Pictured above: Four-event winner Madelyn Keating on her way to victory in the 1600-meter run. (Tom Robinson Photo)
By Tom Robinson, NEPASportsNation.com
WEST PITTSTON – Madelyn Keating smoothly handled the most demanding dual meet a high school runner can face in track and field.
Ella McKernan and Taylor Gashi adjusted their routines and continued to produce for the Wyoming Area girls.
On a day when points were at a premium, Keating won four times while McKernan and Gashi won three times each to lead the Lady Warriors to an 83-67 victory over visiting Lake-Lehman in a title-deciding meet to end the Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 season.
While the Wyoming Area boys were cruising to a 115-35 victory for their 25th straight win and fourth straight title since moving down from Division 1, the girls were faced with a meeting of unbeaten teams that had combined to win the last two Division 2 titles.
Wyoming Area coach Joe Pizano asked his top athletes to adjust their routines to assure the team could maximize its points on the way to a title repeat with a victory over the opponent that handed the Lady Warriors their last defeat late in the 2021 season.
Keating did her “big meet” routine of running the 3200, 1600 and 800 meters while also anchoring the 3200 relay. The returning state medalist won them all, including the two longest races by large margins.
When Pizano projected the meet’s matchups in advance, he put Keating in all four events and made other adjustments.
“We took McKernan out of the long jump and moved her into the 400 because we knew we needed points in the 400,” Pizano said.
McKernan responded with a win in the 400, a second-place finish four seconds behind Keating in the 800 and as part of two of the wins in Wyoming Area’s sweep of the three relays.
Gashi was moved out of the sprints to concentrate on field events along with anchoring the 400 relay. She won with her season-best triple jump of 35-1½ and won the high jump at 4-8 before just missing an attempt at five feet.
The freshman moved into the discus where she came within four inches of scoring in a fourth event.
Bianca Pizano led a group of four other athletes that won twice.
Nina Angeli, Hannah Stoss and Alexy Moore were each part of two relay wins.
Pizano was on the 400 relay, won the javelin and lost the long jump on a tiebreaker to Lake-Lehman’s Sophia Lenza when each hit a career-best of 16-1.
Lenza won by when her 15-9, second-best jump was a half-inch better than Pizano’s.
Amanda McGurk and Lenza each won twice for Lake-Lehman, the top-ranked Small School in the Riverfront Sports Super Six Track and Field Power Rankings of District 2 teams.
McGurk won the pole vault and discus. Lenza added a win in the 100-meter dash.
Lake-Lehman outscored Wyoming Area, 36-27, in field events, but the Lady Warriors had a 56-31 edge on the track, including a 39-7 dominance when running 400 or more meters in open or relay events.
Wyoming Area, a Class 3A team, is the sixth-ranked Big School girls and fifth-ranked Big School boys team.
Josh Mruk led the Wyoming Area boys, who had already clinched no worse than a first-place tie coming into the day.
Mruk won the discus and javelin.
Aaron Crossley (100), Tyler Sciandra (400) and Ethan Speece (200) each won an individual race and ran a leg of a winning relay for the Warriors.
Michael Janosky was part of wins in both the 400 and 1600 relay.
Nick Hockenbury won the 1600 and 3200 to lead Lake-Lehman.
Ahmad Dabsheh won the 800 and anchored the 3200 relay victory.
