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This whole idea of throwing a javelin was simply supposed to give Marc Minichello something to do before he got healthy enough to begin throwing a baseball again.
Now, he can’t decide which sport he enjoys more.
And for good reason.
Not only did his season-best throw of 194-05 make him the top seed — by far — in boys javelin for Tuesday’s District 2 Class 3A Track and Field Championships, which open at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Scranton Memorial Stadium, as of a few weeks ago it stood as the eighth-best distance in the state and the 19th-best among high school throwers in the country.
“My goal is going to be to go in there as relaxed as possible and try to set a new (personal record),” said the junior, who is in his second year of track and field and looking for his first trip to the PIAA Championships. “If I go in there trying to beat the guy next to me, I could get in trouble.”
A handful of other track and field athletes from the Wyoming Valley Conference are planning to bring danger to their district competition.
Wyoming Valley West sprinter Nina Dellarte is the top seed in the Class 3A girls 100 and 200 dashes, just ahead of Nanticoke Area’s Amiah Lukowski in both events. Lukowski, who set the District 2 Class 2A record in the 200 as a freshman last season, moves up in class this season.
Berwick’s record-setting thrower Payden Montana is seeded first in the Class 3A girls shot put and discus, and is among the top-five javelin throwers. She’ll try to catch defending district javelin champ and last year’s state silver medalist Kayla Merkel of Hazleton Area, who is is the girls top seed in that javelin class.
The Class 3A girls pole vault is expected to be a captivating battle between top-seeded Madisyn Hawkins of Coughlin and No. 2 seed Abby Norwillo of Pittston Area, who are close friends but fierce competitors in the event.
And on the track, Coughlin’s standout senior Ron Sepkoski tries to win his first District 2 title in the 110 hurdles, where he’s matched by Delaware Valley’s C.J. Anderson for the district’s top time.
“It’s going to be fun,” Coughlin coach Paul McGrane said. “You have kids who step up out of nowhere and you get to face some great people — from Scranton, Abington Heights, Wallenpaupack. It’s fun to see them. You’ll see heartbreak, you’ll see triumph.
“It’ll be great competition to watch, if you like sports.”
Meyers senior sprinter Nalasjia Harris-Johnson would like to get to states again, where she’s medaled during all three of her previous high school seasons. She’s seeded first in the Class 2A girls 100-meter dash and as part of the 400 relay team.
Other WVC athletes expecting big finishes when Class 2A district action opens 3 p.m. Wednesday include Meyers leaper Je’Vondre McClain, who’s seeded first in the long jump after helping the Mohawks win a second straight WVC Division 2 boys title.
And on the girls side, Lake-Lehman senior thrower Emily Johns returns to districts, after spending a year away with injury, as the top seed in the shot put and discus. She won both events at the Class 3A level as a sophomore. Meanwhile, Lake-Lehman’s 3,200 girls relay team featuring Jace Garnick, Jade Fry, Olivia Vasey and Hailey Kubiski is slotted as the top Class 2A seed after winning the event in Class 3A last season.
Minichello’s Wyoming Area team didn’t win much after moving from the WVC Division 2 to Division 1 this season. In fact, the Warriors didn’t win a single meet.
But that doesn’t mean Wyoming Area didn’t boast championship-caliber performers.
“We have a lot of great athletes,” Warriors coach Joe Pizano said. “Kids are in the top seeds for certain events. We didn’t have the numbers of veterans coming back, we relied on a lot of freshmen on the boys’ side. But we’re expecting our athletes to perform well (at districts).”
Nobody has more capability of achieving that than Minichello, who didn’t even pick up a javelin until last season.
“The reason I started throwing javelin was because I hurt my shoulder my sophomore year, and I wasn’t really able to play baseball,” said Minichello, an outfielder and third baseman —-*/-*+on Wyoming Area’s baseball team. “The track coaches said, ‘Why don’t you come and throw the javelin for us?’ I threw my first time and did pretty well.”
That first javelin throw of his life qualified him for last year’s District 2 field, but Minichello was hardly the favorite in it.
But the more he threw, the more Minichello appreciated the sport. On the advice of his good friend Taryn Ashby, a two-time Class 3A girls state javelin thrower from Pittston Area, Minichello visited The Javelin Factory (located near Tamaqua) during the offseason and worked on his form. He also attended javelin camps through invites from North Carolina and LSU.
“I heard from a lot of very good coaches,” Minichello said. “I kind of pieced everything together from all the coaches I listened to. I kept progressing and getting better.
“I was more of a javelin thrower than a natural athlete when I came out this year.”
He still plays baseball, where he’s one of Wyoming Area’s top hitters, while juggling both sports through the spring. And he notices certain similarities between the two.
“Both, I feel, are such streaky events,” said Minichello, whose season-best javelin throw was nearly 17 feet farther than the 177-07 of second-seeded Jacob Watts of Scranton. “It’s fun playing baseball when you hit at a high average and are playing well in the field. But when you’re in a slump of making errors in the field, it’s one of the most frustrating events in the world. If I’m having an off day, maybe turning my wrist wrong or something, javelin’s also super-frustrating. I went to the Cross Invitational (last weekend) and threw badly there. Javelin was not one of my favorite things to do at that time.
“But when you win, there’s no substitute for it.”
That feeling of glee is coming more often for Minichello these days.
Despite fighting through elbow soreness he said he suffered while throwing cold in the first meet of this season, Minichello regularly put up weekly bests among WVC performers in the javelin competition and earned a sixth-place finish in the high school javelin competition at the prestigious Penn Relays.
Now, he’s ready for the next step, which could lead him to his first trip to states.
“If I have the mindset that I’m just competing against myself, trying to hit my PR,” Minichello said, “then everything should be all right.”
