Pittston Area finished the regular season as part of a three-way tie at the top of the Wyoming Valley Conference standings, leaving the title undecided into this week’s conference meet.
The Patriots won a battle of the last two unbeatens from host Crestwood 28-29 Wednesday, but lost to Hazleton Area 27-29.
Pittston Area, Crestwood and Hazleton Area all finished at 15-1 to share first place in Division 1 and the conference as whole.
The three teams will be scored against each other in head-to-head scoring (ignoring the placing of other teams) during Wednesday’s WVC Coaches Ed Narkiewicz Championship Meet at the Wyoming County Fairgrounds. Those results will determine the regular-season champion and the teams will also be competing together in traditional multi-team invitational/championship scoring to determine the Coaches Meet title.
Pittston Area also defeated MMI Prep 15-50 in Wednesday’s final cluster meet.
Wyoming Area went 1-2 on the day, beating MMI Prep 19-36, but losing to both Crestwood and Hazleton Area 15-50. The Warriors finished the season with a 3-13 record.
Crestwood’s Mason Staude won easily in 16:40.
Pittston Area’s Caden Boettger was second in 17:22, followed by Hazleton Area’s Gavin Adams and Christian Mason-Mendez.
Jameson Radle from Pittston Area was sixth in the seven-team cluster meet. Brady Tucker and Jake Mead came in ninth and 10th.
Paul Short Invitational
Caden Boettger finished 34th out of 393 runners in the Boys Brown Division of the Paul Short Invitational Oct. 3 at Lehigh University when Pittston Area ran in its final invitational of the season.
Jameson Radle placed 70th.
The Patriots were 26th out of 41 teams in the meet, which was won by Hempfield.
