HAZLETON – The Pittston Area and Wyoming Area boys track and field teams experienced drastically different results when the Wyoming Valley Conference opened this week.
Pittston Area won only three events Wednesday while dropping its Division 1 opener, 107-43, at Hazleton Area, last year’s runner-up.
Wyoming Area opened defense of its Division 2 title at home Thursday, sweeping every event while hammering Nanticoke, 138 1/3-11 2/3.
Hazleton Area 107, Pittston Area 43
Junior Paul Moska and sophomores Walter Coles and Naseem Guillaume had the only wins for a young Pittston Area team.
The Patriots were hit hard by graduation after finishing tied for third in the division last season.
All other events were done for the day when athletes gathered at the high jump area at one end of the track.
Moska and Matt Ambrose turned it into the most successful event of the day for the Patriots, taking first and second to outscore the Cougars, 8-1.
“Paul scored a lot of points for us last year,” coach Jason Mills said of one of the team’s top returnees.
Coles is another. He won the javelin with a throw of 146-9.
“For as windy as it was, (147) feet is a good throw,” Mills said. “We were happy with that.”
Guillaume picked up his first varsity victory by taking the 110-meter high hurdles in 16.7 seconds.
Pittston Area managed to take second place in six of 15 individual events.
Jimmy Pliska took second in the long jump and triple jump while Pat Mitchell was second in the shot put and discus. Colin Tracy, the team’s lone senior, returned from injury to take second in the 300 hurdles.
Wyoming Area 138 1/3, Nanticoke 11 2/3
Wyoming Area won 16 of 18 events outright and tied for first in the other two against Nanticoke, which won only one meet last season while finishing seventh in the eight-team division.
Ryan Murray won all three jumps for the Warriors while Ethan Crake won both hurdles races.
Tristan Sokach-Minnich won the discus and the javelin.
Michael Murphy, who tied for first in the 200, was on two winning relay teams along with Joe Buczynski and Ryan Murphy.
Alex Chronowski won the 400 and ran a leg on the winning 1600 relay.
