There is a lot of excitement and interest in races for championships in the girls Lackawanna Track Conference as the regular season opens this week.<\/p>\n
Three teams look to maintain their stranglehold on titles.<\/p>\n
Abington Heights has dominated Division I for two decades, Lakeland has won 12 straight division championships and Montrose has ruled in Division IV.<\/p>\n
Last season, Delaware Valley won its first title since 2019, when it earned the Division II championship.<\/p>\n
Division I<\/p>\n
This season, Abington Heights has its most inexperienced group, but it has a wealth of young talent coming up from the junior high program.<\/p>\n
Anna Pucilowski is a returning All-Region and LTC Division I-II all-star in the distance events for the Lady Comets, who have won 109 straight dual meets.<\/p>\n
Kiana Seid, an outstanding performer in the field events, also earned LTC all-star honors last season.<\/p>\n
The Lady Comets have not lost a division meet since 2006.<\/p>\n
Valley View is expected to challenge the Lady Comets for the Division I title. Sadie Loftus is a returning LTC all-star for the Cougars.<\/p>\n
Scranton is under the guidance of first-year coach Michelle Reed. Anijah Turner, a sprinter who finished fifth in the 200-meter dash at the District 2 Class 3A Championships last season, leads the Lady Knights.<\/p>\n
Division II<\/p>\n
Wallenpaupack, which won the division crown from 2019 to 2024, is the favorite.<\/p>\n
The Lady Buckhorns return LTC all-star June Brown, a standout in the distance races.<\/p>\n
Western Wayne returns All-Region sprinter and District 2 Class 2A champion Olivia Haines and has some depth in the throwing events and the pole vault.<\/p>\n
Sadie Booths is a returning LTC I-II all-star for the Lady \u2018Cats in the throws. Juleighanna Eldred cleared 10-0 in the pole vault during the indoor season.<\/p>\n
Delaware Valley graduated a large senior class from last year\u2019s championship team.<\/p>\n
Emma Simmons is one of the top all-around athletes in the LTC for the Lady Warriors. She is coming off a successful indoor season and finished fourth in the 100 hurdles last season at the district meet.<\/p>\n
North Pocono has a top sprinter in Pia Zangardi. She finished fourth in the 100 at the District 2 Class 3A championships last season.<\/p>\n
Division III<\/p>\n
Mid Valley is heavily favored to dethrone Lakeland in the division this season.<\/p>\n
The Spartanettes return All-Region hurdler and Army commit Natalie Talluto, and they welcome the arrival of freshman Olivia Thomas, who dominated the junior high division the last two seasons.<\/p>\n
Lakeland returns last season\u2019s Times-Tribune Female Track and Field Performer of the Year, Kaylyn Davis, who earned a bronze medal in the javelin at the PIAA Class 2A Championships. Naomi Rude also earned All-Region honors last season in the jumps after winning the District 2 title in the high jump. Bria Hill is a returning LTC III-IV all-star in the sprints.<\/p>\n
Riverside and Holy Cross each have a lot of athletes on their rosters this season.<\/p>\n
Division IV<\/p>\n
Montrose and Elk Lake are expected to battle for division honors this season.<\/p>\n
Montrose, under the guidance of first-year coach Cory Peranich, has won the last six Division IV titles. Sadie Jones is a returning All-Region performer in the jumps for the Lady Meteors. Anna Tillotson and Erin Tillotson are two of the top throwers in District 2 Class 2A.<\/p>\n
Elk Lake has a talented group of distance runners. Kendyl Weisgold was an All-Region selection and District 2 Class 2A champion in the 1,600 last season as a freshman for the Lady Warriors.<\/p>\n
Sprinter Rhys Evans, a returning LTC III-IV all-star, leads Mountain View.<\/p>\n
Blue Ridge\u2019s Emily Gorham was an all-star in the pole vault last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a lot of excitement and interest in races for championships in the girls Lackawanna Track Conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-151380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}