hockey, two of the most popular players in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins history have joined the Pittsburgh Penguins organization in coaching roles.
Tom Kostopoulos, who retired this spring after serving as team captain in Wilkes-Barre the last five seasons, has been hired as player development coach. Goalie Andy Chiodo has been named goaltending development coach.
Kostopoulos and Chiodo will work with players throughout the Penguins system while working with director of player development Scott Young and player development coach Jarrod Skalde.
The 39-year-old Kostopoulos is one of our four players in pro hockey history to play at least 600 games in both the National Hockey League and American Hockey League. He scored 157 career points in 630 NHL games for Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Montreal, Carolina, Calgary and New Jersey.
Chiodo had three shutouts in the 2004 Calder Cup Playoffs to help Wilkes-Barre to the final found of the AHL playoffs.
Last season, his first since retiring as a player, Chiodo coached goalies for the Ottawa 67s of the Ontario Hockey League, a Canadian Junior League.
COLLEGE CORNER
R.J. Kuruts won five of his six pitching decisions as a freshman at St. John Fisher, an NCAA Division III school in Rochester, N.Y.
The right-handed freshman from Forest City struck out seven in 4 1/3 innings of relief to get the win in a 13-7 victory over Houghton to help the Cardinals reach the Empire Eight Conference championship game.
St. John Fisher finished 29-16, including 13-5 in the conference and 3-2 in the conference tournament.
Kuruts appeared in 12 games, including eight starts. He was 5-1 with a 5.89 earned run average in 47 1/3 innings while tying for second on the team in strikeouts with 37.
At Forest City, Kuruts was a four-time, all-star, including Lackawanna League Division 5 Player of the Year as a senior.
THE WEEK AHEAD
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders complete a stretch of seven games against the rival Lehigh Valley IronPigs in 10 days when they play in Allentown Wednesday and Thursday in 7:05 starts.
Lehigh Valley is the top farm team of the Philadelphia Phillies.
On the same two nights at 6:35, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies host Trenton in Eastern League games, also completing seven games between those teams in 10 days.
Binghamton is the Double-A farm team of the New York Mets while Trenton is affiliated with the Yankees.
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.
TRUEX WINS SONOMA ROAD RACE
Truex Wins Sonoma Road Race (Furnished by NASCAR)
SONOMA, Calif.--To pit or not to pit was a major decision faced by the leaders during the closing laps of Sunday's 110-lap Cup Series race.
If the race continued to be run under green, cars would be at a disadvantage if they pitted.
Should a caution come out, cars that did not pit would be sitting ducks for those that had fresh tires.
Records showed that within the past seven races, there had been at least one caution during the last 10 laps
While leading, Kevin Harvick's team decided to bring him in for four fresh tires on lap 91.
Martin Truex Jr's. team was running third when Harvick brought his No. 4 to pit road. Truex's crew chief Cole Pearn told him to remain on the track.
The yellow flag never came out. History failed to repeat itself.
Truex won by 10.513-seconds, while Harvick claimed the runner-up spot.
"That was amazing," said Truex. "I just do whatever the team tells me. Our hope was there wouldn't be any cautions late in the race. That's the way it worked out, and I couldn't be more pleased."
For Harvick, who led three times for 35 laps, and appeared to have the faster car at the end, the bridesmaid finish was bitter sweet.
"We all make mistakes," said Harvick. "But still, these guys did a great job. If there had been one more caution, the ending would have been different. But that's why they call this thing racing."
Harvick's teammate Clint Bowyer was third, followed by Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Erik Jones, Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, and Denny Hamlin.
AJ Allmendinger was the winner of Stage One, while Denny Hamlin took Stage Two.
Polesitter Kyle Larson was 14th.
Jamie McMurray and AJ Allmendinger had engine problems during lap 33 and did not finish. Even though it was a twisting road race that consisted of 12 turns, there were no spin outs, or pushing and shoving incidents.
There were only three cautions. All were for drivers that had engine or tire problems.
Top-10 leaders after 16 of 36: 1. Kyle Busch-696, 2. Harvick-624, 3. Logano-584, 4. Keselowski-554, 5. Truex-546, 6. Bowyer-544, 7. Kurt Busch-524, 8. Hamlin-505, 9. Larson-472, 10. Almirola-471.
Results of NASCAR Truck Series race held Sat., June 23 at Madison, IL: 1. Justin Haley, 2. Todd Gilliland, 3. Johnny Sauter, 4. Myatt Snider, 5. Zane Smith, 6. Chad Finley, 7. Jesse Little, 8. Riley Herbst, 9. Cody Coughlin, 10. Noah Gragson.
