Colleges Briefly

Basketball
DeSales junior Cherelle Simmons (McCaskey) had 11 points and nine rebounds in a 77-63 win over The University of Scranton. Simmons was named to the Starter's Pub All-Tournament Team after averaging 9.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in the two games over the weekend.
Albright senior Zac Shaeffer (Lampeter-Strasburg) scored a game- high 18 points in Tuesday's 57-48 win over King's.
Cross Country
Penn State junior Vince McNally (Conestoga Valley) finished 92nd overall with a time of 31:06 over the 10,000-meter course in the NCAA Cross Country Nationals Monday in Terre Haute, Ind.
Field Hockey
Millersville senior Emily Woodland, sophomores Melissa McCarthy and Maria Thompson (Lancaster Christian) were named to the All-PSAC East Second Team.
Football
Senior wide receiver Tyler Beiler (Conestoga Valley) earned the J. Stokely Fulton Offensive Player of the Year Award in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference was earned All-Conference First Team honors. Beiler hauled in 61 passes for 1,342 yards and 16 touchdowns, leading the conference in touchdown catches, receiving yards and receiving yards per game. Beiler ended the season in second place nationally in total receiving yards and receiving yards per game. He was ranked first nationally in all-purpose yards per game.
Bucknell junior defensive lineman Robert De La Rosa (Manheim Township) was named to the All-Patriot League Second Team for the second time in his career.
Soccer
Senior captain and defender Tyler Anderson (Cocalico) was chosen as team MVP and for the Misericordia men's team, which finished 13- 9 after losing in the ECAC semifinals. Anderson returned from a broken foot to start nine games at defense.
Swimming
For the second time this season and fourth time in her career, California (Pa.) junior Melissa Gates (Conestoga Valley) was named the PSAC Women's Swimmer of the Week.
Long memory
Jimmie Johnson can still recall in vivid detail his near-misses in 2004 and '05, his voice rising as he describes how he fell just short of a Sprint Cup championship.
No matter that he's won five straight titles since.
"I've forgotten a lot of the good things, but you remember all the bad things - in detail," Johnson told The Associated Press on Tuesday, two days after becoming the first driver in the seven-year history of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship to overcome a points deficit in the season's final race.
Hardly satisfied by his record four consecutive titles, Johnson persevered through an uneven season to win yet again. It made the victory all that much sweeter, but also sent him into NASCAR's short offseason with more uncertainty than might be expected of a champion.
After crew chief Chad Knaus benched his pit-stop team in the middle of the race at Texas on Nov. 7, Johnson and teammate Jeff Gordon swapped crews for the last two races.
"We clearly had some issues on pit road that we need to rectify there, which in the past we've had more stability on the over-the- wall guys," Johnson said. "I think we're lacking a little speed in the cars."
Johnson was in New York to record an interview with driver- turned-broadcaster Kyle Petty to air on Speed TV. It may seem hard to believe now that five years ago, Johnson was the guy always left lamenting how he came oh so close to a title.