Wyoming Area quarterback and current Penn State linebacker Dominic DeLuca scores on a 50-yard run against Scranton Prep in the 2019 District 2 Class 3A championship game. Wyoming Area won 27-0 on the way to the PIAA Class 3A state title.
Times Leader file photo
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Wyoming Area and Scranton Prep will play for the District 2 Class 3A football championship for the third time in six years, but only for the 13 time in the past 53 years.
The pair of 11-1 teams meet at 7 p.m. at Dunmore High School. The game is also considered a PIAA Class 3A state first-round game.
The teams played in 2019, with Wyoming Area winning the championship game 27-0 on the way to the PIAA 3A state championship. Prep won 28-0 two years later. The Cavaliers lost in the state quarterfinals.
Prep has won eight of 12 matchups. Here are some tidbits about the series.
• Wyoming Area won the first meeting 31-6 in 1971. Wyoming Area’s Don McDermott scored the game’s first touchdown and Paul Tamalonus scored three times.
Prep was in its first full season of football in 1971 and finished 1-7-1. The Cavaliers played a four-game season in 1970 along with a pair of games in the 1940s, according to records compiled by former Penn State economics and statistics professor Dr. Roger B. Saylor.
Wyoming Area later won its first playoff game in the program’s history, defeating Coughlin 8-7 for the Wyoming Valley Conference Division A championship.
• Both programs hit low points a few years after the 1971 game. Prep suffered its only winless season, going 0-11 in 1975. Wyoming Area finished 1-10 in 1976, its worst record in program history.
• The average margin of victory in the series is 23 points. Games were decided by a touchdown or less only twice. Scranton Prep won 12-6 in 2012 and 14-7 in 2016.
• Wyoming Area is 5-7 in district championship games. The Warriors won the Class 2A title three times (1992, 1998, 2012) and the Class 3A crown twice (2003, 2019).
Wyoming Area also played in the highest scoring district playoff game ever when it lost 53-44 to GAR for the Class 2A championship in 2011.
• Prep is 7-2 in district championship games. Besides the 2019 loss to Wyoming Area, the Cavaliers lost 24-21 in overtime to Nanticoke Area in the 1992 Class 3A championship game.
Prep won the D2-3A championship every year from 2015-18 and 2021-23. The Cavaliers’ average margin of victory in those games is 29.1 points, including defeating Western Wayne 45-14 last year.
• Neither Wyoming Area nor Prep qualified for the D2-3A playoffs in 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, District 2 held only a championship game between the top-two teams in the power rankings — Lakeland and Lake-Lehman.
Under normal circumstances, both would have likely qualified. Prep finished 4-1 in the regular season and Wyoming Area ended up 4-3, although the Warriors tacked on a win a few weeks later against rival Pittston Area. Pittston Area had shuttered its program because of the pandemic, but the Patriots returned to the field after a month hiatus to play Wyoming Area.
• A pair of current Division I college players play prominent roles in the last two meetings.
In the 2019 championship game, Wyoming Area quarterback Dominic DeLuca rushed for 162 yards and two touchdowns in the 27-0 win. DeLuca is a linebacker for Penn State.
In the 2021 title contest, Prep running back London Montgomery rushed 32 times for 200 yards and a score in the 28-0 win. Montgomery plays for East Carolina after transferring from Penn State.