The Villager Newspaper Online Your Community News – Cleveland's Westshore
On a warm spring evening at Rocky River High School, the girls track and field team won the conference championship in dramatic fashion, clinching their second team title in a row on the final event of the evening, this time in their inaugural season in the Great Lakes Conference.
On day one of the championships, the field event team started the scoring for the girls with senior M.E. Hargett getting the team on the scoreboard first with a 2nd place finish in a crowded High Jump field. Meanwhile, in the Shot Put, Arianna Rivera willed herself to the finals while sophomore Ella Horvath enjoyed a PR throw to not only make the finals, but finish runner-up in the event. On the track, the 4×800 team of Ellie Irwin, Sarah Colman, Sydney Peer, and Sarah Peer ran a season best race against a strong Rocky River team, eventually pulling away to not only win the event, but set the meet and WHS record along the way. Despite the strong performances, though, the girls trailed the host and defending champion Rocky River Pirates by nine points going into day two.
Day two once again started in the field events, with junior Mia Williams earning important points with a fantastic PR jump that earned her a trip to the finals in the Long Jump before finishing 6th overall and earning three valuable points for her team. In the Discus, standout Macy Brennan, joined by rapidly improving Anika Norris, looked to score big points for the team and did just that, taking 1st and 2nd, with Macy winning her fourth meet on the season and now owning the second best throw in GLC Championship meet history.
Thus, thanks to the efforts of the field event squad, the team headed back to the track with the same nine point deficit as day one with 11 events remaining. Rocky River, however, pulled further ahead thanks to going 1-2 in the 100 Hurdles. Senior Michelle Xiao, though, earned a new PR in the 100 Hurdles to take 6th, helping to chip away at the deficit while senior Sophia Kontak, who had already broken the meet record in both the 100 and 200 prelims, continued her torrid season by not only taking the individual title in the 100 but also resetting her own school record in the event for the third time this season. However, thanks to Rocky River’s outstanding depth, the hosts opened up their biggest lead of the meet, leading by 29 points with 10 events remaining.
The girls, though, responded by winning five of the next six events, with Sophia taking charge and leading the way by helping the team win three events in that span, starting with the 4×200, where she and teammates Madison Shami, Emma Hennessey, and Sarah Colman, not only earned a 1st place finish, but also set the WHS and meet record in the event. In the 1600, Sarah Peer and Ellie Irwin went 1st and 6th, with Sarah running a fantastic race against one of the top distance runners in the area, breaking her own WHS record as well as the meet record, making that two meet records in two events for the sophomore. Next up, the 4×100 relay team of Sydney, Colette Wagner, and Anna Williams executed their handoffs to perfection to help anchor runner Sophia run past four opponents in the final 100 meters to earn a runner-up finish in the event. One event later, Sarah Colman won her fourth individual 400 title of the season, just .08 seconds off of her career best, while Madison earned a valuable 8th place finish for the team, especially impressive despite running in the first heat.
In the 300 Hurdles, Emma won her second event of the day, just edging past her opponent in tenths of a second with an outstanding finish while senior Anna, in her first season with the team, earned an important 8th place result with her finals qualifying performance. Distance sisters Sarah and Sydney, running the 800, put in two fantastic PR performances, with Sarah setting her third meet record of the championships while Sydney enjoyed a season best, helping to put the team in the lead for the first time during the competition. Leading the meet for the the first time during the event, but only up 2.5 points, Sophia and Emma scored 16 more points for team in the 200, going 1st and 3rd, as both set new PR’s in doing so. Indeed, Sophia, impressively winning her third event of the competition and setting her third meet record of the championships, ended her evening with 38 points scored for the team, and by the end of the 200, the girls were ahead by nine points with two events left on the track.
That lead, however, looked to be in jeopardy heading into the 3200 as Rocky River, one of the premier distance programs in the area, was sure to score decisive points in the two mile competition. Sophomore’s Marisa Cutter and Christina Ware, though, ran the best 3200’s of their career, pacing themselves with the event leader from Rocky River the first six laps of the eight lap event to eventually finish 2nd and 6th overall, with both earning new career PR’s and both helping to keep their team in the lead heading down to the final event of the league season.
Thus, for the second season in a row, the team’s title chances came down to the final event on the track, the 4×400 relay. Needing at least a 7th place finish to secure their inaugural championship in the Great Lakes Conference, the exhausted relay team of Sarah Colman, Madison, Sydney, and Emma, who had already run a combined 10 events earlier in the day, left nothing to chance, running a season best time to clinch the team trophy with a 1st place finish.
When all was said and done, the team enjoyed 15 season best performances, six meet records, and three new WHS records en route to their second conference title in a row, becoming the first team in program history to repeat as conference champions since the 1991 and 1992 squad.
Congratulations to the entire WHS community, from athletes, to alternates, to supporters, on a fantastic league season and good luck the rest of the way!
– Travis Haselswerdt
