By PATRICK MATSINKO

pmatsinko@tnonline.com

LONG POND - Finally, Kyle Larson was in the right place at the right time.

After coming close on a number of occasions this season, Larson finally broke through for his first XFINITY Series victory of the season, claiming the inaugural Pocono Green 250.

Drivers completed only 53 of the scheduled 100 laps due to inclement weather. But that was just fine with Larson, who paced the field for 27 circuits around Pocono's "Tricky Triangle."

"I'm happy with it," Larson said afterward. "Now that the race is over and we got the win, it can clear out so we can race tomorrow for the Cup series."

Larson started fourth behind Joe Gibbs Racing's Erik Jones, Kyle Busch and Daniel Suarez, who lined up first, second and third, respectively. The Gibbs squad has dominated the series this year, winning seven of the 11 races run coming into Pocono.

But it was Larson who broke through, albeit with a little bit of help from Mother Nature.

"We were good, a little bit better than I thought we'd be," Larson commented. "We were more comparable to the Gibbs cars than I thought we'd be based off practice and qualifying.

"(Mike) Shiplett (crew chief) and all the guys did a really good job adjusting the car. I wasn't super pumped about it during practice, then we put on sticker (tires) and I kind of got the feel that I wanted, or at least closer to what I wanted. I knew we'd be OK, but didn't think I'd win today. But it all worked out. We had a good pit strategy to get us the track position and I had some good restarts there with Elliott Sadler pushing me.

"All in all, it was a good day, and really a solid few weeks. Every time I step into the XFINITY car we've been fast and close to winning so it's nice to finally put it all together and do it."

Larson, who scored his fifth top-10 finish of 2016, was in the lead when rain hit just past halfway. The 23-year-old had gambled on rain hitting the track when he took fuel only on a pit stop to gain track position that eventually led to the victory.

Jones, who has two victories this season, finished second and was disappointed the race wasn't run to its conclusion.

"Just not enough time," Jones said. "I thought we, by far, had one of the best cars in the field but we just couldn't get back the lead there before it started raining. It's unfortunate but the SportClips Toyota Camry was good; there just wasn't enough time to get back to the lead to have a shot at it.

"It's real unfortunate, but we'll move on from here."

Third place finisher Ty Dillon echoed Jones' sentiments.

"We had great strategy to put ourselves in great position to win the race and that's all you can hope for," Dillon said. "I think everybody kind of realized that we were starting to battle the weather about 20 or 30 laps into the race.

"We had ourselves in a good position and I felt like we were definitely a top-five car. At one point we were running down Kyle (Larson) right before that second-to-last caution (on lap 32) came out. I felt like that was our opportunity if I could have gotten to him (Larson). If it would have stayed green a little bit longer we might have had the opportunity to have the lead and maybe be where he is now."

Busch, who led 16 laps, finished fourth while Team Penske's Joey Logano came home fifth.

IN HOW LONG? … Saturday's victory was Larson's first in the XFINITY Series since the season finale at Homestead in 2015. It was his fourth career win in 82 NASCAR XFINITY Series races.

MAKING IT A HABIT. … Jones' pole was his fifth in 2016 and eighth in 38 career XFINITY Series starts.

STILL ON TOP. … Suarez, who finished ninth, remained atop the XFINITY Series standings, 11 points ahead of Elliott Sadler, who was sixth Saturday.