Abington Heights began pursuit of a ninth straight District 2 Class 3A boys tennis championship May 2 with a 5-0, home-court rout of West Scranton in a quarterfinal match.
The Comets lost just one game in 10 sets over the five matches.
Abington Heights won district titles 2013-19 and then again last season when the sport resumed after not being held in the spring of 2020 because of COVID.
The top-seeded Comets made it look easy on a day when all seven higher-seed teams won on their home court to begin the first postseason action in any District 2 sport this spring.
Praneel Mullaiah and Sam Christman won the top two singles spots while Luke Morgan-Ryan Salony and Gavin Ross-Connor Clearwater won the doubles matches, 6-0, 6-0.
Domenic Peters won, 6-1, 6-0, at third singles.
Scranton Prep opened with a 4-1 win over MMI Prep in Class 2A.
The wins sent Abington Heights and Scranton Prep into the district semifinals and finals, which were scheduled for May 4 at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre.
The District 2 singles tournament will be May 10-11. The first three rounds are scheduled for May 10 with Class 2A at Kirby Park and Class 3A at the nearby Wilkes University courts. The semifinals and finals are scheduled, tentatively for Kirby Park, May 11 at 1 p.m.
Doubles play will begin May 14 at 9 a.m. with Class 2A at Kirby Park and Class 3A at North Pocono. The semifinals and finals are scheduled for May 16 at 1 p.m. at Kirby Park.
TRACK AND FIELD
The Jordan Relays May 5 and the Robert Spagna Lackawanna Track Conference Championships May 10 will transition the sport into the District 2 Championships, which will use a new format this season.
All three events are scheduled for Scranton Memorial Stadium. The District 2 meet is May 16-17, with rain dates of May 18-19.
Instead of being split with one classification each day, District 2 will more closely resemble the state format.
Field events will be split over the two days with half contested and completed May 16.
The bulk of track events will have qualifying on May 16 and finals on May 17.
The change will help the district’s top athletes acclimate more closely to the format they will see if they qualify for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Championships at Shippensburg University. The format should also have potential to improve performances, perhaps increasing the number of athletes able to meet state qualifying standards, by reducing the number of events each athlete competes in on one day.
Action begins each day at 3 p.m.
The track meet was not held in 2020 because of COVID and was temporarily moved to North Pocono last season before coming back to the refurbished Memorial Stadium this year.
LACROSSE
District 2 also released details of the district and subregional lacrosse tournaments.
Home fields of higher seeds will be used for all games, including championships.
Abington Heights competes in Class 2A in both boys and girls lacrosse.
The Comets have already clinched a berth in the girls tournament where 12 teams are chasing eight berths, unless teams ranked lower than eighth post a .500 record or better, which would expand the field.
Abington Heights is seventh of 11 teams going after eight spots in Class 2A boys, which follows the same qualifying rules.
Tentative playoff dates for Class 2A girls are May 14 if a first round is needed, then May 16, 19 and 23 for quarterfinals, semifinals and final.
All other playoffs are scheduled for May 17 to 25.
BOYS VOLLEYBALL
District 2 has set its playoff format, which will use home courts of higher seeds in the quarterfinals and semifinals, then move to neutral courts for the finals.
Abington Heights is well in front and likely to be the top seed for the five-team, open tournament in Class 3A.
The Comets will receive a quarterfinal bye. The semifinals are May 23 and final is May 25.
BASEBALL AND SOFTBALL
Championship details have not yet been released.
PNC Field, the home of the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, is once again unavailable for the baseball finals.
Other neutral field championship sites are expected to be used for baseball and softball finals.
District 2 has until the week following Memorial Day to complete its title games to qualify teams for the state tournaments.
