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Happy birthday to Ella Jane Mahle!

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Teenager charged as adult for high-speed pursuit headed to higher court

<p>KINGSTON &#8212; In theory, interscholastic athletics provide a chance for any team to win. Even for the cellar dwellers and perennial minnows, the off-chance of an upset fills the plots of daydreams on bumpy school bus rides to away games.</p><p>Swimming is not that kind of sport. For a handful of Wyoming Valley Conference aquatics teams, you could throw the clich&#233; Red Sanders and Vince Lombardi quotations into the deep end &#8211; winning isn&#8217;t everything or the only thing &#8211; it doesn&#8217;t mean anything.</p><p>Low participation numbers continually affect a handful of swimming and diving programs in the area. Finding the bodies to occupy the starting blocks is the most persistent problem facing a number of teams like Lake-Lehman, Meyers, Coughlin, Hanover Area and Nanticoke.</p><p>&#8220;With any meet, we have trouble filling all of the lanes,&#8221; Meyers coach Danielle Kishbaugh said. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to put points on the board when you don&#8217;t have people in lanes.&#8221;</p><p>The result, often times, is these programs enter meets with a mathematically impossible chance of winning against area teams that boast rosters of 20-plus natators.</p><p>The outcomes haven&#8217;t been pretty: Holy Redeemer girls beat Nanticoke by 95 points on Dec. 15; Wyoming Valley West boys topped Wyoming Area by 80 points on Dec. 16; the Royals&#8217; girls downed Coughlin by the century mark in early January. On Feb. 9, the Meyers girls&#8217; score could be multiplied five fold and still come short to first-place Dallas.</p><p>Instead of focusing on the outcomes, area coaches place more emphasis on individual accomplishments rather than team success or standings.</p><p>&#8220;For other teams, I&#8217;m sure (winning meets) is important. For us, small victories are huge,&#8221; Kishbaugh said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we focus on. There&#8217;s no way our kids can get out of the pool with regret as long as they push themselves as fast as they could.&#8221;</p><p>Part of the problem teams like Meyers and Coughlin face is that they don&#8217;t pull from established, ingrained age-group swim programs. Many swimmers and divers that live inside of the Wilkes-Barre Area School District often compete for the private schools in the conference.</p><p>The Meyers&#8217; roster consists of 13 girls and seven boys. Lake-Lehman has 14 girls and six boys. After graduation saddled the Hanover Area girls roster last year, the Hawkeyes were pressed to merge its girls with its boys&#8217; team. Berwick struggled to fill the lanes at Wyoming Seminary&#8217;s four-lane pool late last month with eight girls and eight boys.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very difficult because you can&#8217;t fill all of the lanes,&#8221; Berwick coach Stacy Demshock said. &#8220;When you have six lanes, I can&#8217;t fill all three relays. Sometimes I can&#8217;t even get two relay teams. We&#8217;ve just been filling individuals. That extra point sometimes, you need that extra point.&#8221;</p><p>Coughlin shares the Kistler Elementary School pool with Meyers and does not practice until 6:30 p.m. In 2014, the Crestwood School District voted to cancel its high school&#8217;s previously suspended swim team after the programs used Nanticoke&#8217;s pool for practices and meets for years.</p><p>Lake-Lehman, whose boys have yet to win a conference match, utilize the Dallas Middle School for its home meets. The Black Knights often don&#8217;t get to train at Misericordia University&#8217;s Anderson Center Pool until the college practice ends at 7 p.m.</p><p>&#8220;The most glaring difficulty is that we don&#8217;t have our own home pool,&#8221; Lake-Lehman coach Nancy Edkins said. &#8220;So it&#8217;s difficult to grow the program when there&#8217;s no visibility. They don&#8217;t see us.&#8221;</p><p>Many of the WVC swimming and diving programs scramble every offseason to get students to join the team. Edkins, principal at Lake-Noxen Elementary School, said she attempts to pique curiosity for her team early on by encouraging some of her students to join aquatics programs. Kishbaugh sends her students on full-force recruitment brigades by getting their friends to come out for the team.</p><p>Many of the students&#8217; joining the Meyers program are entirely new to swimming. In many ways, Kishbaugh said she&#8217;s teaching swimming just as much as she&#8217;s developing her more accomplished athletes. Some students come out to the team holding their noses underwater, kicking their feet, or thinking that diving is just cannonballs.</p><p>&#8220;What happens from Day One to the end of the season is amazing,&#8221; Kishbaugh said. &#8220;Some don&#8217;t know how to swim. Seeing them progress is outstanding. That&#8217;s what brings me to coaching.&#8221;</p><p>Four teams &#8211; Meyers, Coughlin, Nanticoke and Pittston Area &#8211; do not officially have the numbers to field boys teams. No scores are kept and their boys must swim in exhibition meets to garner qualifying times for districts. Rules prohibit them from competing as relays during exhibitions or at championships.</p><p>The WVC consolidated swimming and diving from three divisions to one when the Lackawanna League added the sport in 2014-15 (10 Lackawanna schools previously competed in the WVC.) Shielding the smaller teams from blowouts at the hands of the tradition powerhouses, Division 3 fielded several of the conference&#8217;s smaller programs in Meyers, Coughlin, Nanticoke, Wyoming Area, Pittston Area and Dunmore prior to the consolidation. Edkins said the former format boasted fewer league meets that allowed for &#8220;more flexibility&#8221; to schedule non-divisional meets against similarly competitive programs.</p><p>Kishbaugh remarked that, even with the one-win season, her team is &#8220;amazingly dedicated.&#8221; Most of her team balances swimming with the speech and debate team, and other winter extracurricular activities.</p><p>&#8220;I would love people to respect our team more,&#8221; Kishbaugh said. &#8220;Sometimes it seems like we&#8217;re viewed negatively because we don&#8217;t win meets. A lot of these kids started from scratch and stuck with it.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Isabella Weidow of Meyers launches from the starting block during practice at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 27. Despite a lack of numbers, schools like Meyers and Coughlin find success in the little things. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams03.jpg</photo0><caption0>Isabella Weidow of Meyers launches from the starting block during practice at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 27. Despite a lack of numbers, schools like Meyers and Coughlin find success in the little things. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams01.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Coughlin swim coach Don Williams watches Michelle Lanning dive during practice at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 27. Coughlin and Meyers share the split time using the same facility. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams01.jpg</photo1><caption1>Coughlin swim coach Don Williams watches Michelle Lanning dive during practice at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 27. Coughlin and Meyers share the split time using the same facility. </caption1><photoCredit1>Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams02.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Members of Coughlin High School swim team swim laps during practice on January 27 at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams02.jpg</photo2><caption2>Members of Coughlin High School swim team swim laps during practice on January 27 at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre. </caption2><photoCredit2>Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams04.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Meyers&#8217; James Langan swims the butterfly during practice at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 27. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_swimteams04.jpg</photo3><caption3>Meyers&#8217; James Langan swims the butterfly during practice at Kistler Elementary School in Wilkes-Barre on Jan. 27. </caption3><photoCredit3>Pete G. Wilcox|Times Leader </photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Area teams won&#8217;t let low numbers stop progress</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jay Monahan</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Times Leader sports at 570-829-7143 or on Twitter @tlsports.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Just keep swimming