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CYC recieves third star in Keystone STARS after-school program

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Pittston council to apply for three gambling grants

DALLAS &#8211; Admittedly, Maddy Ross felt pressure heading into the 2016-2017 season.The Dallas senior surprised everyone last year, capturing the District 2 Class 2A diving championship and following it up with a 16th-place finish in the state.The bull&#8217;s-eye was squarely on her shoulders. There&#8217;s no hiding when you are the defending champ. Yet, the person who may give Ross the toughest test is a teammate that swims right alongside of her each day. That would be classmate Lexi Spaciano, who was third in the district and 10th in the state last season.Both were on display Wednesday afternoon as Spaciano edged out Ross by 14 points to earn first-place honors in the diving portion of the meet.On the girls&#8217; side, Annalise Cheshire and Abby Zolner each had four first-place finishes as Dallas rolled to a 119-66 win over Tunkhannock.In the boys&#8217; meet, Dallas pulled out a one-two finish in the 400 free relay to distance itself from the Tigers 101-84.&#8220;There has been pressure this whole season,&#8221; Ross said. &#8220;People have said that the target was on my back, but I just try to focus on my own dives. I worry about myself and try to perfect my dives. I have been doing the same dives the whole season. A few that I did today weren&#8217;t as consistent. But it&#8217;s about getting better each day.&#8221;While the Wyoming Valley Conference title was already wrapped up heading into Wednesday, the prime season is starting to descend upon District 2.And it&#8217;s the divers that take center stage first at districts. No doubt, the Dallas duo might battle at the CYC just like they did Wednesday.But don&#8217;t misread it. There&#8217;s no rivalry between the two. Nothing but encouragement and friendship.&#8220;Maddy is always a confidence booster, that&#8217;s for sure,&#8221; Spaciano said. &#8220;The goal is that both of us can go to states again this year because we did have so much fun last season. It was nice to win on Senior Night. It&#8217;s always great to get a victory there. I&#8217;m just hoping for the best for all of us in districts.&#8221;Each one knows the benefit of having a state-caliber diver with you every step of the way.A great practice partner who can critique and help point out little tidbits to improve. Someone who can watch over new dives, and even, try to mimic the more-difficult moves.&#8220;I&#8217;m just trying to work on getting each dive as consistent as I can,&#8221; Ross said. &#8220;And it&#8217;s great because Lexi pushes me and provides some great competition in practice. It&#8217;s really awesome. That really pushes you to try harder dives and get those consistent. It&#8217;s just great to have a teammate like that.&#8221;Wednesday, it was just Spaciano&#8217;s day as her 229.10 was 14 points higher than Ross. Teammate Carly Perloff rounded out the Mountaineer sweep.&#8220;I feel good going into districts,&#8221; Spaciano said. &#8220;Of course, there will be nerves. But I&#8217;m pretty good under pressure. I used to do gymnastics, so it doesn&#8217;t affect me too much.&#8221;Dallas controlled the girls&#8217; meet, taking firsts in 10 of the 12 events. Tunkhannock&#8217;s lone top honors were Anna Moffitt in the 100 fly and a victory in the 400 free relay.The boys&#8217; meet was much closer.Both teams each garnered six first-place honors, but it was Dallas that rallied in the final three events. The Mountaineers got firsts from Mikail Krochta (100 back), Ryan Spears (100 breast) and a relay win in the 400 free to close out the meet.&#8220;I knew it was going to be close,&#8221; Dallas head coach Romayne Mosier said. &#8220;We switched some things up because we wanted to see certain boys swim different events because we are heading into districts and we&#8217;re kind of focusing on that a little bit. Because of that, we knew that it may come down to the final relay, and it did.&#8221;Tunkhannock&#8217;s Dylan Mislevy (200 free), Mitch Fowler (200 IM) and Alex Bushre (50 free, 100 free) all secured top honors in their respective events.&#8220;I thought we had a good chance to win the medley relay at the beginning of the meet, but it went the other way,&#8221; Tunkhannock boys head coach Tim Mislevy said. &#8220;The boys battled to the end, but we came up just a little short. Up to diving, we were ahead of where I thought we would be. I was hoping to go 2-3 in the backstroke, but Dallas did a good job. This meet could have gone either way.