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D2 boys hoops finals: Hazleton Area still battling for a spot in states

They&#8217;re in it to win it.Five Wyoming Valley Conference girls basketball teams will be playing for District 2 championships this week at Mohegan Sun Arena and four of them will then head off to states, whether they win or lose.So does getting a district gold even matter anymore?&#8220;It definitely does matter to us,&#8221; said Nanticoke Area senior guard Katie Butczynski, who leads the Trojanettes in an underdog role. &#8220;We are coming in as district champions from last year. And we want to prove people wrong.&#8221;Hazleton Area&#8217;s star scorer was a little more blunt about it.&#8220;Getting silver sucks,&#8221; Maddie Mrochko said.Of course, a silver medal will be the only reward the losing team receives for playing in the District 2 Class 6A championship, which sends only the winner to represent the district in next week&#8217;s PIAA playoff tournament.But the winning and losing teams from the Class 5A, 4A, 3A and 2A championship games will all advance to the state field when the District 2 Girls Basketball Championships open Thursday and continue through Saturday night at Mohegan Sun Arena.Still, there&#8217;s a measure of pride on the line.&#8220;I&#8217;m sure excited,&#8221; said Holy Redeemer guard Julia Andrejko, who helped the Royals win last year&#8217;s Class 3A championship. &#8220;I want to go in there and win. The atmosphere is unbelievable.&#8221;It all starts Thursday when Nanticoke Area &#8212; which joins Redeemer as the only defending district champs from the Wyoming Valley Conference &#8212; plays Scranton Prep for the Class 4A championship at 6 p.m.&#8220;To go for a district title, it&#8217;s a goal you shoot for all season long,&#8221; Nanticoke Area coach Alan Yendrzeiwski said. &#8220;Now we&#8217;re here. You get in the state tournament, that&#8217;s just chasing a dream. But winning a district title, that&#8217;s a goal you set.&#8221;There&#8217;s another advantage to grabbing a gold medal from a District 2 title game. The top seed typically gets to play a first-round state game in Northeastern Pennsylvania, while the No. 2 team often begins PIAA play with a lengthy bus ride.Not that logistics matter much to players who spend all their time on the court just trying to win.&#8220;For us to get in (the Class 5A district finals) is really great,&#8221; said Julia Makowski, who leads Crestwood to the school&#8217;s first District 2 girls basketball title game since 1984. &#8220;But we don&#8217;t want to go there to lose.&#8220;I think what matters more is to be the first team in Crestwood history to win a district title.&#8221;Here&#8217;s a look at all the WVC teams taking their best title shots at a gold medal performance, by order in which they will play.Scranton Prep (22-2) vs. Nanticoke (21-4)D2-4A Championship6 p.m. ThursdayThe Trojanettes have a chance to get rid of an old albatross as Nanticoke Area&#8217;s recent district past ran into problems with Prep.The Classics won the battle between the two, along with a berth in states, in a 2015 Class 3A third-place game. Nanticoke reached the PIAA tourney the next year but no thanks to Scranton Prep, which won a 2016 battle in the semifinals between the teams and kept the Trojanettes from playing for a district title.Nanticoke Area won the District 2 Class 4A title last year when the state expanded to six classifications, but the Trojanettes didn&#8217;t see Prep, which was upset by Berwick in the semifinal round.Now, the Trojanettes don&#8217;t want Prep ruining their shot at a repeat.&#8220;New season, a new team,&#8221; said Butczynski said. &#8220;Again, we&#8217;re excited to prove everybody wrong.&#8221;After winning 17 consecutive games, the Trojanettes suffered through a late-season swoon where they lost three of four games, including a playoff with Holy Redeemer for the WVC Division 2 title. They seemed to find their footing again in districts with two victories last week.Butczynski leads a frenetic defensive attack that pressed its way to a third consecutive 20-win season by creating tons of turnovers, and Alyssa Lewis turns them into easy baskets or Lisa Radziak riddles the hoop with 3-point goals.Prep plans to put the breaks on, using a methodical offense to frustrate opponents into making defensive mistakes.&#8220;One of the keys is who dictates the tempo early on,&#8221; Yendrzeiwski said. &#8220;For us, I think we have to get out to a good start and play to our strength.