Top-10 leaders after 10 of 23: 1. Sauter-464, 2. Gragson-391, 3. Moffitt-368, 4. Enfinger-337, 5. Friesen-335, 6. Haley-325, 7. Crafton-325, 8. Rhodes-308, 9. Snider-280, 10. Coughlin-262.
The Xfinity teams had an off week.
WHAT'S HAPPENED TO KASEY KAHNE
If it weren't for bad luck, Kasey Kahne wouldn't be having any luck at all.
Kahne left Hendrick Motorsports after a six year stint and replaced Michael McDowell in the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing Chevrolet.
The 2018 season has been a rough road for him. The 38-year-old has a lower average finish than McDowell in the ride (24.0 to 22.2) and sits mired a distant 28th in the standings. During a year where seemingly everyone with a full-time ride is in playoff contention, Kahne is 130 points behind the 16th and final spot.
The team has tried just about everything including changing crew chiefs. Travis Mack was replaced after just 15 races. Jon Leonard will replace Mack on an interim basis as the Hendrick Motorsports transplant never gelled with Kahne from the start. However, it was just Mack's first full-time role on top of the pit box in the Cup Series.
But Kahne's performance has not been all bad, especially when it comes to sponsors.
What he has done is bring more sponsorship to the ride. Roughly half of the races have been backed by companies like Procore, Ollie's Bargain Outlet and Thorne Camo. Money was indeed one of the reasons owner Bob Leavine chose to make the switch last summer.
So in that respect, Kahne has fulfilled a major part of his responsibility.
"This deals partially with performance because obviously, Kasey is a playoff-caliber driver," Leavine said "He has a wealth of information being with a larger organization like Hendrick Motorsports, and we think that will help us. [But] we also look at this as an opportunity for marketing to be able to sell sponsorship."
What's that old saying about money not always buying happiness? With McDowell also having an up-and-down season in his new ride at Front Row Motorsports it's fair to question if this divorce should have ever happened in the first place.
You also wonder what the future holds for Kahne. A full season of disappointing performances and… what next? Will he be content with a sub par year even if the sponsors return?
IS BELL CHAMPIONSHIP MATERIAL
Expectations were high for Christopher Bell at the end of last season. He was tabbed by Joe Gibbs Racing to drive the No. 20 Toyota in the Xfinity Series in 2018. Yet, after four months into the season, Bell's team has experienced the highs and lows of NASCAR with inconsistent results.
Bell won the Camping World Truck Series championship in 2017 for Kyle Busch Motorsports. While driving a truck, he also competed in eight Xfinity Series races to prepare him for his rookie campaign in the division.
Through the first 14 races of the season, Bell was triumphant at Richmond Raceway, earning seven additional top-10 finishes. Meanwhile, the other six races have seen the No. 20 finish outside the top 10 or not even finish at all.
"Whenever I'm not crashing, it's going pretty good," Bell said regarding his rookie season in the Xfinity Series. "We've had extremely fast race cars and we've had really good runs, especially on the mile-and-a-halves. Even the short tracks, we've been good, it's just those crashes. It seems like we get on a stretch where I run well and then I crash and that breaks our momentum. It's definitely killing us in the points."
The No. 20 team is fifth in the overall regular season championship standings, despite being one of three full-time Xfinity drivers that have gone to Victory Lane.
Racing Joke: Jimmie Johnson was charged with stealing a car and brought before the judge.
Judge: "Why did you steal the car?"
Johnson: "I had to get to the track."
Judge: "Why didn't you take the bus?"
Johnson: "I don't have a driver's license for a bus."
Weekend Racing: All three of NASCAR's major series' will be at the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill.
Fri., June 29; Truck Series race 11 of 23; Starting time: 9 pm ET; TV: FoxSports1.
Sat., June 30; Xfinity Series race 15 of 33; Starting time: 3:30 pm ET; TV: NBCSN.
Sun., July 1; Cup Series race 17 of 36; tarting time: 2:30 pm ET; TV: NBCSN.
Racing Trivia Question: Who are the principal owners of NASCAR?
Last Week's Question. When was the first Truck Series race held at Gateway? Answer. It was in 1998. The race was won by Rick Carelli.
Gerald Hodges is a syndicated NASCAR photojournalist and author. You may contact him by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com.
