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When Lake-Lehman defeated Wyoming Area, which entered the day in second place, as part of its final cluster meet last week, the Black Knights secured their first Wyoming Valley Conference regular-season boys title since 2006.
The Black Knights are hoping that was just the beginning of their championship efforts.
“Not to sound cocky or arrogant, but this was the first step,” said John Sobocinski, who has coached Lake-Lehman since 2003. “Our goals were much bigger than just winning the league, but with that said, our boys league is very competitive. It’s a strong Wyoming Valley Conference this year. There are a lot of strong runners out there that we knew would pose formidable challenges throughout the season and they did.”
Lake-Lehman finished the WVC season with a 16-0 record.
Wyoming Area entered the day with a chance to force a tie at the top of the standings, but after falling to Lake-Lehman, the Warriors finished 14-2. Holy Redeemer, which is 11-1 with meets remaining, has moved in front of and can finish ahead of Wyoming Area.
Lake-Lehman won three times in its final meet at Misericordia University’s Letterkenny Fields, including taking the first-vs.-second showdown with Wyoming Area, 24-33.
Wyoming Valley West’s Tavian McKenna finished first, as he did in five of six cluster meets while running together with the champion Black Knights, and Wyoming Area’s Michael Branley placed second in the six-team race.
Lake-Lehman showed its championship strength with the next two finishers, four of the next seven and five of the next 11.
The Black Knights placed all seven of their runners who could impact the team score in the top 20. None of the other five schools could get more than four runners across the finish line by that time.
Nick Hockenbury was third and Chandler Longstreth, the only runner to beat McKenna in a WVC meet this season, was fourth.
“They were our two most consistent guys, our top two guys,” Sobocinski said.
The others in the team’s top seven were the frequent contributors to the team score throughout the season – Casey Weaver, Michael Serafin, Will McCarroll, Brady Newman and Stephen Kapsick.
WVC Coaches Meet
For the second straight year, the WVC girls championship will be determined with the end of the regular season mingling with the start of the postseason at the Wyoming Valley Conference Ed Narkiewicz Coaches Meet.
Individual medals will be at stake along with team titles in the scoring of the overall meet. Dual meets that were unable to be completed will also be scored from Wednesday’s meet at the Wyoming County Fairgrounds in Meshoppen by comparing the finishes of the two teams head-to-head just as is done in the regular-season cluster meets.
Crestwood enters Wednesday’s action with a 15-0 girls record, needing to complete just one meet.
The Comets will be scored against Dallas, which enters the day tied for second with defending champion Holy Redeemer at 12-1.
If Dallas can knock off Crestwood – no team has come closer than nine points this season – it would force a likely three-way tie for first, pending other Dallas and Holy Redeemer results.
Crestwood is led by Molly DeMarzo, a junior who won the meet as a freshman and sophomore.
Holy Redeemer’s Chris Hine is also back to defend his boys title.
The meet has faced several alterations as part of the conference coping with COVID-19 concerns.
Because the conference’s teams have a total of 170 varsity boys runners, the coaches have decided that they will limit each boys team to seven entries for this year’s race, following the format used in district competition.
The varsity boys will run first at 2 p.m.
Varsity girls will follow at 2:45 p.m. Because the league has far fewer total girls runners – around 100 – there will not be a limit on entries.
A boys B race for those runners not in the top seven on their team will be held at 3:30 to ensure that all conference runners get a chance to participate.
There are junior high races scheduled for 4:15 for boys and 4:45 for girls.
The top 25 finishers in all but the boys B race will receive medals.
Spectators will not be allowed.
Sobocinski, who serves as president of the WVC Cross County Coaches Association, said coaches waited for potential reaction from District 2 or the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association on the handling of their championship meets following a change in Gov. Wolf’s guidelines on attendance.
The conference, district and state meets will all be conducted without any spectators.
“It’s extremely hard to say that,” Sobocinski said. “The coaches met and we were back and forth. With the volume of people up there, we decided we wanted to mirror what districts was going to do.
“ … When the district committee and the PIAA put their state format out, they still said ‘no spectators’. So, we figured with our volume of runners, we had better do the same. We fear that something is going to happen and we don’t want to jeopardize any of our kids moving forward for districts. That’s the decision that we made in the best interest of the kids.”
Northwest will not be able to compete because of COVID-19 cases within the school district leading to the shutting down of all sports. Wilkes-Barre Area’s status was uncertain.
District Championships
District 2 has decided to split its championships into separate days for girls and boys. It has also eliminated its B race.
Each school will be allowed to bring just its seven competitors and an alternate.
The girls meet will be Oct. 28 and the boys meet will be Oct. 31, both at Lakeland High School.
To reduce the number of people on site, there will be more time between races with required arrival and departure times to avoid overlaps. There will not be any medal ceremonies.
On each race day, Class 3A is at 10 a.m., Class A is at 12:30 p.m. and Class 2A is at 3 p.m.