&#8221;Northwest (14-9) vs. Old Forge (11-12)D2-2A Championship4 p.m. FridayThis is the showdown everyone was expecting last year, until Northwest was upended as the bracket&#8217;s top seed in the semifinals.Not this time around.After opening the season by going 1-6 under new coach Scott Miner, the Rangers rattled off 10 straight victories to win their second straight WVC Division 3 title and reach their first district title game since Northwest joined District 2 in 1985.&#8220;It&#8217;s a great feeling to get where you want to be,&#8221; Rangers guard Brenna Babcock said.Old Forge is the defending District 2 champ and struggled with Wyoming Seminary before pulling away down the stretch in the semifinals.Northwest split with Sem during the WVC season, but the loss came back in early January. Led by 20-point scorer Babcock and Regan Harrison, Northwest powered past Mountain View 44-36 in a game the Rangers pretty much led throughout.They are already assured what is believed to be the school&#8217;s first-ever state playoff berth, but long for the program&#8217;s first District 2 gold medal to pair with it.&#8220;They put the work in,&#8221; said Miner, who coached the girls team from 1992-1995, left to coach at Penn State Wilkes-Barre for more than two decades and returned to Northwest this season. &#8220;They put the work in. They&#8217;re really excited.&#8221;Scranton (16-7) vs. Hazleton Area (14-9)D2-6A Championship6 p.m. FridayThis is a rematch of the first-ever District 2 Class 6A championship game from a year ago dominated by Scranton.And Mrochko and her Hazleton Area teammates didn&#8217;t see silver as much reason to celebrate when they suffered through their worst defeat of 2016-17.&#8220;We want a little revenge from last year,&#8221; Mrochko said. &#8220;There&#8217;s definitely a lot of pressure. Scranton&#8217;s a great team.&#8221;Things haven&#8217;t been going so great for the Cougars this month.They were sitting in a first-place tie with Crestwood in the WVC Division 1, but lost a chance at the crown by suffering four consecutive losses &#8212; all by double digits &#8212; to close the regular season.A 22-point victory over Williamsport in the semifinal round of the four-team District 2/4 playoffs snapped the skid when three injured players returned to the lineup, including inside force Marissa Trivelpiece (who missed all but the first quarter of the losing streak with concussion symptoms). But the district title game will tell the Cougars if they&#8217;ve really recovered.It&#8217;ll also tell them if they&#8217;re going to states, since only the District 2 champ in Class 6A moves on to the PIAA tournament.Scranton&#8217;s Ciara Lloyd was unstoppable in last year&#8217;s title game, but she graduated, leaving the Cougars breathing a sigh of relief. They plan to ride the outside shooting of Mrochko, who drilled five 3-pointers in the first half against Williamsport, the pure scoring of Virginia Yurchak and the improving play of Diamond Truluck and Faith Grula inside.&#8220;In the process of getting people back, other people picked us up a little bit,&#8221; Hazleton Area coach Joe Gavio said. &#8220;That&#8217;s helped us.&#8221;No. 1 Dunmore (23-1) vs. No. 2 Holy Redeemer (22-3)D2-3A Championshipnoon SaturdayIn another game filled with familiar faces, the top-seeded Bucks battle a Royals team brimming with confidence after dethroning Nanticoke Area in a playoff for the WVC Division 2 crown and holding Holy Cross to 41 points in a 10-point victory in the district semifinals.&#8220;I think we&#8217;re a team to beat,&#8221; Andrejko said.Redeemer can beat teams in a lot of ways, starting with 6-foot post player Sam Yencha &#8212; who&#8217;s been a scoring machine inside but boasts an uncanny knack for running the floor. She was a surprise starter who helped Redeemer pull an upset of previously-unbeaten Dunmore in last year&#8217;s district title game, but the Bucks will be sure to look her up this time around.If they do, Redeemer will look to Andrejko &#8212; who fired in a game-high 20 points in the team&#8217;s semifinal victory &#8212; along with sharpshooter Cameron Marcinkowski and old reliable Sam Rajza, who returned from an offseason ACL tear to key the team&#8217;s offense and defense with heady play.Then there&#8217;s Royals coach John Jezorwski, who&#8217;s made a habit of giving district opponents a headache.His insertion of Yencha into the starting lineup proved a major factor in last year&#8217;s District 2 title victory and his switch to a triangle and two defense in the second half against Holy Cross helped Redeemer keep control of a tight game.