Crestwood’s Elijah Zeneski, a state qualifer, wins the Class 3A Boys 300 hurdles final.
Fred Adams | For Times Leader
Crestwood’s Elijah Zeneski wins his preliminary heat in the Class 3A Boys 110 hurdles.
Fred Adams | For Times Leader
Wilkes-Barre Area’s Timothy Leonard won his preliminary heat in the Boys 200 dash.
Fred Adams | For Times Leader
Dallas anchor man Benjamin Hodne pulls away from the other teams during the Class 3A 3200 relay. The Mountaineers finished second in the relay behind Wallenpaupack.
Fred Adams | For Times Leader
Lake Lehman leadoff man Stephen Martin for the winning Class 2A Boys 3200 relay team.
Fred Adams | For Times Leader
SCRANTON — As the sun set and the action around most of the opening day of the District 2 Track and Field Championships had come to an end, one more gold medal remained up for grabs into the twilight hours.
In what’s shaping up to be a very competitive race in the Class 3A boys division, Crestwood’s Anson Jumper outlasted everyone to win gold and score some critical points for his Comets.
Jumper cleared 13 feet, 3 inches to win the pole vault gold medal, leaping Crestwood into a tie atop the Class 3A team standings with Abington Heights after the first day of the two-day championship event at Scranton Memorial Stadium.
“I think it was an endurance battle, and who wanted it most,” Jumper said. “That’s what it comes down to every time.”
Jumper joined Elijah Zeneski as gold medalists for Crestwood after the first day of action, Zeneski triumphing in the 300 hurdles earlier in the meet. The Comets are the only Class 3A school with more than one boys gold medalist on the opening day of the championships.
Crestwood and Abington Heights are tied at 33 after the opening day, both schools leaping to the top of the board on the strength of the pole vault event. Dallas, Hazleton Area and Wyoming Area are right behind heading into Tuesday’s final day of competition.
At last week’s Wyoming Valley Conference meet, Jumper’s 13-3 mark led to a comfortable victory. He matched that vault on Monday night, but it came after a duel between Jumper and Abington Heights freshman Anthony Piccotti.
Piccotti got over 12-9, but couldn’t go the extra couple inches to match Jumper.
“I have nothing but love for Anthony, he’s a freshman vaulting 13 (feet), that’s a heck of an accomplishment,” Jumper said.
After the preliminary heats in the 100 dash started the meet, Wallenpaupack won the first gold medal of the day on the track, holding off Dallas in the 3200 relay.
The next finals event on the track was the 300 hurdles, and coming off a first-place performance in the 110 hurdles, Zeneski followed up with a wire-to-wire win in the longer race to land some big points for Crestwood.
Zeneski followed up his WVC title in the event last week with a gold-medal time of 39.91 seconds, two seconds clear of the field.
“I ran a half-second faster last week, there’s still a lot of stuff I could work on but I’m still overall happy with it,” Zeneski said.
Hazleton Area’s Kevin Lucas and Wyoming Area’s Josh Mruk each won gold in the field to boost their squads, with Lucas a repeat champ and Mruk a first-timer.
Lucas rebounded from a silver medal finish in the triple jump at the conference meet to jump back to the top of the district for a second straight year.
He landed a 45 foot, 10.75 inch jump to beat out a tough field for the win. Wyoming Area’s Luke Kopetchny won the bronze but cleared 45 feet as well to meet the state qualifying standard and punch his ticket to the state championships.
Mruk provided the gold for Wyoming Area over in the Class 3A shot put in a commanding performance. All six of his throws cleared 50 feet, including a 54 foot, 4.25 inch toss to beat out Dallas’s Hunter Pitcavage.
“Leading up, I was getting a little nervous but I came through, put it out there and got the gold,” Mruk said.
Pitcavage’s top throw of 52-9 was good enough to book him a trip to states along with Mruk.
West Scranton’s Seamus Wallace won the 3200 run in a rout to round out the Class 3A boys gold medal winners from Monday.
Though it didn’t lead to any points, the preliminary heats for the 100 dash, 200 dash and 110 hurdles helped shape the field for Tuesday’s finals.
