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Lehigh Valley based Talking Heads tribute Start Making Sense to play River Street Jazz Cafe in Plains

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Ralphie Report: The Plain White T’s hit the road with Rob Thomas.

The Dallas team was not exactly rested when it arrived early the morning of April 18 for the 89th annual Jack Roddick/Shippensburg University High School Track and Field Invitational.The Mountaineers had made it through a grueling afternoon meet just a day and a half earlier, remaining unbeaten in the Division 1 of the Wyoming Valley Conference with a 77-73 win at Hazleton Area.None of that prevented Dallas from continuing what has been an impressive season.Ally Rome and Katie Kravitsky won titles while Lindsey Oremus picked up a silver medal with a career-best performance to help the Mountaineers place sixth out of 52 Class AAA girls teams that scored points in the meet that draws many of the top competitors from around the state.&#8220;It&#8217;s getting them used to bigger competition,&#8221; Dallas coach Matt Samuel said. &#8220;A bunch of schools from our area go there because we want to expose them to a bigger competition.&#8220;Districts is a big competition and obviously that&#8217;s the one that can get you down to Shippensburg at the end.&#8221;Despite some fatigue, the Mountaineers performed well in their first meet of the year at the home of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Championships.&#8220;Some of the things we did down there were great,&#8221; Samuel said. &#8220;We&#8217;re doing OK considering the weather that we&#8217;ve all had to deal with.&#8220;We have some good athletes on both of our squads and our girls are doing very well. We squeaked one out against Hazleton and that put a little kink in our invitational performances. We had some performances that were not so great because of the days before there.&#8220;We&#8217;re more concerned about the end of the season than we were this invitational.&#8221;Rome and Oremus had been a big part of Dallas using its distance dominance to outlast Hazleton Area April 16. The Mountaineers had a 31-1 advantage in points scored in the 800-, 1600- and 3200-meter runs and the 3200 relay.They managed to improve their already high levels of performance.Rome broke the 11-minute mark for the first time on the season, winning the 3200 at Shippensburg in 10:58.46.&#8220;That was a pretty big breakthrough for her,&#8221; Samuel said after Rome destroyed the field to win by more than 14 seconds. &#8220;She kind of did that thing by herself, too. Her doing that was nice.&#8220;Thursday was a long day for Ally. You had that turnaround and the day of the meet was very hot. Those things taken into account, it was very impressive.&#8221;Rome went back out and tested herself again in the 1600, finishing one place short of scoring more points for the Mountaineers when she finished ninth in 5:17.89.Oremus had her best time ever in the event to take second in 5:00.30, missing a title by just 15-hundredths of a second.&#8220;I thought Lindsey ran very well there and again, she had a pretty tough day Thursday,&#8221; Samuel said. &#8220;That&#8217;s a real fine time in the mile, probably top five in the state so far this year.&#8221;Kravitsky has gone as high as 5-7 in the high jump this season, but her 5-4 was still good enough for a title.Nikki Wren completed the team scoring by placing seventh in the javelin with a throw of 116-5.Although those were the only points, another positive sign for the Mountaineers is the number of athletes who were able to quality to compete in the meet. Standards had to be met just for athletes to be eligible for the event that serves as an unofficial test run for the state championships for many of Pennsylvania&#8217;s top performers.Rebecca Balara and Katie Grose, who had been part of the distance dominance against Hazleton Area, ran in the 1600 and 800 respectively.Samantha Mazula competed in the 100, the long jump and on two relay teams. Abby Zolner made it in both hurdles events and ran on the 1600 relay. Hollie Halthaus made it in the pole vault and ran on the 400 relay.Mikaila Chakon was on both relays, Annalise Cheshire the 400 relay and Ruby Mattson the 1600 relay.Dallas, which closes the regular season May 5 at home against defending champion and fellow unbeaten Pittston Area, remained unbeaten Tuesday with a 103-47 victory over Crestwood.Mazula won the 100, 200 and long jump. Oremus won the 800 and 1600 while also running a leg of the 3200 relay. Zolner won both hurdles.

Dallas continues to be unbeaten in Division 1 track