Western Wayne girls track and field team earned the first championship of what has been a sports season stalled by winter weather in spring.
On Wednesday, in a showdown with Wallenpaupack, the Lady ’Cats won, 86-64, to clinch a tie for the Lackawanna Track Conference Division II championship.
It is a return to the top spot in the standings for Western Wayne, which last won the Division II crown in 2013. It is also the program’s 12th division title since 2001.
This certainly has been building. Western Wayne captured the girls Class 2A championship at the Phil Tochelli Junior High Championship meet in 2015 and 2016 and finished second last season.
Trina Barcarola, a sophomore, has been the featured standout. Against Wallenpaupack, she won the 100-meter hurdles, the 300 hurdles and the pole vault.
When she was in eighth grade in 2016, Barcarola won the 100 hurdles in a meet record time of 15.38 seconds, the 300 hurdles in another meet record time of 47.99, and the triple jump with a meet record mark of 33 feet, 9 inches.
This season, Barcarola is ranked No. 1 in the state for Class 2A competitors in the pole vault according to
pa.milesplit.com, with her season-best height of 11-0.
Western Wayne is strong in the pole vault with Barcarola. But, even stronger with Sydney Krompasky, a junior, who has a season-best mark of 10-0, which ranks at No. 7 in the state in Class 2A.
Barcarola’s time of 15.47 in the 100 hurdles against Wallenpaupack was clocked with a fully automatic timing system and would be the No. 1 time in the state in Class 2A, as would her time of 46.51 in the 300 hurdles.
Both Gianna DeBastiani, a junior, (16-1½) and Barcarola (16-0) rank in the top 20 in the state in Class 2A for the long jump. And Annie Skirpan, a junior, posted the No. 3 time in the state in Class 2A for the 800 in 2:23.77.
BY JOBY FAWCETT / SCRANTON TIMES / STAFF WRITER