Wilkes-Barre Area’s Timothy Leonard figures to be hard to beat: he took first place in both the 100 and 200 races.
In Class 2A, the Lackawanna Conference has taken firm control of the proceedings with Dunmore out in front, Riverside in second and Elk Lake right behind in third.
The WVC only has two schools competing in the smaller classification at the district meet, Lake-Lehman and Holy Redeemer.
Lake-Lehman is in sixth place after the first day of competition, but the Black Knights won the first gold-medal event of the day with a dominant showing in the 3200 relay.
Entering the event as the defending champs in the relay, the group of Stephen Martin, Parker Smith, Finn Cronin and Bodhi Cronin shaved almost three full seconds off of last year’s time to win a second straight gold.
Finn Cronin would come back later in the 300 hurdles to win bronze with a time of 40.07, good enough to secure him a spot in the state championship meet.
DISTRICT 2 BOYS CHAMPIONSHIPS
(at Scranton Memorial Stadium)
CLASS 3A BOYS
Team Scores – 1. Crestwood (Cr) 33, 1. Abington Heights (AH) 33, 3, Dallas (Dal) 28, 4. Hazleton Area (Haz) 27, 5. Wyoming Area (WA) 22, 6. Scranton Prep (SP) 14, 7. West Scranton (WScr) 13, 7. Wallenpaupack (Wal) 13, 9. Delaware Valley (DV) 12, 10. North Pocono (NP) 10, 11, Tunkhannock (T) 9, 12, Wilkes-Barre Area (WBA) 7, 13, Honesdale (Hon) 5, 14. Pittston Area (PA) 4, 15. Valley View (VV) 3, 16. Scranton (Scr) 1.
3200 Relay – 1. Wallenpaupack (Orson Whitehouse, Jordan Bermudez, David Mrowka, Aiden Janowicz) 8:06.04, 2. Dallas 8:09.92, 3. Hazleton Area 8:15.10, 4. Abington Heights 8:16.83, 5. Pittston Area 8:22.32, 6. West Scranton 8:32.12, 7. Scranton Prep 8:37.69, 8. Scranton 8:48.84.
300 Hurdles – 1. Elijah Zeneski (Cr) 39.91, 2. Callum Jerome (T) 41.361, 3. Jason Dyrli (Dal) 41.367, 4. Nolan Paulino (Haz) 41.40, 5. Brian Wolff (NP) 41.59, 6. Jacob Rafferty (Wal) 42.76, 7. Matt Laboranti (NP) 42.80, 8. Bobby Gallagher (Dal) 43.36.
3200 Run – 1. Seamus Wallace (WScr) 9:49.67, 2. Jack Shoemaker (AH) 10:03.90, 3. Rowan Dietrich (Cr) 10:06.28, 4. Owen Morgan (AH) 10:06.58, 5. Ben Delgado (WBA) 10:08.08, 6. Cooper Courtright (VV) 10:08.42, 7. Chase Comiskey (Dal) 10:08.60, 8. Nicholas Michel (SP) 10:17.77.
Triple Jump – 1. Kevin Lucas (Haz) 45-10 ¾, 2. Cameron Moses (DV) 45-6 ¼*, 3. Luke Kopetchny (WA) 45-2 ¼*, 4. Nicholas Kondrosky (WA) 44-6, 5. Jose Lopez (Haz) 43-9 ¾, 6. Maddox Johnson (Hon) 43-1 ½, 7. Roberto Payano (Haz) 42-9 ¾, 8. Braylon Murray (Cr) 42-3 ¾.
Pole Vault – 1. Anson Jumper (Cr) 13-3, 2. Anthony Piccotti (AH) 12-9, 3. Austin Burke (SP) 12-3, 4. Callahan Moore (SP) 11-9, 5. Sam Edsall (DV) 11-3, 6. Jaedyn Sanchez (WBA) 11-3, 7. Theodore Motichka (Hon) 11-3, 8, Jacob Sult (T) 10-9.
