District 4 champion Mifflinburg will be the opponent when Wyoming Area makes its Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state field hockey tournament debut Tuesday.
The first-round Class A game will be played at 5 p.m. at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg.
Wyoming Area finished second in District 2 where the top two Class A teams are part of the 16-team state tournament field.
The Lady Warriors clinched the state spot by winning in the first two rounds – the quarterfinals and semifinals. Once the state berth was secured with the first district championship game berth in school history, Wyoming Area came up short of the District 2 title with a 3-2 loss to Wyoming Seminary, last year’s state runner-up, in Tuesday’s final at Crestwood.
Wyoming Seminary 3
Wyoming Area 2
WRIGHT TWP. – The winning play wasn’t supposed to start so choppy, so unnerving, so unpredictably difficult, just like most of the night for the Wyoming Seminary Blue Knights.
Somehow, though, Kelsey Reznick made it look smooth.
Reznick not only controlled a bouncy insert on a penalty corner, she slammed it into the back of the cage with 8:30 remaining Tuesday to give Sem its second straight District 2 Class A title at Crestwood High School.
“It was awesome to be able to score on a corner,” Reznick said. “We had a lot of those. We wanted that final step to put it in.”
Now, the Blue Knights are back on top of the district again, after avenging their only blemish during league or postseason play. Sem and Wyoming Area played to a 0-0 tie on the final day of the Wyoming Valley Conference season. If they meet again, it’ll be in the state finals.
The first-ever District 2 championship game for the upstart Warriors was going just fine, as the team’s were locked in a 2-2 tie until the final minutes.
That’s when Sem drew a corner, and Reznick’s shot ended the district excitement for Wyoming Area, which showed spunk and stubbornness while playing a historical first district title game.
“When we scored, they were there to come right back,” Wesneski said. “They played a great game today for never having been here before. They didn’t give up.”
Indeed, the Warriors twice fought back from one-goal deficits.
Sem’s Julia Christian ripped a wide-angle shot into the cage less than three minutes in.
But Wyoming Area roared back when Kayla Kiwak scored with a tick over 20 minutes remaining in the opening half.
Wesneski scored to give Sem the lead back with 1:15 remaining in the half, but the Warriors weren’t going away.
They gained a lot of life, and momentum, when Toni Minichello converted a penalty corner into another tying goal, evening the score again at 2-2 with 16:09 to play.
Lauren Parente and Kari Melberger had assists for Wyoming Area.
Wyoming Area led in on goal shots, 12-9, but Wyoming Seminary led in penalty corners, 11-2.
Wyoming Area 3
Lake-Lehman 0
WEST PITTSTON — That ringing shot Lauren Parente pasted into the back of the cage did a lot more than break a jinx.
It signaled the end of Wyoming Area’s history of district despair.
Parente and Toni Minichello assisted each other’s first-half goals, Kayla Kiwak added an insurance goal in the second half and Wyoming Area advanced to the school’s first-ever District 2 field hockey title game by dominating Lake-Lehman, 3-0, in a Class A semifinal Oct. 25 at the Atlas Complex.
“It feels amazing,” Parente said. “Our team has worked so hard for this.”
And waited so long.
The Warriors were on the brink of the title game a couple times, but were eliminated in the District 2 Class 2A semifinals by Crestwood in 2012 and 2015 and by Wyoming Seminary in 2013 — all before the District 2 playoffs expanded to three classifications.
When that happened in 2016, Wyoming Area was eliminated by Lake-Lehman in the opening district round (quarterfinals) in each of the past two seasons.
“We’ve been waiting for this the whole year,” Parente said. “Everyone was talking about this game.”
“I think it’s a testament to how hard they truly worked all season,” Wyoming Area’s second-year coach Erin McGinley said. “These kids wanted this win.”
After the Warriors played Lehman to a scoreless overtime tie early this season — that’s 75 minutes without either team scoring — Parente pounded a shot into the cage off Minichello’s feed with 15:56 to play in the first half.
That broke the ice against Lake-Lehman goalie Amy Supey, who finished with a whopping 18 saves, and ended the deadlock between the two teams at 89:04 over the two games.
Suddenly, the dam broke.
On a penalty corner with 6:03 left before halftime, Parente feathered a pass to Minichello and the freshman popped home a goal that gave the Warriors breathing room with a 2-0 lead.
Kruk polished off the victory with a goal with 21:21 to play, and that was plenty for goalie Ellie Glatz and a Warriors defense. They prevented the Black Knights from reaching a District 2 final and the PIAA playoffs for the first time in five years.
Wyoming Area 7
Nanticoke 0
Toni Minichello, who had two assists, and Kayla Kiwak, who had one, each scored twice in the Oct. 23 Class A quarterfinal win.
Lauren Parente also scored two goals while Cassidy Orzel had one.
The Wyoming Area defense did not allow a shot or penalty corner.
Dallas 8
Pittston Area 0
Dallas opened a seven-goal halftime lead in the Oct. 23 Class 2A quarterfinal.
The Mountaineers led in shots, 36-6, and penalty corners, 6-1.
