Author: Western Wayne Webmaster

Lenny Maiocco III Scranton Times Athlete of Week

MARTY MYERS / STAFF WRITER / Published: May 14, 2018

The Western Wayne freshman tennis player improved to 20-0 this season, notching a three-set victory to capture the District 2 Class 2A tennis title.

Age: 15

Family: Father, Lenny Jr., mother Christa, sister Alaina.

Other sports you play: Track — the hurdles and 400.

I know you had a really good final against Scranton Prep’s Jack Habeeb, winning in three sets. I met him this year and I really, really like him a lot. Very respectful, very nice, very talented player.

When you get a good match against a quality opponent, do you soak in the moment? When I played Jack, I knew I’d have to play my best tennis. When he beat me the first set, he was just playing very, very well. When I won, it was a good victory for me. I learned a lot from that.

Winning a championship as a freshman, that’s a very big deal. Have you thought about the accomplishment? I try not to think about me being a freshman, just that I’m going out and playing with other tennis players and just play. People say freshmen have to prove themselves. I try not to think about that.

How does playing two sports in the same season work? They’re both the same season. It was very hard this year. If I had a home tennis match and a home track meet, I’d play my tennis match and as soon as I was done, I’d run down to the track, get changed and have just enough time for one event.

Fortunately, you’re very good in tennis so you were able to polish some opponents off early. It was nice to be able to finish in 45 minutes, go down there and still have time. It’s just go out there and get the job done.

But tennis is the number-one thing, correct? I told my track coach tennis has to come first because that’s my main sport. He said it was totally fine, but we still want you. He put me on varsity this year, which is rare for a freshman, so I was very honored coach (Justin) Collins put me on there.

Athletes you admire: My cousins, Trina Barcarola, Johnny Barcarola and Alex Long. They’re really big inspirations because they are so good at what they do. It’s nice having other family members who do well.

Did they draw you into track? Actually, Trina and Johnny did. Last year when I was hurt with my shoulder I couldn’t really play tennis so I had to take a break. They said, ‘Why don’t you come do track?’ I fell in love with it, and that’s why I try to balance both this year.

Any sports teams you follow: My dad likes Dallas Cowboys fan so I watch that a little bit, but I mostly like tennis.

Is there one tennis player you have to watch if they are on TV? Roger Federer. He’s such a legend that every time I see him I’m so inspired that I try to be at least somewhat like him.

What parts of his game have you tried to incorporate into your game? Definitely his serve and forehand because they are such weapons that I try to make those a weapon in my game.

What is your best weapon? I’d say my forehand. I can really dictate play if I get it exactly where I want it.

How did you get involved in tennis? I saw my dad play when I was about 9 years old so I tried it out.

Superstitions or rituals on match day? No, but in the bigger matches like against Holy Cross, Abington Heights and Delaware Valley, I like to get in a zone and I don’t like to talk to people. I know I have to play my best tennis so I get into the zone that day. I don’t do anything specific to get in it, though.

Three people you’d like to have dinner with. My mom, my dad and my sister.

After high school, what are your plans? I’d like to go to a Division I school for academics but also for tennis. That’s something I’d really like to do. I’d like to study business.

Most famous athlete you’ve ever met? Victoria Azarenka at the U.S. Open in 2013. She was signing books at a stand so I went up and had her sign my book.

States are coming up in less than two weeks. Any expectations? I’m just going to go out there and see what happens. Going into districts, my coach said I had a target on my back because I was the number-one seed and expected to win. So I had a lot of pressure on me and I kind of let it get to me in that last match with Jack. Going into states I just want to play my game and do the best I can. I’m just going to go out there and play.

What part of your game do you need to develop? I’d say my backhand. It can be steady at moments but sat other times it can really let me down. I feel like developing that would be really, really good.

Track Districts Postponed

The 2018 District II AA Track and Field Championships scheduled for today at Scranton High School have been POSTPONED to tomorrow, Wednesday, May 15, 2018, same times.

