PENDLETON — The Marauder freshman has been turning heads all year.
As Arianna Mack sprinted in tandem with two Lawrence North sprinters —senior Mary Watts and junior Kennedy Barlow — she was right at home.
She had the lead by a few feet coming into the last 100 of the 400-meter dash. Watts and Barlow were slowly gaining inch by inch. At the finish line, it looked like Barlow and Mack had crossed at the same time.
But Mack won — by two-tenths of a second.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“The two Lawrence North girls made it really interesting down the stretch,” Mt. Vernon head coach Kean Coy said. “She executed exactly how she needed to run it.”
Her 59.25 time was 2.4 seconds away from the 2014 sectional record. And that’s as a freshman.
“She did a good job of running through the entire 400 and making sure she ran every facet of the race,” Coy said. “She ran it really strategically.”
Mack ran another close race in the 100-meter dash. This time, Anderson’s Staisha Hamilton finished in eight-tenths fewer seconds. Mack cut her time from a third-place 13.24 in the prelims to a 12.98 in the finals.
In addition to those first and second places, she helped the 4×400 relay to a second place along with Kamryn Eason, who competed in the 4×400 at regionals last year, Rylie Pearson and Hannah Watson. Eason and Watson advanced in multiple events as well.
Watson placed third in the 800-meter run. Eason, along with Sarah Herman, Pearson and Watson finished second in the 4×800 relay.
“With the 4×8 team, we have seemed to suddenly click there,” Coy said. ‘I’m looking forward to next week. There are going to be some perennial powerhouses there but I still think we have a really great shot at advancing.”
A hidden gem of the night was Gracesyn Thomas in the long jump. Thomas leaped to a sectional championship.
As a team, Mt. Vernon held the lead after five events then dropped to third place for most of the night where they ended with 92.5 points, behind Pendleton Heights’ 98 points and Lawrence North’s 163.
Eastern Hancock finished in sixth place with 40 points and advancing two field events.
Bailey Allen and Alyson Spaulding are fighters, head coach Jade Galyan said after the meet. Allen used her senior sectional to place third in the shot put.
“They both knew — especially for Bailey as a senior — that they had to do it today,” Galyan said.
Allen launched to 34 feet, 9.5 inches behind Lawrence North and Shenandoah’s Erikka Hill, who broke a sectional record with a 40 feet, 9 inch toss.
Spaulding also got the job done in long jump with a 15-foot-4-inch jump. Her first jump was 13 feet.
“She wasn’t focused in the first jump but she was able to get herself back into it,” Galyan said.
Galyan said she wants to see Allen and Spaulding give everything they have at regionals. With the sixth place finish, Galyan said they will be back for more next year.
“It’s a disappointing finish considering what they could have done,” she said.
With Eastern Hancock’s two events and Mt. Vernon’s six events, both coaches and the athletes are looking toward regionals next Tuesday at Ben Davis.
