that finished off a 27-7 win over Dunmore in the Class 2A final on a windy and rainy Friday night at Lakeland Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was a read play and I decided to keep the ball,\u201d Naniewicz said. \u201cThere was nothing there and I got hit. I tried to give myself up and my ankle went the wrong way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t 100%. But it\u2019s my senior year, district championship game. I didn\u2019t want to let my boys down. I came back in for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to the injury, Naniewicz ran for two touchdowns and passed for a third in the first half. He finished with 79 yards on 13 carries and passed for 86 yards.<\/p>\n
Coupled with a strong defensive effort that didn\u2019t allow Dunmore to gain any momentum, top-seeded Lakeland (11-1) captured its ninth District 2 title overall (seventh in Class 2A) and advances to the PIAA playoffs next week against the winner of the District 1-12 Subregional final between Bristol and Lansdale Catholic. That game is Saturday morning at 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little scary,\u201d Lakeland coach David Piwowarczyk said of Naniewicz\u2019s injury. \u201cDavid\u2019s played great, not just this game but the whole year. Thankfully, he\u2019s healthy and everything is good. We held him out as precautionary at the end. He\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naniewicz echoed his coach\u2019s sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll rehab it up pretty good this week. I plan on playing next week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lakeland took control from the outset. Dunmore was forced to punt on the opening possession and, when a Chiefs player busted through the line, punter Josh Dudick had to run to avoid his kick being blocked. He was stopped shy of the first down and the Chiefs took over at the Bucks 31. Eight plays later, Naniewicz scored on a 1-yard run and Nicholas Janosky\u2019s kick made it 7-0 with 6:45 left in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Third-seeded Dunmore (8-4) responded with a drive to the Lakeland 20. But on fourth-and-2, quarterback Weston Yannone was sacked for a 10-yard loss by Luke McFarland.<\/p>\n
That set up Lakeland for a six-play, 70-yard drive with Naniewicz covering the final 38 for the touchdown run. Janosky\u2019s kick made it 14-0 with 11:19 left in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
The Bucks appeared to get on the scoreboard late in the quarter when Yannone scrambled for a 71-yard touchdown. However, the play was called back by a holding penalty. Dunmore wound up punting and the 20-yard kick into the wind gave Lakeland the ball at the Bucks 45 with one minute left before halftime. Naniewicz hit Jackson Pochas for 31 yards, then threw a pass to Gavin Roberts out of the backfield. Roberts tip-toed along the sideline for the 14-yard touchdown that gave the Chiefs a 21-0 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey played well and we didn\u2019t execute the way we needed to and couldn\u2019t get the stops that we needed to,\u201d Dunmore head coach Kevin McHale said. \u201cI\u2019m proud of our kids, they gave a great effort. But it just wasn\u2019t in the cards tonight. Lakeland made the plays and executed in spots that we needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defensively, Lakeland kept the potent Dunmore running game, as well as the slippery and elusive Yannone, in check. The Bucks finished with 165 yards on the ground, led by Yannone\u2019s 87 on 19 carries \u2014 73 of which came in the fourth quarter with the outcome in hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watched a ton of film this week and just came out and did our job,\u201d said sophomore Dylan Loomis, who finished with seven tackles (6 solo, 1 assist), one sack and one quarterback pressure. \u201cThe guys up front played their blocks well. Me and Caden (Cuozzo) played our gaps. And the DBs played great and didn\u2019t give them (many) yards in the passing game. I thought that was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piwowarczyk said the Lakeland offense couldn\u2019t have done it without the defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all set up by our defense,\u201d he said. \u201cOur defensive coaches did a great job with the game plan and the scouting. The offense is just very confident. We run our system and tonight, they did it pretty flawlessly in the first half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following a scoreless third quarter, Rocco Spataro \u2014 who relieved Naniewicz at quarterback\u00a0 \u2014 ran 43 yards for a touchdown to make it 27-0 with 8:16 left in the fourth. It came one play after a Chase Rosenkrans interception and 22-yard return.<\/p>\n
With 3:31 remaining, Dunmore avoided the shutout with a 15-play, 83-yard drive that Ryan Mecca capped with a 5-yard touchdown run. Johnley Jean added the extra point.<\/p>\n
The seeds for this district championship were planted last year following Lakeland\u2019s loss to Riverside in the district semifinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the best feeling in the world,\u201d Naniewicz said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had this goal since last year, on the bus ride back from Riverside. We said it right then and there. To finally accomplish that goal after months of hard work and grinding and blood, sweat and tears, man, it\u2019s a special feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakeland\u2019s Rocco Spataro carries the ball during the District 2 Class 2A Championship at Lakeland High School in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-28806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-high-school-sports","9":"tag-scranton","10":"tag-scranton-headlines","11":"tag-scranton-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28806","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=28806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Lakeland\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-06.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lakeland\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-08.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lakeland\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Dunmore\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-03.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lakeland\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-07.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Lakeland\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-10.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Players](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Dunmore\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-DUNMORELAKELAND-110725-04.jpg\")
<\/p>\n