Robert D. Wilson Student Earns Recognition in National Handwriting Contest

Waymart, Pa. – Universal Publishing recently presented a certificate of excellence in handwriting to Robert D. Wilson student Kenzie Gregory. Kenzie is a student in Miss Judge’s first-grade class. Kenzie achieved an honorable mention among first-grade entries in Universal Publishing’s 2018 National Handwriting Contest. The handwriting contest rewards students for their exceptional handwriting skills and raises awareness about the importance of handwriting instruction. First-, second-, and third-place winners were selected for each grade in grades K-5 and for grades 6-8 combined, as well as for the new teacher division. Honorable mentions were also awarded in both the student and teacher divisions. Winners were selected from thousands of submissions by public, private, and home school students and teachers from across the nation. When asked about the contest, Universal Publishing president Thomas Wasylyk said, “This is a great way to get students involved and promote excellence in handwriting – a skill used by every student, every day, in every subject. Kenzie should be proud of her achievement!” This year, students completed a two-part entry form in either manuscript (grades K-2) or cursive (grades 3-8) that required writing a provided sentence and answering an open-ended question. Teachers were asked to provide samples of both manuscript and cursive writing for their entries. All participants were judged on their letter formation, size, and spacing; word spacing; line quality; and slant. Judges also considered joinings on cursive entries. For a complete list of winners, visit upub.net/contest.

Students test handmade water wheels at engineering competition

With help from her teammates Wednesday, Trinity Foulds hustled to pour liquid onto the blades of the water wheel they built with cardboard, wood and plastic cups.
The four seventh-graders at Western Wayne Middle School scrambled to keep the water coming as their wheel spun. A judge counted the wheel’s rotations as a 30-second timer ticked toward zero in the North Pocono Middle School science lab where they gathered for an engineering competition rooted in local history.

Made possible by a $725 grant from the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority, Wednesday’s competition saw 15 or so middle school students from four schools districts — North Pocono, Western Wayne, Forest City Regional and Wayne Highlands — test the efficiency of water wheels they spent months making. The water wheel angle harkens back to the early days of Moscow, which borough Councilman Marc Gaughan said was once home to at least five working water mills.

“We wanted a connection to local history,” North Pocono Middle School science teacher Michelle Swarts said of the contest, noting students were given dimensions for either a small-scale or large-scale water wheel and chose their own building materials. “Old Mill Park was recently dedicated in the borough … and so we though: “No one’s ever done water wheels before, let’s do that.’ It incorporates simple machines, which is a concept in our science curriculum.”
The project also involved many elements of science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum, commonly known as STEM; students designed and engineered the waterwheels themselves.
“I mostly enjoyed the building of the water wheel itself and just working with my team,” North Pocono seventh grader Alex Iannone said. “We put a lot of hard work into this.”

Alex’s team used scrap wood to build their wheel, which won first place in the large-scale water wheel category. The Wayne Highlands team, who built their wheel using a 3-D printer, won first place in the small-scale category.
And while Wednesday’s event was competitive, it was also collaborative, as students from the four schools participated together in several science-related activities after testing their water wheels. One challenged students to levitate pingpong balls by blowing through drinking straws — a lesson in Bernoulli’s principle.
Wayne Highlands seventh graders Eve Rogers and Gopi Patel said they enjoyed working with kids from the other schools. Wayne Highlands technology and engineering teacher Christopher Piasecki said it was a good life lesson.
“It’s very real world, because they’re not always going to work with this group of students their whole life,” Piasecki said. “They’re going to leave Wayne Highlands Middle School, they’re going to go to college, they’re going to get a job down the road and they’re going to have to work with some new people.”

 

Mike Minor to speak at Varsity Club Sports Banquet on May 29th

Western Wayne alumni Mike Minor will be the guest speaker at this year’s Varsity Club 18th Annual Sports Banquet on Tuesday evening, May 29th at Ladore Conference Center in Waymart.  Mike is a 2x Paralympian medalist, representing the United Stated this year in Pyeongchang, South Korea, including a gold medal. Mike graduated from Western Wayne in 2008 and participated in Wrestling and Soccer while in high school.

