Since August the Hazleton Area and Dallas girls have been waiting to face each other. Dallas is the defending District 2 AA and PIAA AA State champ that returned plenty of talent to repeat this season. Hazleton Area didn't lose a runner from last years D2 AAA championship team that put 3 runners in the AAA top 20 at the state meet. Both posses a superstar junior, Dallas in Lisa
Giacometti and Hazleton Area in Maria Monks (unbeaten this year). Both easily won their division titles last week for a third consecutive season. It was
supposed to be the biggest showdown in the history of the WVC League Meet. But when Wednesday's Ed Narkiewicz Wyoming Valley Conference League Meet was over, it was over-looked Wyoming Valley West that stole the show. The Lady Spartans loaded up the top 15 with 5 runners and went on to "mildly" upset Hazleton Area and nearly take-down Dallas, falling a point short (47-48). While Valley West did leave with a 20 point thumping of arch-rival Hazleton Area to take the AAA title, the Lady Cougars were actually without Monks, who lost her shoe in thick mud, fell at the 2 mile mark and dropped out. Monks's misfortune opened the door for sophomore-teammate Brenae Edwards (19:35) to win the individual title over Giacometti (19:51). Dallas put four in the top 10, Hazleton Area three, and Valley West two as the three teams were far ahead of anyone else. Dallas is a heavy favorite to win next weeks D2 AA crown while Hazleton Area and Valley
West should put on quite a show in AAA as they battle for the districts one
state meet team birth. On the boys side, sophomores showed the way taking
1-2-3. Berwick's Nathan Roth grabbed the title in 17:21, followed by Wyoming Area's Frank Redmond and Hanover's Joe Stanek. Hazleton Area put five in the top 30 to win a record 9th straight AAA all league meet title with 89 points and avenged an early season loss to Berwick (103 pts) who snapped the Cougars 5 year conference unbeaten streak on a tie-breaker in September. Hanover Area took the AA and overall title for the first time ever behind a strong 3-5-8 finish. The Hawkeyes finished with 74 points while Bishop Hafey was runner-up with 133.