The Nanticoke Area Trojanettes celebrate after their 4-0 victory over Center for the 2003 PIAA Class 2A softball championship. The victory gave the WVC its first state softball title. Berwick would bring home the WVC’s first state baseball championship on the same date five years later.
                                 Times Leader file photo

The Nanticoke Area Trojanettes celebrate after their 4-0 victory over Center for the 2003 PIAA Class 2A softball championship. The victory gave the WVC its first state softball title. Berwick would bring home the WVC’s first state baseball championship on the same date five years later.

Times Leader file photo

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The Nanticoke Area softball team made history in 2003. Five years later, Berwick’s baseball team did the same thing.

The Wyoming Valley Conference hadn’t won state championships in either sport until the Trojanettes and Dawgs brought them home.

Nanticoke Area dominated Center for a 4-0 victory at Shippensburg University to win the Class 2A championship. Perhaps the best part – the game went only seven innings. The Trojanettes’ other state games went 11, 20 and 14 innings.

Jess Brenner threw a two-hitter and the offense produced two runs in the third and sixth innings.

Kristen Castano was hit by a pitch to start the third inning, was sacrificed to second and moved to third on a single by Holly Walters. Walters moved to second when her hit was misplayed. Kaylee Ziolkowski bunted in Castano and Brenner followed with an RBI single.

Ziolkowski and Brenner drove in runs in the sixth.

Five years later, Berwick added a state baseball championship trophy to the six the football team won by defeating Somerset 6-2 for the Class 3A title at Blair County Ballpark in Altoona.

Until the 2008 tournament, Berwick had lost four consecutive first-round state games — in 1982, 1983 and 1984 as a member of District 4 — and in 2004.

Leading 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Steve Lazar and Jon Wilson had RBI singles while a third run scored on a bases-loaded wild pitch.

Scott Berkes surrendered three hits pitching into the sixth inning. Reliever Zach Lazar recorded the final six outs to give the WVC its first state baseball championship.

1980

Coughlin lost 5-2 to Shaler for the PIAA Class 3A baseball championship. But just getting to the title game was a major accomplishment.

The entire tournament was played at Shippensburg University over the course of a week. A double-elimination format was used. Coughlin opened with a 6-5 loss to Pennsbury, meaning the Crusaders would need to win eight games in five days to be the champions.

Coughlin knocked off Bedford 7-4 the next day, then followed with a pair of doubleheader victories the next two days. The Crusaders bumped off Whitehall 8-0 for their sixth consecutive win but lost to Shaler later in the day. Had Coughlin won, the two teams would have played again the following day.

1990

Area residents wouldn’t be able to watch a telecast of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Miller 500 at Pocono International Raceway.

Tracks back then negotiated TV rights individually. ESPN televised Pocono’s June race in 1989, but the track sold the rights to Showtime Event Television as a pay-per-view event. Since the contract required a blackout in a 50-mile radius of the track, local fans couldn’t even pay to watch the race.

Pocono returned to ESPN the following year.

1996

Wyoming Valley West ran into one of the top programs in the state in the PIAA Class 3A baseball championship game. And like three North Allegheny opponents in the past five years, the Spartans went down to defeat.

North Allegheny, ranked 11th in the country by USA Today, used a three-run fifth inning to defeat Valley West 5-2 at RiverSide Stadium in Harrisburg. North Allegheny also won the title in 1991, 1993 and 1994.

Valley West got off to a good start, taking a 1-0 lead in the second inning as Charlie Goff doubled to left-center and scored on a single by Gene Lapore. The Spartans, though, couldn’t get that big inning despite a couple opportunities.

In the sixth, an error and a double by Pat Stortz put runners on second and third. Mike Stevenson knocked in a run with a groundout, but a double play quelled the rally.

In the seventh, the Spartans had runners on second and third with no outs and failed to score off North Allegheny pitcher John Korn.

Korn struck out nine to set the school record for strikeouts in a season with 102. It remains a record.

2016

Tiana Wren blasted a two-run homer in the third inning and Holy Redeemer added two more runs in the fifth as the Royals defeated Pine Grove 4-0 to earn a second consecutive trip to the PIAA Class 2A state softball championship game.

Olivia Mennig and Brittany Hebda each had an RBI in the fifth.