Lakeland will honor one of the most successful football teams in its history Friday.<\/p>\n
The 1980 Chiefs, a team that shattered the perception that the small-school Suburban Conference couldn\u2019t compete with the Big 11 by winning the championship in its first season with an 11-1 record, will be recognized in a ceremony before Lakeland\u2019s game against rival Carbondale Area on Friday at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
After winning five straight Suburban Conference championships and three straight Eastern Conference Class B titles (1975-77), Lakeland applied for Big 11 membership for the 1980 season.<\/p>\n
Lakeland\u2019s addition would extend the season to 12 games over 13 weeks, creating resistance from school administrators and resulting in some tumultuous votes. Initially, one vote of Big 11 schools denied Lakeland membership, reportedly due to a \u201cmisunderstanding.\u201d However, Lakeland officials reapplied, and the program was accepted for the fall of 1980.<\/p>\n
At that time, the Big 11 Conference had bigger schools and was viewed as superior to the Suburban. Traditional Big 11 powers Valley View and Dunmore were the preseason favorites. Lakeland, coached by the late Jerry Wasilchak, had 54 players on its roster and, based on past success, was considered a title contender.<\/p>\n
Lakeland stormed to a 10-1 record with their loss coming against Scranton Central, the defending Big 11 champion through 11 games.<\/p>\n
In the final week of the regular season, Lakeland hosted Valley View (10-0-1) for the Big 11 title. The Chiefs posted a 43-8 win, which the late Scranton Times sports writer Jack Jordan penned, \u201cput to rest any critics who may still exist on whether the Chiefs can play in the Big 11.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scrantonian Tribune sports writer Ray Flanagan noted, \u201cNo matter how good Lakeland teams had been through the years, they were like Rodney Dangerfield \u2014 they got no respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lakeland was the first former Eastern Conference Class B program to reach the Class A playoffs. The Chiefs averaged 28.2 points per game and gave up 12.7. Running back Bob Speicher set an area record with 29 touchdowns and 176 points while rushing for more than 1,700 yards. He and guard Al King were first-team All-Big 11 selections on offense. Linebacker Jerry Chopko had more than 100 tackles, and sophomore Chris Clauss was first-team all-star on defense.<\/p>\n
In addition to Speicher and King, tackles Tony Pittsman and John Rolka were All-Scholastic picks by The Scrantonian Tribune.<\/p>\n
The Chiefs lost to Pottsville in the Eastern Conference Class A semifinals. However, the historic first season is considered a seismic shift for the program, which went on to add Big 11 championships in 1981, 1982, and 1987 after the move from the Suburban Conference.<\/p>\n
D2 sets Class 5A playoff format<\/p>\n
This is the first year of a two-year cycle, and District 2\u2019s Class 5A has only three member teams. That placed the district in a subregional bracket with Districts 6-8-9.<\/p>\n
District 2 football chairman Mike Ognosky announced the agreed-upon format for the first weekend of the playoffs in that subregional.<\/p>\n
Two of the three District 2 member schools \u2013 Abington Heights, Delaware Valley and Pittston Area \u2013 based on the district power rating, will compete in a District 2 championship game on the weekend of Nov. 6-7.<\/p>\n
The top two teams between Hollidaysburg (District 6), Mifflin County (District 6), and DuBois (District 9) will play in a championship final Nov. 6-7.<\/p>\n
The winners of the two games will play in the District 2-6-8-9 subregional championship game the weekend of Nov. 13-14. The District 2 champion will host the subregional final in 2026, and the District 6-8-9 winner will host in 2027.<\/p>\n
The subregional winner advances to play the District 11 champion in the PIAA first round the weekend of Nov. 20-21.<\/p>\n
District 2 Class 1A teams are also involved in a subregional. Holy Cross, Lackawanna Trail and Old Forge are battling Nativity BVM, Marian Catholic, Tri-Valley and Williams Valley from District 11.<\/p>\n
The top four teams based on power rating, regardless of district affiliation, qualify for the semifinals. If the top four teams include two from District 2, those teams will meet for the district championship at the higher seed. If there are three teams representing one district, the subregional playoffs will be paired based on power rating. If District 2 has only one qualifier, that team is the district champion.<\/p>\n
LFC leaders<\/p>\n
Abington Heights senior running back Jayden Anglin leads the Lackawanna Football Conference Division I in rushing with 685 yards on 62 carries. He is also tied with Wallenpaupack\u2019s Edward Kiesendahl with eight touchdowns and 48 points.<\/p>\n
West Scranton freshman Austin Sostre leads the division in passing yards (652) and touchdowns (7). Scranton Prep\u2019s Oliver Swingle has the top passer rating (132.1).<\/p>\n
Scranton Prep senior Braedon McPartland leads with 19 receptions, and Valley View junior Cash Roe has 339 receiving yards.<\/p>\n
North Pocono\u2019s Shane Youngblood has 15 extra points and three field goals for 24 kicking points. Scranton Prep\u2019s Tyler Bianchi also has three field goals.<\/p>\n
Division II: After his outstanding game against Carbondale Area, Honesdale\u2019s Gabe Duda leads the division with 662 rushing yards.<\/p>\n
Lakeland junior quarterback Evan Pochas leads with 521 passing yards. Dunmore junior Brady McCormick has eight passing touchdowns and the top passer rating (262.7).<\/p>\n
Lakeland\u2019s Chase Rosenkrans has 20 receptions for 259 yards, leading both categories.<\/p>\n
Riverside senior Brayden Rose has 11 touchdowns for 66 points. Dunmore\u2019s Weston Yannone has 10 touchdowns for 60 points.<\/p>\n
Dunmore\u2019s Russell Toole leads with 20 extra points.<\/p>\n
Division III: Carbondale Area\u2019s backfield of Caedon Voglino (351) and Francisco Roman (314) are first and second, respectively, in the rushing race. Voglino also leads in scoring with six touchdowns and 36 points.<\/p>\n
Lackawanna Trail\u2019s Lucas Filipek leads the division with 496 passing yards, while Holy Cross\u2019 Chase Rutkoski is second with 405 yards and leads with five touchdown passes.<\/p>\n
Holy Cross\u2019 Luca Berardi has 16 receptions for 302 yards and three touchdowns, leading in all three receiving categories.<\/p>\n
Montrose\u2019s Gabriel De Llano Durant leads with 13 kicking points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakeland will honor one of the most successful football teams in its history Friday. The 1980 Chiefs, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-292943","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\/292943","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=292943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}