FORTVILLE — New Palestine’s lead at the Hoosier Heritage Conference Championships on Tuesday was so substantial, they didn’t even need to toe the line for the final event, the 4×400 meter relay.
But, they did, and they won.
New Palestine scored in every event with exception of the 100-meter hurdles, and ended with a total 143.5, nearly 50 points ahead of second place, Pendleton Heights (95), and earned the Dragons their second straight HHC title.
“To score that many points at a conference meet, everybody on the team has to step up,” New Palestine coach Chuck Myers, said. “Everybody had to do their job, and they did that tonight.”
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New Palestine got off to a hot start and never slowed down. To kick off competition, sophomore Aden Lumbley and freshman Faith Hensel took the top two places, respectively, for the Dragons in the shot put, and the New Palestine 4×800 meter relay team set a new meet record of 9:43.26. The Dragons won seven events, including all three relays.
Also taking home a win for New Palestine, in her first “real” race of the season, was Jordan Reid. Coming off of an injury, Reid had only competed in one other meet this season, and on Tuesday she won the 200-meter dash and also anchored New Palestine’s 4×100 meter relay team to victory.
New Palestine’s distance runners also came to compete. After Kaylin Casner and Kendall Mann finished second and third, respectively, in the 1,600-meter run, they switched places and finished first and second in the 3,200-meter run. Mann and Casner also were part of the meet-record 4×800 meter relay team.
Despite finishing fourth, Mt. Vernon head coach, Kean Coy, who is in his first year, said his team hit the track “on all cylinders.”
“I feel like everybody left it out there,” Coy said. “I felt like everybody competed for one another, especially on our relays. Realistically, we couldn’t have done much better tonight.”
Mt. Vernon lost a couple points, here and there, but Coy, who is in his first year as head coach, said it was “remarkable” how the team picked each other up and made up for it in different events.
Freshman Arianna Mack was the Marauders’ lone champion of the evening, winning both the 100 and 400 meter dashes. Mack also anchored the 4×400 meter relay team to help them place second, edging Yorktown. Mt. Vernon placed second in the 4×800 and third in the 4×100 meter relays.
Greenfield-Central placed sixth as a team and, like Mt. Vernon, had one individual champion on Tuesday evening. Sophomore Hannah Burkhart won the discus with a toss of 119 feet, 6 and one-half inches. Burkhart’s mark was over 10 feet ahead of second place, and is just off her season best of 121 feet, 9 inches, which sits as the 23rd best mark in the state.
Greenfield-Central sophomore Crystal Peterson, who competed at last year’s state finals, finished second in the 100 meter hurdles and fourth in the 300 meter hurdles.
Mt. Vernon has the luxury of facing off against most of their fellow HHC members at Pendleton Heights, a track they competed at earlier this season, at next week’s sectional meet.
“Last time we competed at Pendleton, it didn’t go well,” Coy said. “We’ve got to take that and learn the little intricacies of their track and their facilities and use that to our advantage knowing we’ve been there already and can improve on our past mistakes.”
For New Palestine, the only thing on their mind is surviving and advancing through the tournament.
“This is a bit of a confidence booster and has us excited for sectionals next week,” Myers said. “The whole season comes down to these last few races and we’ll be cutting athletes down on their events so they can focus and hopefully make it to Bloomington.”
