Wyoming Area’s Ella McKernan crosses the finish line second behind the winning Abington Heights team in the Class 3A 3200 Relay final.
Wyoming Area’s Ella McKernan, left, finished second in the 800 to qualify for the state championships.
Fred Adams | For Sunday Dispatch
Pittston Area’s Ali Butcher and Dallas’ Gracie Coyne close in on the finish line shoulder-to-shoulder in the 100-meter dash final in Class 3A. Butcher won the race by four-hundredths of a second to take gold.
Fred Adams | For Sunday Dispatch
Emmy Savakinas of Pittston Area competes in the Triple Jump Class 3A final.
Fred Adams | For Sunday Dispatch
Fred Adams | For Sunday Dispatch
SCRANTON — State-qualifying performances by Ella McKernan and Taylor Gashi led Wyoming Area to third place in the team standings while Ali Butcher’s gold medal in the 100-meter dash highlighted Pittston Area’s efforts Monday and Tuesday in the Class 3A girls portion of the District 2 Track and Field Championships at Memorial Stadium.
McKernan earned four silver medals and landed state berths in the 800-meter dash, where it took a meet record performance to beat her, and the 300 hurdles.
Gashi collected two silver medals and a bronze, making it to Shippensburg University by meeting the state qualifying standard in the triple jump where she finished second and missing by just 1½ inches in the long jump while placing third.
Butcher qualified second in the 100-meter dash where she was 18-hundredths of a second behind Gracie Coyne from Dallas Monday, but then beat Coyne by four-hundredths in Tuesday’s final by lowering her time to 12.52 seconds.
The top eight finishers in each event scored points for their team with the top six receiving medals.
Only district champions, like Butcher, were guaranteed spots in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Championships Friday and Saturday based on place finish.
Others, like McKernan and Gashi, advanced by hitting challenging state-qualifying standards.
Regular-season division champions occupied the top three spots in the final standings in the 18-team field.
Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 champion Dallas finished well in front of Lackawanna Track Conference Division 1 champion Abington Heights by a 129-87 1/3 margin. WVC Division 2 champion Wyoming Area easily beat out Crestwood for third 71-58 1/3.
Pittston Area was 10th with 33½ points.
Gashi earned 22 of the Wyoming Area points herself while McKernan scored 16 points as an individual and contributed to 16 more on relays.
McKernan beat her own district meet record, set a year ago, by running the 800 in 2:15.01, but Kate Korty from Carbondale established the new standard with the win 2:13.19, surging past a strong finish by McKernan on the final straightaway. The result means that McKernan has now run two of the three fastest 800s ever in Class 3A at districts.
Julia Natitus from Dallas also denied McKernan a title repeat in the 300 hurdles where her time of 43.00 came within two-tenths of a second of the district mark set by state champion Shelley Black from Coughlin in 2011.
McKernan’s 46.10 was still better than the 46.25 needed to get to Shippensburg.
Wyoming Area’s two silver-medal relay efforts featured McKernan leading off in one and anchoring another.
The Lady Warriors were again second to a record performance in the 400 relay where Dallas ran a 3:57.56 to break the 11-year-old record held by North Pocono.
McKernan was followed by Hannah Stoss, a strong third leg by Lucia Campenni and anchor Isabella Costa for a time of 4:04.15.
Shannon Kearns, Costa, Stoss and McKernan ran the 3200 relay in 9:36.57 Monday for second place and the team’s first points of the meet.
Gashi missed scoring in four individual events by one place in the shot put. Her 37-5 on the second triple jump attempt secured the state berth and ultimately left her in second place. Gashi was second in the discus with a throw of 111-2 and third in the long jump with 17-7½.
Stoss added a fourth place in the 800 to her two relay silver medals.
Jenesa Sancho was fifth in both hurdles races and Gwendoline Lowry was fifth in the javelin.
Talia Pizano, Julianne Potter and Costa joined Sancho for an eighth-place finish in the 100.
Butcher led the way for Pittston Area, adding a third place in the 200 in 26.01 and the leadoff leg of a fourth-place finish by the 400 relay team.
Paige Bittman tied for third in the high jump.
Annika Lien, Emmy Savakinas and Elinor Schardien were the others on the 400 relay.
Savakinas was also sixth in the 100 hurdles and eighth in the 300 hurdles while Schardien took seventh in the pole vault.
Isabella Dessoye placed eighth in the 3200.