Robert Spagna Varsity Track Championships – Lady Cats Winners in AA again!

Our Varsity Track and Field teams competed at the Robert Spagna League Championship Meet held at Scranton Memorial Stadium yesterday. Our girls finished 1st in AA out of 9 schools and 2nd overall (against AAA competition), losing only to Abington Heights, a larger school that just set the record for most consecutive dual meet wins in Lackawanna League history. Note that scoring goes out to eight places, and the place mentioned also accounts for going against AAA compeition, teams we will not see at districts. The girls were led by Trina Barcarola’s 3rd Place and new school record Pole Vault finish of 11′-6″, breaking her old school record of 11’0″. Trina finished 2nd in the 300 Hurdles with a new school record time of 45.74, breaking Michelle Morcom’s old record of 45.93 set back in 2004. Trina also finished 2nd in the 100 Hurdles and teamed up with Samantha Atcavage, Annie Skirpan, and Gianna DeBastiani to earn a 2nd place medal in the 4 by 400 Relay with a time of 4:08.16, which is now 5th all time. Annie also took 3rd in the 400 and 7th in the 800. Samantha added a 6th place finish in the 300 Hurdles. Gianna also took 4th in the Long Jump and teamed up with Cassidy Asinski, Noelle Orehek, and Elizabeth Pulice to earn 6th place points in the 4 by 100 Relay. Sydney Krompasky took 5th in the Pole Vault, while Esmerelda Mendez took 4th in the Discus and 6th in the Shot Put. Maya Black and Kaila Johnson tied for 8th place in the High Jump. The 4 by 800 Relay team of Victoria Hutchinson, Morgan Wagner, Haley Estus, and Lilly Black took 7th.

The Boys finished 4th in the AA standings. Leading the way was Evan Coons, whose throw of 134′-07″ earned him a 3rd place finish as well as the 4th best throw in school history. Johnny Barcarola finished 3rd in the Long Jump, Dylan Walck finished 5th in the Javelin, and Ed Sledzinski finished 6th in the Shot Put. The 4 by 800 Relay team of Brandon O’Sullivan, Jake Pasake, Ryan Cavage, and Leonard Johnson finished 4th. Jake also placed 7th in the 3200.

Both teams are at it Tuesday at Scranton Memorial Stadium for the PIAA District II Class AA Championship Meet, with a start time of 3pm. The finals of events start at 5:30pm. The girls look to defend their title from last year, while the boys look to compete for their first district title since the 2015 season. #RollCats

Girls Junior High Track Champions!

Our Junior High Track and Field Teams competed at the Phil Tochelli Junior High League Championship Meet held at Scranton Memorial Stadium. Our Girls finished in 1st Place AA out of 12 schools. Please note in the summary below that top eight score points.

Leading the way for the girls was Ella Pavlovich, who placed second in the High Jump, won the Triple Jump, and was a member of the winning 4 by 100 Relay, along with Rylee Sheehan, Gabby Tetreault, and Hayley Kovaleski. Gabby also placed third in the 200. Sydney Hutchinson placed second in the long jump and the 400. Ella Dougher placed second in the 300 Hurdles and fourth in the High Jump and 100 Hurdles Noelle Cruz placed seventh in the Long Jump. Lina Piccalino placed sixth in the Triple Jump. Leah Kellogg placed fourth in the Shot Put. Jayden Gregory and Aubrey Layton placed fourth and fifth in the Discus, respectively. The 4 by 800 team of Makayla Gregory, Maleigh Eldred, Rachel Butler, and Trinity Foulds placed fourth. Rylee Sheehan and Ella Pavloich placed fifth and seventh in the 100. Madison Kammer and Audrey Lawlor placed sixth and eighth in the 1600, respectively. Madison also placed seventh in the 800. Loida Martinez placed eighth in the 300 Hurdles. The 4 by 400 team of Loida Martinez, Rylee Sheehan, Katie Herlihy, and Sydney Hutchinson placed fifth.

