Penn-Trafford boys track team advances to WPIAL finals after mistake corrected

By: Paul Schofield
Thursday, May 2, 2024 | 4:40 PM

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Penn-Trafford track and field coach Eric Reger had just put his children to bed about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday when he got a text from team captain Matt Sarnowski.

“I think they made a mistake,” it read. “I was going over the scoring, and I have us winning.”

Reger quickly pulled out the score sheets and discovered a scoring error in Wednesday’s WPIAL Class 3A team semifinals. Instead of Mt. Lebanon edging Penn-Trafford, 77-73, the final scored should have been 78-72 in favor of the Warriors.

“They gave Mt. Lebanon the win in the 4-by-100, and we actually won the race,” Reger said. “We went on home thinking we were defeated and were trying to recover from the loss. We were thinking we gave it our best shot.”

But Reger said Sarnowski is a math whiz and figured it.

“He beat me to it,” Reger said. “I was just sitting down to study the results, and I would have discovered it.”

So Reger informed Penn-Trafford athletic director Kerry Hetrick of the mistake, and Hetrick sent it to the WPIAL office, which corrected the error.

“I’m really happy for the team,” Hetrick said. “They are a good group and are hard workers.”

The Warriors also defeated New Castle, 94-56, and Elizabeth Forward, 144-5, to finish 3-0.

This is the first time in the team’s 52-year history that Penn-Trafford’s boys team has reached the WPIAL finals, which will be Tuesday at West Mifflin. The Warriors will face perennial powers Butler, North Allegheny and Norwin.

“We didn’t tell the team until Thursday morning when we called a meeting and told them,” Reger said. “There was a lot of excitement in the room. We went from the lowest of lows to the highest highs.”

Penn-Trafford has qualified for the team playoffs two consecutive seasons and three times in school history.

“We thought we had a chance at winning,” Reger said. “We knew it would be neck and neck with them.

“Our top-level guys are real competitive (Logan Kerstetter, Sarnowski, Jake McGhee and the Lett twins, Aidon and Ekoulus).”

McGhee (1,600 and 3,200) and Sarnowski (shot put and discus) were double winners for the Warriors, and the Lett brothers scored well in the hurdles.

“We’re going to face a lot of good teams on Tuesday,” Reger said. “We’ll just give it our best. We have nothing to lose.”

Penn-Trafford finished 7-1 overall and 4-1 in Class 3A, Section I during the regular season, behind Norwin (8-0, 5-0). The Warriors’ only loss was a 114-36 setback to the Knights on April 23.

Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.

Tags: Penn-Trafford