District 2 sports are well past Opening Day, more than a month in some cases.
But, Friday serves as an opener of sorts in two sports in the Lackawanna Interscholastic Athletic Association.
After four weeks of non-league play that has its own importance for playoff qualifying, Lackawanna Football Conference action will begin in three of four divisions Friday.
In golf, the Lackawanna League will begin conducting its team playoffs to determine its representatives in the Oct. 1 District 2 championship matches at Elmhurst Country Club.
The only LFC divisional game to date was Lackawanna Trail’s victory over Susquehanna in Division 4 last week.
LFC Divisions 2 and 3 each have two openers Friday while Division 1 has its first game.
The highlight of that schedule is in Division 2 where Scranton Prep (3-0) plays at Western Wayne (2-1) in a game between two of the three teams that shared the division title last season.
Scranton Prep is the No. 1 team and Western Wayne is No. 5 among Small Schools in the Gaughan Auto Store Super Six Power Rankings of LFC and Wyoming Valley Conference teams on NEPAFootball.com.
The other Division 2 opener has Valley View, the top-ranked Big School and the other tri-champion from a year ago, at winless West Scranton in the first game to be played at renovated Scranton Memorial Stadium this season.
The LFC Division 1 opener has No. 4 North Pocono (3-1) at No. 5 Wallenpaupack (2-2) in a game between ranked Big Schools.
Lakeland (4-0) is at Carbondale (2-2) and Dunmore (1-2) is at Riverside (2-2) in LFC Division 3 openers.
The 13-game football schedule also includes a third game between ranked teams. No. 3 Dallas is at No. 6 Hazleton Area in a non-league game between ranked Big Schools from the WVC.
The WVC has already determined its representatives in the district golf final with wins by Dallas, in Class 3A, and Lake-Lehman, in Class 2A, Wednesday in championship matches at Fox Hill Country Club.
The Lackawanna League takes a different approach with an eight-team bracket in Class 2A and a four-team bracket in Class 3A. All four quarterfinals and one of the two semifinals are scheduled for today.
Eighth-seeded Forest City (4-5) is at top-seed and defending champion Scranton Prep (12-0). The other Class 2A matches are: fifth-seeded Riverside (11-3) at fourth-seeded Mid Valley (10-1-1), sixth-seeded Dunmore (6-4-2) at third-seeded Lackawanna Trail (12-2-1) and seventh-seeded Blue Ridge (5-3) at second-seeded Montrose (9-1).
In Class 3A, third-seeded Honesdale (7-8-1) is at second-seeded North Pocono (8-4). The other semifinal, Wallenpaupack (5-8-1) at Abington Heights (11-2) is not until Monday.
There are at least 50 events across District 2 on Friday with the possibility of a few more if additional events are rescheduled from Thursday of which we may not be aware.
Abington Heights (10-0) is at North Pocono (7-2) as the top two Big Schools in the Riverfront Sports Super Six Girls Tennis Rankings of District 2 teams try again to get in their Lackawanna League match.
There are also events scheduled in field hockey, boys and girls soccer and girls volleyball.
