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Dale Earnhardt Jr.?completed a test session Wednesday at Darlington Raceway and suffered no concussion symptoms, clearing him to race at the start of the 2017 NASCAR season.I feel great, and Im excited to officially be back, Earnhardt said in a Thursday news release. I expected things to go really well yesterday, and thats exactly what happened. Actually getting in a race car was an important final step, and it gives me a ton of confidence going into 2017.Dr. Jerry Petty, a Charlotte, North Carolina, neurosurgeon, attended the five-hour test. Dr. Micky Collins, medical director of the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program in Pittsburgh, cleared Earnhardt on Wednesday night. NASCAR requires a board-certified neurologist or neurosurgeon with at least five years of experience in treating sports-related head injuries to clear a driver after a concussion.Dale is one of the hardest-working patients Ive ever encountered, Collins, considered an authority on the treatment of concussions, said in the news release. Hes done everything weve asked, and we believe he is ready to compete at a professional level again and can withstand the normal forces of a race car driver.Dale has been very open with us, and weve had plenty of time for his treatment, so we feel very good about his long-term prospects and how this has been managed by everyone involved.Earnhardt, 42, will drive Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in a NASCAR test at Phoenix International Raceway, open to one car from each organization. NASCAR created a rule this year that allows a driver coming back from injury to test a car, as long as there are no data acquisition systems that would give the team an advantage.Earnhardt and team owner Rick Hendrick have scheduled a teleconference for 11 a.m. ET Friday to discuss the drivers return.Earnhardt missed the final 18 races of 2016 because of a concussion suffered in June at Michigan International Speedway, the effects of which he said he did not start to feel until about a month later. He had battled nausea, balance and vision issues, which did not begin to significantly clear until August.He has spent more than 15 hours in a racing simulator during his recovery. He said last week that before his concussion he would get sick in the simulator, but that he had not experienced those symptoms recently.Earnhardt said the decision in August to not race again this year helped him recover, because he stopped stressing over when he would get back in the car.You worry about your health, Earnhardt said Friday at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards. You worry about the issues youve got are permanent or when they are going to get better and how.Anxiety is a huge factor with concussions and can be a major problem with people trying to recover. ... Every day, I was in some sort of discussion about my future, and my doctor told me I couldnt get well until I dropped all that and didnt think about it. I thought, How am I supposed to not think about that? Thats the most important thing in my life.Earnhardts first race back will be the Feb. 23 qualifying race for the 2017 Daytona 500. He will not participate in The Clash preseason event.?Alex Bowman, who along with Jeff Gordon substituted for Earnhardt this season, will drive in that event.Alex did such a great job in the car this year, and I felt like he deserved another opportunity, Earnhardt said. When I spoke with Rick and the team about him driving The Clash, everyone agreed that he more than earned it, and [sponsor] Nationwide was 100 percent on board.Im really grateful to him and Jeff for what they did for our team, and Im glad Alex is getting another run with us.Earnhardt, who has 26 career Sprint Cup wins, has one year left on his Hendrick Motorsports contract.Wilbert Montgomery Womens Jersey . Only three players drafted by NHL clubs were included on the Czech selection camp roster on Wednesday. Those players were Dallas Stars 2012 first-rounder Radek Faksa, Winnipeg Jets 2013 fourth-rounder Jan Kostalek and Phoenix Coyotes 2012 seventh-rounder Marek Langhamer. Brian Dawkins Jersey . 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No. 13-seeded John Isner and No. 21 Philipp Kohlschreiber were among six players who dropped out of the tournament on Tuesday, joining No. 12 seed Tommy Haas and two other players who withdrew on Monday.Amaya Finklea-Guity was sitting in the Syracuse video room this past summer when she realized this wasnt going to be like all her other interactions with college coaches.This was going to be about instruction and improvement, not promises and promotion.Orange coach Quentin Hillsman was showing tape that illustrated his vision of her career at the upstate New York university when, suddenly, he asked Finklea-Guity to stand up.He proceeded to show her some tips on how to avoid foul trouble by not swinging her arms and by doing a better job of moving her feet laterally.It was as if Hillsman had read her mind. On the plane ride from her home in Boston to Syracuse, she had told her mother, Paula Guity, she wanted to stop fouling so much.What Coach Q did definitely made an impression on me, said Finklea-Guity, a 6-foot-4 senior center and the No. 42 prospect in the espnW HoopGurlz Top 100 who last season led Noble & Greenough (Dedham, Massachusetts) to the New England prep school Class A championship.I felt he was ready to work with me and push me to be better. It was a cool moment.It was also a winning moment for Syracuse because thats when Finklea-Guity decided she would be joining the Orange program. Then again, Syracuse has been doing a lot of winning lately. The Orange went 30-8 last season, reaching the NCAA final before falling to Connecticut. Before last season, the Orange had never advanced past the tournaments first weekend.Last month, Syracuse (7-3) nailed down what is being hailed as the best recruiting class in program history. In addition to Finklea-Guity, the Orange signed Nikki Oppenheimer, a 5-9 combo guard at Montini Catholic (Glenview, Illinois) who represented Puerto Rico at the FIBA Americas U18 championships in Chile; Diaby Kariata, a 6-5 center from Voiron, France, who has represented the Ivory Coast in