North Pocono vs Western Wayne Football Rivalry

On Sept. 1, 2022, before that Friday’s game at Trojan Stadium, the Times-Tribune wrote that North Pocono led the series, 9-4. The teams had met for the first time in 1988, a 34-0 North Pocono win, and North Pocono followed with a 44-14 win in 1989. Western Wayne’s first win came in 2003. It then says Western Wayne lost two straight by a combined 97-0. The 2014 game is the one the preview calls 22-15, and it says that game led to a five-game North Pocono winning streak. Western Wayne’s first win at North Pocono was 27-3 in 2019, then 27-3 in 2020 and 27-6 in 2021. The preview had both teams at 1-0, with North Pocono having lost three straight and Western Wayne having scored 27 points in each of those three wins.

The same preview says the neighboring programs are linked by Western Wayne coach Randy Wolff, a standout player at North Pocono, and that his son Evan was a freshman tight end on the Trojans that fall. A 2015 Times-Tribune preview, looking back at 2014, printed the Western Wayne score as 22-14. The 2022 preview printed 22-15.

On Aug. 30, 2019, eighth-ranked Western Wayne beat No. 3 North Pocono 27-3 in a Lackawanna Football Conference Division I-II crossover. Zane Janiszewski rushed for 166 yards and three touchdowns. The Times-Tribune called it Western Wayne’s second win in the series and the first since 2003, and it called North Pocono the alma mater of coach Randy Wolff.

North Pocono won the Sept. 2, 2022, game, 28-27. Noah West and Michael Blaine built a 21-7 halftime lead. The opening drive went 70 yards, and Blaine scored from 11 yards. Frankie Leyshon then hit Sean Owens for a 76-yard touchdown that tied it at 7-7. Blaine scored from 29 yards, and West hit Ty Lafave for a 26-yard touchdown. West finished 10 of 14 for 181 yards. Owens’s 39-yard punt return, plus a 15-yard penalty, put Western Wayne on the 13, and Luke Janiszewski scored from 5 yards. The extra point missed, and North Pocono led 21-13. Ashton Smith returned the kickoff 90 yards for a 28-13 lead. Alex Lucke scored from 18 yards, and that extra point missed. Janiszewski scored from 24 yards and ran in the two-point conversion. Western Wayne trailed 28-27 with 1:17 left. The onside kick went out of bounds. Greg Dolhon said a win is a win, and that the job is to have one more point than the other team. North Pocono was 2-0. Western Wayne was 1-1.

The next meeting on the log is 10-9 in 2023. The Sept. 7, 2023, Times-Tribune preview looked back at it: North Pocono held Western Wayne to 95 rushing yards on 32 carries and gained 73 on 39 of its own, and Brady Mapes’s field goal won it. Dolhon called it an old-time game of field position. The Sept. 1 game story has a snap sailing over punter Sam Magnotta for a safety, then Magnotta pinning Western Wayne at its 6 with a 41-yard punt. Mapes’s kick in that story was from 25 yards, with 8:13 left.