First Posted: 1/23/2015
A dozen Pittston Area track and field athletes are getting a head start on their season, practicing in their events and, in at least one case, dabbling in a potential new one.
Indoor track meets in the winter have been an informal part of the track program for close to a decade. At times, the Patriots have had more athletes involved in the off-season preparation, but they have never had more opportunities to compete than currently exist now that a local facility has been added to the mix.
Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit has the nearest competitive indoor track and field facility to Pittston after opening in time for the 2014 winter season. BBC has already hosted one invitational this year and has two more planned, Jan. 30 and Feb. 20.
Pittston Area’s Madison Mimnaugh, in the 1600, and Mia Cain, in the high jump, took advantage of the first BBC High School Invitational of the season Jan. 16 to post wins.
Both have won earlier this year.
In the case of Mimnaugh, the defending District 2 Class AAA champion in the 400- and 800-meter runs, one win came in an event she tried for the first time this winter.
Mimnaugh won the triple jump in the Warrior Classic at East Stroudsburg University Jan. 9, edging teammate Olivia Giambra, a returning district champion in both the long and triple jump, who took second.
“We found out her mom was a district champion in the jumps,” Pittston Area girls track and field and cross country coach Joe Struckus said. “She tried it just for fun and won, which I think got Olivia going.”
Lisa (Shimshock) Mimnaugh competed in the triple jump and won her district title in the long jump while at Coughlin in 1986.
Struckus said he is not sure whether Mimnaugh will add jumping to her already heavy workload as a middle distance runner for the Patriots, who won their first district team championship in 26 years last season.
“If we need her, it’s an option,” he said.
Struckus, boys head coach Jason Mills and assistants Chuck Montagna, Katie O’Boyle and Nick Barbieri work on a volunteer basis with track and field athletes who are not involved in other sports.
“We mostly do conditioning, but we take them to meets,” Struckus said. “We’re just trying to get them back into track shape.”
Mimnaugh and Cain showed they are headed in that direction with their performances at BBC.
Mimnaugh won the 400 in 1:02.1 and placed third in the 800 in 2:36.9.
Cain cleared 5-0 to win the high jump. She duplicated her winning performance from East Stroudsburg a week earlier.
Iana Davis added a second-place finish for the Pittston Area girls with 31-2 in the shot put.
Abby Sheerer was third in the high jump where Wyoming Area’s Shelby Stackhouse was fifth, based on number of misses after each jumped 4-8.
Pittston Area’s Samantha Mayers placed seventh in the 800 and 1600.
John McDonald gave the Pittston Area boys an eighth-place finish in the 200 in 25.84 seconds.
Wyoming Area had Nico Vasquez place fifth and Joe Buczynski eighth in the 800.
BBC does not have a pit for long jump and triple jump so Giambra traveled to Kutztown University two days later where she was seventh of 38 in the triple jump at the Golden Bear Invitational.