international competitions; Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi, a 6-2 forward and three-star recruit from Paris who played for France at the 2016 FIBA U18 European championships in Hungary; and Digna Strautmane, a 6-2 forward from Rigas, Latvia, who is ranked 23rd in the Top 100 and played for her national team at the FIBA U20 European championships in Portugal.I think our program is in a good place, said Hillsman, whose team will graduate five seniors this season, including four starters. When you get to the NCAA title game, you are right there. I think we just needed perimeter shooting, size and versatility, and this class addressed that.Size and speed in onePaula Guity, whose parents were born in Honduras, has raised Amaya on her own. For years, Guity put her daughter in just about every after-school activity imaginable, from swimming, to tap dancing and tennis.I was trying to find her niche, Guity said.Ultimately, Finklea-Guity outgrew dance -- literally. After seeing she was the tallest girl on stage, she asked her mother to try something else.A friend told Guity that the AAU Boston Showstoppers were looking for a center. Even though Finklea-Guity, who was 11 at the time, had never played basketball, the Showstoppers took one look at her height and immediately said yes.There was a tournament the next day, and the Showstoppers coaches were yelling out instructions to their new center, teaching her the game on the fly.The coaches told her, Just put your hands up, Guity said. So Amaya did that and just stood there. She didnt realize she had to run up and down the court until they yelled at her again.Then when the opposing point guard came down, and Amaya blocked her shot, she thought that was the greatest thing.She had found her niche.Finklea-Guity, who has a 3.5 GPA and is interested in studying computer engineering, chose Syracuse over 25 other scholarship offers. Harvard and Brown were among the colleges recruiting her. But Finklea-Guity wanted to play for a national title, and she thought Syracuse gave her that chance.Hillsman sees in Finklea-Guity a prototypical post player who can score over either shoulder. But he also sees a player with uncanny speed.Shes as fast as any high school post player Ive ever seen, Hillsman said. Speed and quickness comess down to your will.dddddddddddd You can be fast, but if you dont have the will to run hard every time down, it doesnt matter.Amaya always puts pressure on the other post because of how fast she gets up and down the court.Finding a shooterOppenheimer, who is set to play for Puerto Rico this summer at the U19 world championships in Italy, will certainly help with any shooting issues.She is the daughter of Josh Oppenheimer, who played nine years of pro ball in Europe and is now an assistant coach with the NBAs Houston Rockets. Josh taught his daughter the proper shooting form during her earlier years, and it stuck.Oppenheimer committed to Syracuse in October of 2015, thoroughly enjoying her visit with Hillsman and his staff. But the deal was sealed when she and her mom took a quick detour to the local mall.While trying on sneakers at a Foot Locker, Oppenheimer was asked by the salesperson what made her come to Syracuse. When she explained she was a potential Orange recruit, the salesperson had an immediate reaction.She said, Oh, I love Coach Q, Oppenheimer said. She had been a team manager at Syracuse, and to hear her say so many good things about him just showed he was good to the people around him and that he was a genuine person.That just confirmed what I was already thinking.Oppenheimer, who has a 4.3 GPA and is interested in becoming a sports agent, has drawn praise of her own. Her AAU coach, Dave Yates of Midwest Elite, calls Oppenheimers jumper pure.Its one of the best shots Ive seen in 10 years of coaching girls, Yates said.Because she was the first player in her class to commit to Syracuse, Oppenheimer is called the anchor of the group by Hillsman. But shes more than that.Nikki played point guard on her AAU team and off the ball in high school, so she knows how to adapt, Hillsman said. We all know she is a phenomenal shooter. But shes also deceptively quick, she can get to her spots, and shes very intelligent.Project EuropeAfter Hillsman got commitments from Oppenheimer in 2015 and Finklea-Guity this past July, his next move was to recruit a recruiter.Adeniyi Amadou, a native of Paris, had come to the U.S. as a teenager to play basketball and go to school. By 2009, he had transitioned to coaching, and he landed a job as a Syracuse graduate assistant.From there, he became an assistant coach at Dayton and then at Kentucky before Hillsman called his former GA and said two simple words: Come home.Amadou accepted his mentors offer, bringing with him expertise in working with post players but also vast international recruiting connections. When Amadou was hired on August 16, Syracuse had no commitments from players overseas.Hillsman told Amadou what he needed -- size and skill. Amadou gave his boss a list of 12 players he thought could fit, and Hillsman then had him focus on the three or four he had actually seen and liked, either on tape or in person in trips to European competitions.The only problem was that other schools had already been recruiting the players Syracuse now wanted.We were late, Amadou said. But I knew enough people in Europe, and the relationships were so strong, we were able to make up the ground.The two players from France committed first, Kariata in mid-September and Djaldi-Tabdi a couple weeks later.I had known both of them for a long while, Amadou said. The coaches knew me, and that made things easier. The credibility was there, and the fact that I am French helps as well.Amadou had no such home-country advantage in Latvia, but he worked his contacts and got Strautmane to commit in October.I didnt have to sell them on Syracuse, Amadou said. They knew we had good people.In the end, Amadou said, Syracuse landed three international kids who would be much more highly rated had they played high school ball in the U.S. and had been seen by more scouts.These are girls who practice twice a day and compete against grown women, pro players, Amadou said. We dont get caught up in rankings. But I know weve done well. ' ' '