LEHMAN TWP. — As it did last year — and seems to every year — the meeting between the Wyoming Area and Lake-Lehman track and field teams carried some significance to it.
Undefeated records on the line, the driver’s seat in Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 up for grabs.
Wyoming Area’s boys and girls teams both hit the track on Wednesday looking to remain undefeated. Despite a strong push from Lake-Lehman, the Warriors did just that and clinched no worse than a tie for another division title.
The Lady Warriors handed the Black Knights their first loss of the conference season with a 89-61 victory, while the Warriors strengthened their hold on first place and improved to 5-0 with a 86-64 victory at Lake-Lehman.
“I thought both of our teams were ready for this meet,” Wyoming Area coach Joe Pizano said. “I think our freshmen, particularly on the girls side, stepped up huge.”
The boys need only to beat winless Nanticoke Tuesday at home for a fifth straight unbeaten, division championship season. A victory over the Trojanettes (2-3) would mean a third straight perfect season in the division for the Lady Warriors.
Wednesday’s two meets took slightly differen8t paths to the same end result: the Wyoming Area boys built up an early lead and gave themselves enough cushion to carry them to victory even as the Black Knights won a few of the later events.
For the girls, Lake-Lehman kept pace nicely through the opening few events, keeping Wyoming Area in its sights for about half of the meet.
Then, the Lady Warriors blew the doors open: six straight events were won by Wyoming Area in the middle stages of the meet, turning a two-point lead into a 77-41 edge with four events remaining and putting the Lady Knights away.
“Our goal was to be strong in every event, we don’t break it down to the end of the meet, or the beginning,” Pizano said. “We just go through and figure out where we can get points.”
The Warriors had six different winners in those six events, including one of the team’s standout freshmen, Shannon Kearns.
Kearns, already a winner in the 3200-meter relay to open the day, outraced the field to win the 300 hurdles, the first of Wyoming Area’s six-event swing. She added one more win on the 1600 relay team to cap her day.
Fellow freshman Isabella Costa picked up a win in the 200 dash for Wyoming Area.
Taylor Gashi and Ella McKernan each won two individual events for the Lady Warriors. Gashi won the triple jump and the long jump, while McKernan picked up wins in the 400 dash and the 800 run along with anchoring the 1600 relay win.
On the boys side, the Warriors won all three of the throwing events and excelled in sprints. Aaron Crossley continued to rack up victories in the 100 dash, clocking in at 11.3 seconds to lead a Warriors sweep of the three scoring places.
Ben Gravine won the discus and javelin while Josh Mruk won the shot put.
Skyler Pierce won both hurdles races and led off the winning 400 relay.
Gage Speece won the 200 and anchored the sprint relay victory.
Brady Kearns, in the 400, and Nicholas Scalzo, in the pole vault, posted the other victories. Lidge Kellum and Michael Janosky were the other members of the relay.
Hannah Stoss won the 1600 and was part of both relay wins.
Brianna Cheskiewicz, in the discus, and Sarah Mizenko, in the javelin, also won while Sophia Farrell and Lily Kelleher tied for first in the pole vault.
