(EDITOR’S NOTE: Since May of 1999, the Times News Sports Department has featured an On This Date practically every day, highlighting an event that happened in the past. With the coronavirus putting a halt to sports, the On This Dates have been expanded to the stories that actually ran in the next edition’s newspaper. Today’s On This Date story is from May 12, 1984).

By Bradley Krum

Sports Staff Writer

The race for the boys team title at Saturday’s Centennial League track championships was as close as expected by most observers.

Pocono Mountain nipped Northwestern by eight points to win the meet championship for the third year in a row.

The chase for the girls crown was even closer than most expected and the end result was somewhat of a surprise. A surprise to some maybe, but not to the winners.

The Palmerton girls, using their excellent depth and strong distance corps, avenged a dual meet loss to regular season champion Pleasant Valley, taking the league meet trophy by a 133-119 count.

“It’s not really an upset,” said Palmerton head coach Art George of his Lady Bombers’ third straight CIAA meet win. “We expected all along to win this meet. The girls had some problems early in the year, but they’ve worked hard and they were really geared up for this. All the girls did rather well.”

Some of George’s charges did better than “rather well” most notably Georgianna Messinger, Lori and Gena Moyer, and Shari Barbosa.

Messinger won the 1600 and 3200, and sliced a total of 37 seconds off the previous league records for the two events. Messinger won both races easily, running a 5:15.5 in the 1600 to break the old mark of 5:28.9, which was held by Pocono Mountain’s Cheri Neff.

Messinger then came back later to win the 3200, this time destroying her own record of 12:04 with an 11:40.5. The distance standout was also part of another record breaking performance by the Palmerton 3200 relay team which broke their own record by seven seconds in 9:59.6. Messinger ran on the team with Chrissy Visnosky, Maureen Taylor and Barbosa.

Barbosa took third in the 800, and second in the 1600 and 3200 to individually account for 22 Blue Bomber points.

Lori Moyer won the 200, anchored the winning 400 meter relay team and tied for third in the 100. Gena Moyer won the 100 low hurdles, took second in the 300 intermediates and was also on the 400 meter relay.

George credited assistant coach Ed Gwiazdowski for his runners’ preparedness. Gwiazdowski also felt that Palmerton’s win was not an upset, but along with George praised Pleasant Valley, as well as the Lady Bombers.

“They (Palmerton and Pleasant Valley) are two of the top teams in the entire area,” he said. “I think both teams could go down into any league and compete with the best.”

Pleasant Valley’s Sheri Papcsy led the Lady Bears with three firsts, including a record breaking toss of 128-1 in the javelin. East Stroudsburg’s Denise Foreman, who was the surprise of the meet, upset Papcsy in the long jump by topping a jump which was her best effort ever by two feet. Foreman’s jump broke Papcsy’s record from last year.

Cynquetta Jones (triple jump) and Peg Stenger (high jump) also captured first place medals for the Bears.

PV head coach Joseph Scheks, who is retiring after 18 years at the helm, was disappointed at the second place finish, but acknowledged his team’s outstanding season.

“We had a super year,” he said. “We knew with the people we had coming back that we were going to be in the running. We didn’t have the injuries or the problems that we had last year. It was a nice year, a good way to go out.”

Other records broken in the girls meet were by Notre Dame’s Amy Neitzel in the 400 and 800.

Lehighton’s Kathy Wolter (high jump), Donna Oswald (100 hurdles) and Pam Terry (discus) all placed second.

For the Pocono Mountain boys, Bob Surls and the throwers were the keys to victory. Surls won the 100 and 200, and took second place in the 400 and long jump. The weightmen of Pocono Mountain outscored Northwestern 32-10 as the Cards duplicated their dual meet showing by nipping the Tigers 107-99 in the point standings.

The Tigers’ close battle with the Cardinals was epitomized by the dual between sprinter Bob White and Surls. White came in second in the 100, third in the 200 and won the 400 against Surls, although they both had the same time.

Jim Yost and Matt Longendorfer won league titles in the 300 intermediates and long jump, respectively, for Northwestern. The Tiger 1600 meter relay team posted a 3:33.6 in a winning performance.

Lehighton’s Mike Semmel won the pole vault and teammate Vince Putkowski came in second in the shot.

Pleasant Valley’s Troy Labar took first in the javelin and Mark Haydt placed second in the 1600.

Chad Miller of Northern Lehigh took second in the discus and the Bulldog 3200 meter relay team placed second.

For Palmerton, Shane Anthony and Scott Kuntzman won the 3200 and high jump, respectively. Anthony set a new record of 10:00.3 and Kuntzman tied the high jump mark.