Shot Put – 1. Josh Mruk (WA) 54-4 ½, 2. Hunter Pitcavage (Dal) 52-9*, 3. Logan Spaide (Cr) 51-4 ¼, 4. Carter Plantz (AH) 48-8 ½, 5. Nathan Gola (NP) 47-7 ¾, 6. Wyatt Teetsel (Dal) 45-7 ¾, 7. Derek Williams (AH) 45-6 3/4, 8. Ben Gravine (WA) 44-8 ¾.
CLASS 2A BOYS
Team Scores – 1. Dunmore (Dun) 48, 2. Riverside (Riv) 36 1/3, 3. Elk Lake (EL) 36, 4. Mid Valley (MV) 27, 4. Lakeland (Lake) 27, 6, Lake-Lehman (LL) 25 1/3, 7, Western Wayne (WW) 14 1/3, 8. Holy Cross (HC) 14, 8. Blue Ridge (BR) 14, 10, Susquehanna (Sus) 10, 11, Holy Redeemer (HR) 7, 12, Lackawanna Trail (LT) 6, 13. Mountain View (MtV) 4, 13. Montrose (Mon) 4.
3200 Relay – 1. Lake-Lehman (Stephen Martin, Parker Smith, Finn Cronin, Bodhi Cronin) 8:02.81, 2. Elk Lake 8:06.81*, 3. Riverside 8:14.67*, 4. Susquehanna 8:24.30, 5. Holy Redeemer 8:24.78, 6. Mid Valley 8:27.86, 7. Western Wayne 8:29.22, 8. Mountain View 8:42.96.
300 Hurdles – 1. Weston Yannone (Dun) 38.91, 2. Robert Carrelle (WW) 39.30*, 3. Finn Cronin (LL) 40.07*, 4. Carmelo Barnett (Riv) 40.54*, 5. Ryan Galeas (MV) 41.57, 6. Preston Wolf (Sus) 41.87, 7, Brody Crisman (EL) 42.42, 8. Jahliel LaRoche (Dun) 42.69.
3200 Run – 1. Kendel Jones (EL) 9:25.34, 2. Cody Adams (EL) 9:32.24*, 3. Avery Ronchi (LT) 9:37.03*, 4. Jacob Borrelli (MV) 9:38.76*, 5. Henry Decker (Lake) 9:39.49*, 6. Mikey Schimelfenig (Riv) 9:45.30, 7. Matthew Repecki (MV) 9:51.71, 8. Caden Moreck (HR) 10:03.08.
Long Jump – 1. Josh Dudick (Dun) 22-2 ¾, 2. Chance Davis (BR) 22-2*, 3. Brayden Rose (Riv) 22-1 ½*, 4. Bodhi Cronin (LL) 21-7, 5. Max Kuwaye (Mon) 21-7, 6. Jacob Ficarro (MtV) 21-0 ½, 7. Kyaire McLean (HR) 20-10 ½, 8. Kevin Vincent (HR) 20-10.
Javelin – 1. Rocco Spataro (Lake) 175-11, 2. Evan Lonzinski (Lake) 168-1, 3. Alex Kimble (Riv) 142-2, 4. Matthew Pritchyk (Lake) 136-6, 5. Vincent Baldini (WW) 136-0, 6. Nick Pegula (MV) 133-6, 7. Logan Miller (Dun) 132-5, 8. Exavier Pelton (Riv) 128-4.
Discus – 1. Robert Mattioli (MV) 151-6, 2. Leland Wudarski (HC) 148-2*, 3. Tomas Olmos (Riv) 142-2, 4. Branden Fadl (HC) 142-1, 5. Carter Davies (Dun) 141-9, 6. Brayden Shigo (Dun) 131-10. 7, Chris Serra (Sus) 129-0, 8. Exavier Pelton (Riv) 124-2.
High Jump – 1. Carter Sload (Dun) 6-5, 2. Brody Crisman (EL) 6-5, 3. Chance Davis (BR) 6-3, 4. Josh Dudick (Dun) 6-1, 5. Greyson Dieffenbacher (LL) 5-11, 6. Logan Miller (Dun) 5-9, 7. Veniel Perez Herndandez (Riv) 5-7, 8, Savion Culip (Riv) 5-7.
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