A historic journey capped by an electric week have taken Wyoming Area where no girls soccer or field hockey teams from the school have gone before.
Straight to the state playoffs.
“I know the girls are very excited,” said Warriors field hockey coach Erin McGinley, a former state championship goalie at Wyoming Seminary. “For them, it’s brand new. They’ve never been in this state competition.”
For the first time in forever, the Warriors girls soccer team won the District 2 Class 2A championship to earn a date with District 4 champ Midd West at 5 p.m. Tuesday in Williamsport.
At the very same time, the Wyoming Area field hockey team will be at Central Columbia High School facing District 4 champ Mifflinburg, after the Warriors went to the wire before falling by a goal in the final nine minutes to powerful Wyoming Seminary in the school’s first-ever district title game history.
“I think the school, as a whole, had an amazing fall,” said McGinley, also pointing to Wyoming Area’s 11-0 football team, which won its District 2 opener last Friday. “Obviously, field hockey made history. The girls soccer team was district champion for the first time and the football team is undefeated. Three of our fall sports did extremely well, which is huge.”
The biggest leaps were made by the Warriors’ field hockey and girls soccer programs, which jumped out of some past frustration and right into states.
“It’s a nice little atmosphere,” Wyoming Area girls soccer coach Nikki Sitkowski said. “It doesn’t happen very often, especially in girls sports. We have gone to their games, they have gone to ours. The energy’s high.
“Everyone’s excited.”
They’re both crashing a PIAA party that opens this week with a handful of regulars from the Wyoming Valley Conference.
Crestwood will enter the Class 3A boys soccer tournament as the District 2 champ for the second consecutive year and face Athens at 5 p.m. at Lake-Lehman, while Wyoming Seminary will compete in the Class 2A state playoffs after winning its second district gold medal in four years and square off with Midd West at 7 p.m. at Crestwood.
The Holy Redeemer girls volleyball team carries a streak of six consecutive seasons of state-opening victories in Class 2A — every year since the PIAA moved out of a pool play format in 2012 — and reached the state semifinals in 2016, while Nanticoke Area returns to the PIAA Class 3A girls volleyball playoffs for the third straight year.
Dallas will be competing in the Class 3A girls soccer state playoffs once again, while the field hockey playoffs feature district champs Wyoming Seminary in Class A and Wyoming Valley West in Class 2A after both wound up as a state silver medalist a season ago.
It all starts Tuesday, when those nine teams from the WVC enter first-round games boasting enough confidence and talent to bring home state championships.
Sem’s quest for field hockey redemption and state title starts against District 3 No. 4 team Bermudian Springs at 5 p.m. at Crestwood High School.
Right after that, and right up the road, Valley West will try to start chipping away at state gold in a 6:30 p.m. game against District 3 No. 2 representative Great Valley at Hazleton Area’s Harman Geist Field.
Both teams have plenty of players from last season’s run to the PIAA finals and are among the area teams with plenty of state experience.
Sem’s boys soccer team will make its fourth straight trip to states, while the Crestwood boys will go for the second consecutive season as a Class 3A team and for the third time in four years (it was Class 2A in 2015). The Dallas girls soccer team, a state regular in the earlier part of the decade, will play state game for the fourth time in the last six seasons and for the second straight year.
Does all that experience matter?
Holy Redeemer girls volleyball coach Jack Kablick is convinced it could.
“It does help — if you have some players who experienced it,” Kablick said. “With our team, we have six seniors who went to the Final Four as sophomores and they all contributed. Those six are the front-line players. They all have experienced playing in a state 16, a state 8. They’re not going to be (overly) excited, not going to be pressured too much. We do a lot of scouting. We’ve never gone into a state match blind.”
Well, there was that one time.
Playing as Bishop Hoban in 2003, before the Catholic School juncture formed Holy Redeemer, Kablick took a girls volleyball team to states for the first time.
“That team was really good,” Kablick said. “We went to play Daniel Boone at Hazleton High School. We’re like, ‘Daniel Boone, who could they be?’ We just got up on the bus and went up with no scouting reports, just played. We went up and lost in three straight.
“We found out who Danile Boone was.”
A couple sports teams from Wyoming Area are hoping they don’t meet the same fate in their first run around the state.
“The way I look at it,” Sitkowski said, “we have nothing to lose. This is a great thing for us to be in.”
And a great opportunity to make more school history.
“There will definitely be nerves, that’s without a doubt,” McGinley said. “We always tell the kids nerves are a good thing. That can drive you to do fantastic things in a field hockey game. It’s exciting for them. They’re very excited for the experience.”