Our Junior High Boys were led by Morgan Coccodrilli, who took sixth in the 400 and seventh in the Long Jump and 100. Richie Reed placed sixth in the Triple Jump. Jake Kopzca took sixth in both the 100 and 200.

Nice job to everyone this season and we look forward to building upon this year’s success next year! #RollCats

Western Wayne Places First in Scientific Visualization for TSA States

CAR T- cell therapy, a cancer treatment, with a 90 percent success rate in treating blood cancers was the focus of Western Wayne students’ project for the Scientific Visualization category at the Technology Student Association Pennsylvania State Conference held from April 18 through April 21 at the Seven Springs Resort, Seven Springs, PA. Their 3D presentation of how this new form of immunotherapy works in the human body won first place at the competition.  The students will move on to compete at the national level from June 22 through June 26 at the Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, GA.

The group consisted of all Western Wayne juniors including:  Vaeda Pontosky, Dahlton Frisbie, Journey Sosa, Maya Black, Rachel Butler, and Robert Carey.

Many of the students on this team had competed in previous TSA events and recalled that many projects in the Scientific Visualization category feature concepts related to space and the universe.

The group from Western Wayne decided they wanted their entry this year to be on a unique topic to the event that can relate to many people.

“We thought that everyone in their families has some kind of connection to cancer and we wanted our project to focus on showing how a very effective treatment can fix this disease,” Rachel Butler, team member, said.

The students explained that CAR T-cell therapy now is a very costly cancer treatment, but that at least two drug companies are currently working to make it more accessible to the public.

Fellow teammate Vaeda Pontosky is excited to educate the public further on this cancer treatment and believes that another reason their project stood out to the judges other than its subject matter was that the group created it with the software Blender. Vaeda explained how the software that is a free download on Mac computers helped the group to create a very realistic representation of how CAR T-cell therapy eradicates cancer cells.

“The software allowed us to create rotating blood cells,” Vaeda explained.  “I watched many YouTube videos on how to use the software so we could create our video.  We worked on the project from October through February.”

All members of the group contributed to the final product.  Dahlton Frisbie was in charge of writing the script used to narrate the video.

“I made sure our script matched all scenes,” Dahlton, who wishes to study law and business after graduation, explained.  “It was especially challenging to be sure that all of the scientific terms were spelled correctly.”

Fellow junior teammate Rob Carey enjoyed the challenge of this project because he feels it will help better prepare him to study engineering in college.

“I think I most benefitted from being able to create 3D imaging for our project,” Rob said.

Rachel also believes the project has helped her to better prepare for a career in graphic design.  She explained how she was in charge of creating the storyboard for the project and how she worked on the project binder among other tasks.

“It was most rewarding to see our final animation come together,” she explained.  “We worked very hard to make the project flow together and to explain the complex process of CAR T-cell therapy in layman’s terms.”

Teammates Maya Black and Journey Sosa also made important contributions to the project.  Maya worked to add all of the individual video clips the group made into one.  Journey helped to work on the project binder and work log.

All members of this first place team are looking forward to attending TSA Nationals.

“It will be exciting to see other people’s projects from across the country,” Rachel said.

Vaeda feels eager to share the group’s project at this level and wants to polish it even more before the competition.

“We would like to make our 3D representation of the therapy destroying the actual cancer cells even better,” she explained.

Vaeda, who was recently awarded a 2018 Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Research Fellowship, said the students on Western Wayne’s TSA team hope all of their efforts this year encourage more Western Wayne students to join the program in years to come.

“TSA teaches you so much about new technology in the world,” Vaeda explained.

“You are sure to find something you are interested in- even design and video editing are a part of TSA,” Rachel added.

To see the final edited copy of these students’ first place winning Scientific Visualization entry and learn more about CAR T-cell therapy visit http://ww3.westernwayne.org/tsa-scientific-visualization-presentation-first-in-the-state/

SAFE2SAY

Safe2Say Something is a youth violence prevention
program run by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.
The program teaches youth and adults how to recognize
warning signs and signals, especially within social media,
from individuals who may be a threat to themselves or others
and to “say something” BEFORE it is too late.