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68th JORDAN RELAYS: Abington Heights, Montrose earn team championships

joby fawcett, the times-tribune, scranton, pa.
·4 min read

SCRANTON — Abington Heights added to its legacy.

Showing off their depth at various distances on the track, the Lady Comets added another championship. This time, working together in groups of four, they stormed to a win at the 68th Jordan Relays on Thursday night at Scranton Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Several different groupings helped earn Abington Heights three relay victories with Emma Horsley, Reese Morgan, Anna Pucilowski and Marygrace Sabatini winning gold multiple times as the Lady Comets piled up 46 points for the program’s seventh straight Class 3A girls championship.

Wallenpaupack finished second with 33 points, and Pittston Area finished third with 25.

“This is a big goal for us coming together and working to have great performances,” Morgan said. “It is important to us because we love working as a team. Getting ready and supporting our teammates is great and knowing that you are not doing this for yourself, but for the whole team is really great.”

In Class 2A, Montrose used a different formula to win a third straight girls team title.

The Lady Meteors, who won the Lackawanna Track Conference Division IV title earlier in the week, won the 400-meter relay and had second-place finishes in two races and third-place finishes in two races to finish with 43 points.

Mid Valley, which won a pair of relays, finished second with 35 points and Lakeland, which also won two races, finished third with 34.

“It feels really good to know that we have talent that is spread out across the board,” said Montrose senior Chloe Diaz, who ran on the team’s winning 400 relay. “We still placed in every race and gave it our all. We had really good times.”

Abington Heights bookended relay wins and added a third. First, the team of Morgan, Horsley, Pucilowski and Kaylyn Elliott won the distance medley in a time of 9 minutes, 50.53 seconds to open the meet in impressive fashion.

Honesdale came across second in 10:05.03, and Lakeland, which had its team of Faith Wormuth, Deanna Wormuth, Kirsten Navich and Emily Black win the Class 2A division, finished third overall at 10:07.16.

Abington Heights’ team of Morgan, Pucilowski, Horsley and Marygrace Sabatini won the 3,200 relay in 9:51.85, clear of Wallenpaupack, which finished in 10:07.83.

In the final race of the night, the Lady Comets team of Sabatini, Horsley, Lilia Calvert and Maggie Coleman powered their way to a win in the 1,600 relay in a time of 4:05.71, once again coming in ahead of Wallenpaupack, which had a time of 4:09.74.

“This is really exciting, especially as we really head into the postseason,” Pucilowski said. “We have big goals. This is the first step. I am really happy. I think everyone really ran great.”

West Scranton’s team of Vinny McDonough, Aliana Cigliano, Isabella Fay and Emily Stefani won the 1,200 medley with a time of 3:00.84.

North Pocono won the 1,600 medley as the team of Hannah LaFave, Soyer DeLucy, Kaitlyn Kravitz and Taylor Igoe had a time of 4:31.74.

Pittston Area’s team of Annika Lien, Jenna Grieco, Ali Butcher and Aria Messner won the 400 relay in 50.15.

Montrose had its best performance in the 400-meter relay. Carley Frey, Gracie Dalton and Sadie Jones joined Diaz to win against the Class 2A teams with a time of 51.19.

“That felt really good,” Diaz said. “It was nice that we were able to pull out first place in Double-A.”

Mid Valley had wins in the 1,200 medley and the 1,600 relay. The team of Mae Kaufman, Madison George, Carolyn Chakiris and Natalie Talluto had a time of 3:00.38 to beat Montrose (3:04.17) in the 1,200 relay, and they had a time of 4:15.88 in the 1,600 relay to push ahead of Lakeland (4:17.02) in the 1,600 relay.

In addition to the win in the distance medley, Lakeland had a win in the 3,200 relay. Morgan Lutz joined Black, Faith Wormuth and Navich to run a time of 10:22.63.

Carbondale Area’s team of Alexys Baskin, Mehlayia St. Hillaire, Laura Nebzydoski and Kate Korty, who ran a split of 2:20.69 on her 800-meter anchor, won gold in the 1,600 medley with a time of 4:30.99.