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WILKES-BARRE — District 2/4 Class 3A divers weren’t as lucky as their Class 2A counterparts Saturday at the Wilkes-Barre CYC.
While the District 2 2A Diving Championships went off without a hitch, the District 2/4 Class 3A championships did not. After a delay during warm-ups and a second delay toward the end of the first round, District 2 officials postponed the meet to Sunday at 5 p.m.
“There’s an automatic PIAA rule — any time that there’s lightning at any sports, you have to wait 30 minutes. We’ve done that twice,” District 2 swim chairman Fred Barletta said just after 4:30 p.m. “Right now, we keep pushing it back, we looked at the weather forecast, I was outside, I’ve talked to people on the phone and this storm is far from over. We were probably looking at, if we waited this out, not doing (anything) at least another two hours.”
With strong thunderstorms surrounding the Wilkes-Barre area throughout the afternoon, Barletta said the decision came purely based on safety for all those involved. Of the six schools that were represented Saturday, five agreed that the correct move was to continue the meet a day later.
“It’s extremely tough, and before the decision was made, I conferred with the officials, the people running the meet and, most importantly, the coaches,” Barletta said.
Wyoming Valley West diving coach Karina Zabresky doesn’t believe her divers won’t be impacted too much when they jump back in the pool just after 4 p.m. to warm up on Sunday.
“I mean, I would imagine it would be frustrating for the divers because they’ve prepared for just this day, and they were ready to go and it all started and it just abruptly stopped,” she said. “(My message) was pretty much, ‘We’ll be here tomorrow, same thing. Everything will be alright.”
All but two competitors had finished their first-round dives by the time of the delay. When the meet resumes Sunday, it will pick up right where it left off and all of Saturday’s scores will carry over.