&#8221;GIRLSWyo. Valley West 88,Lake-Lehman 88Chelsea Mackiewicz (200 free, 500 free) and Alexis Ivanitch (50 free, 100 breast) each won two individual events and swam on two winning relay teams for the Spartans.The Black Knights won the final event to forge the tie. Beth Bartuska, Grace Ciaccia and Jill O&#8217;Brien all had a first-place finish.BOYSWyo. Valley West 132,Lake-Lehman 27The Spartans set a new pool record in the 400 free relay as the team of Logan Fluegel, Ivan Volynets, Josh Zawatski and Maxim Kowalski won with a time of 3:16.66.Fluegel and Kowalski also recorded wins in two individual events apiece.WRESTLINGCoughlin 39, Meyers 26Joe Pahler won by fall at 138 pounds to lead the Crusaders.The Mohawks won five of nine contested bouts, led by Colin Pasone&#8217;s pin at 120 pounds.MEN&#8217;S BASKETBALLPSU Wilkes-Barre 98,PSU Schuylkill 87Christopher Cantine led four Lions in double figures with 32 points as sixth-seeded Penn State Wilkes-Barre earned a road win in the opening round of the PSUAC playoffs.Colton Lewis added 22 points followed by Tymier Butler-Trader (14) and David Rodgers (12). Wilkes-Barre will travel to Penn State York for Saturday&#8217;s semifinals.GIRLS SWIMMINGDallas 119, Tunkhannock 66200 medley relay: 1. Dallas (Annalise Cheshire, Caitlin Blaum, Abby Zolner, Melissa Leonard), 1:56.27. 200 free: 1. Melissa Leonard, D, 2:03.77; 2. Anna Moffitt, T; 3. Gwen Murray, T. 200 IM: 1. Sydney Bittner, D, 2:37.13; 2. Sara Fetter, T; 3. Lindsey Jordan, D. 50 free: 1. Cheshire, D, 26.35; 2. Blaum, D; 3. Megan Hayward, T. Diving: 1. Lexi Spaciano, D, 229.10; 2. Maddy Ross, D; 3. Carly Perloff, D. 100 butterfly: 1. Moffitt, T, 1:05.01; 2. Madison Hurst, D; 3. Hannah Thomas, D. 100 free: 1. Cheshire, D, 55.86; 2. Melissa Leonard, D; 3. Taylor Lynn, T. 500 free: 1. Zolner, D, 5:34.47; 2. Hayward, T; 3. Murray, T. 200 free relay: 1. Dallas (Cheshire, Blaum, Melissa Leonard, Zolner), 1:44.63. 100 back: 1. Hurst, D, 1:04.80; 2. Thomas, D; 3. Alexis Hutchins, T. 100 breast: 1. Zolner, D, 1:13.73; 2. Bittner, D; 3. Lynn, T. 400 free relay: 1. Tunkhannock (Murray, Hutchins, Sara Fetter, Hayward), 4:10.76.BOYS SWIMMINGDallas 101, Tunkhannock 84200 medley relay: 1. Dallas (Mikail Krochta, Ryan Spears, Shane Szczecinski, Troy Reinert), 1:45.68. 200 free: 1. Dylan Mislevy, T, 2:01.64; 2. Kevin Allen, D; 3. Ben Tidball, T. 200 IM: 1. Mitch Fowler, T, 2:17.45; 2. Davis Tidball, T; 3. Ryan Spears, D. 50 free: 1. Alex Bushre, T, 22.56; 2. Krochta, D; 3. Szczecinski, D. Diving: 1. Sawyer Aitken, T 2. Jake Baldo, T; 3. Matthew Dolan, D. 100 butterfly: 1. Reinert, D, 57.19; 2. Fowler, T; 3. Tony Caravaggio, D. 100 free: 1. Bushre, T, 50.61; 2. Szczecinski, D; 3. Allen, D. 500 free: 1. Caravaggio, D, 5:44.11; 2. Ben Tidball, T; 3. Dan Shannon, T. 200 free relay: 1. Tunkhannock (Jordan Alguire, Dyllan Henning, Ben Tidball, Mislevy), 1:38.90. 100 back: 1. Krochta, D, 56.97; 2. Reinert, D; 3. Davis Tidball, T. 100 breast: 1. Ryan Spears, D, 1:07.28; 2. Henning, T; 3. Danny Schnable, D. 400 free relay: 1. Dallas (Reinert, Caravaggio, Szczecinski, Krochta), 3:33.71.WRESTLINGCoughlin 39, Meyers 26106 &#8212; Nino Cinto (COU) won by forfeit; 113 &#8212; Anthony Kasper (MEY) maj dec Jamie Pahler, 8-1; 120 &#8212; Colin Pasone (MEY) pinned Joe Rey, 0:52; 126 &#8212; Jake Brown (COU) dec Kevin Huertero, 3-0; 132 &#8212; Josh Brown (COU) won by forfeit; 138 &#8212; Joe Pahler (COU) pinned Carson Kosloski, 1:34; 145 &#8212; Frank Costano (COU) dec Sufyan Burroughs, 10-4; 152 &#8212; Jeremy Bergold (MEY) maj dec Tanner Smith, 13-1; 160 &#8212; Jake Heylek (COU) won by forfeit; 170 &#8212; Colin Brown (MEY) dec Taylor Chronowski, 8-3; 182 &#8212; Dave Virgo (COU) dec Heriberto Pineda, 6-1; 195 &#8212; Namir Murphy (MEY) won by forfeit; 220 &#8212; Preston Perkins (MEY) dec Chris Malys, 4-1; 285 &#8212; Corey Harrison (COU) won by forfeit.Note: Match started at 132 pounds<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Tunkhannock&#8217;s Sawyer Aitken won the diving competition against Dallas on Wednesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL-02162017-Dallas-vs-Tunkhamnnck-swim-5.jpg</photo0><caption0>Tunkhannock&#8217;s Sawyer Aitken won the diving competition against Dallas on Wednesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Charlotte Bartizek | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL-02162017-Dallas-vs-Tunkhamnnck-swim-2-.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Dallas&#8217; Sydney Bittner swims to a victory in the individual medley race. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL-02162017-Dallas-vs-Tunkhamnnck-swim-2-.jpg</photo1><caption1>Dallas&#8217; Sydney Bittner swims to a victory in the individual medley race. </caption1><photoCredit1>Charlotte Bartizek | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL-02162017-Dallas-vs-Tunkhamnnck-swim-1-.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Dallas&#8217; Melisssa Leonard gets off to a good start on the way to winning the 200 freestyle event. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_TTL-02162017-Dallas-vs-Tunkhamnnck-swim-1-.jpg</photo2><caption2>Dallas&#8217; Melisssa Leonard gets off to a good start on the way to winning the 200 freestyle event. </caption2><photoCredit2>Charlotte Bartizek | For Times Leader </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Tom FoxFor Times Leader</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Times Leader sports at 570-829-7143 or on Twitter @TLsports</shirttailMeta></div>

Dallas divers peaking as Mountaineers sweep Tunkhannock