&#8220;That really confused them a little bit,&#8221; Jezorwski said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve been doing all year, making some adjustments in the third quarter and see how it reacts in the fourth quarter. You don&#8217;t want to show it too early, so they (opponents) don&#8217;t have a chance to adjust.&#8221;While the Royals&#8217; victory in last year&#8217;s championship was a shocker, a defense of that title may not be. Redeemer was neck and neck with Prep for the bracket&#8217;s top seed until the Royals lost two straight late-season games when Yencha, Andrejko and Marinowski all suffered injuries and missed significant stretches of those defeats.&#8220;Honestly, everything happens for a reason,&#8221; Andrejko said. &#8220;When the three of us got hurt, other people stepped up. I think that made us even better.&#8221;Abington Heights (17-7) vs. Crestwood (17-7)D2-5A Championship6 p.m. SaturdayBoth teams carrying the nickname Comets know each other well, after Abington Heights bested Crestwood in last year&#8217;s district semifinals on the way to the first District 2 Class 5A championship.Not surprisingly, it promises to be a day of defense.That suits Crestwood just fine, as the team makes its second-ever District 2 championship appearance and first in 34 years. Crestwood lost by a bucket to Valley View for the 1984 Class 3A title, but has high hopes its stinginess with allowing buckets will bring home the school&#8217;s first district gold.&#8220;I&#8217;ve said it before, we are not an offensive powerhouse, we&#8217;re not a team that&#8217;s going to blow people out of the gym,&#8221; Crestwood coach Ed Stepanski said. &#8220;But if we do it on defense and keep it under 40, we can compete with anybody in District 2.&#8221;Offensively, Crestwood is sparked by senior Makowski, a 1,000-point career scorer coming off an 18-point night against Wyoming Valley West in the district semifinals, and heady point guard Sara Hopkins.&#8220;We are feeding a lot off our defense,&#8221; Makowski said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to lead us to victories in the district championship game and in states.&#8221;Abington Heights is no stranger to holding opponents down, either.Led by rebounding machine Erin Albright and top scorer Hannah Kowalski, Abington Heights surrendered a combined 60 points and rode a 45-29 victory over Pittston Area into its second straight district final.Both teams are well aware that point production should be at a premium.&#8220;We&#8217;re playing well right now,&#8221; Stepanski said. &#8220;Our defense is getting better.&#8221;<ins>For other sports stories, <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/category/sports" target="_blank">click here</a>.</ins><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Julia Makowski and her Crestwood teammates will be reaching for the school&#8217;s first-ever District 2 girls basketball title in the championship game against Abington Heights on Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/web1_Crestwood-HR-GBB-5.jpg</photo0><caption0>Julia Makowski and her Crestwood teammates will be reaching for the school&#8217;s first-ever District 2 girls basketball title in the championship game against Abington Heights on Saturday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Tony Callaio file photo | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/web1_Nanticoke-PrepGBB_3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Nanticoke Area&#8217;s Katie Butczynski hopes to drive the Trojanettes past Scranton Prep and to their second straight District 2 Class 4A girls basketball championship when the teams meet Thursday at Mohegan Sun Arena. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/web1_Nanticoke-PrepGBB_3.jpg</photo1><caption1>Nanticoke Area&#8217;s Katie Butczynski hopes to drive the Trojanettes past Scranton Prep and to their second straight District 2 Class 4A girls basketball championship when the teams meet Thursday at Mohegan Sun Arena. </caption1><photoCredit1>Bill Tarutis file photo | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Paul Sokoloskipsokoloski@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Paul Sokoloski at 570-829-7143 or on Twitter @TLPaulSokoloski</shirttailMeta></div>

D2 girls hoops finals: Five WVC teams looking for their golden moment