May 15, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

PC takes title, Springsider is MVP at Inter-Ac Champs
by TOM UTESCHER

After building up a huge early lead in the field events, Penn Charter coasted to the league title last Saturday in the Girls Inter-Ac Track and Field Championships at Germantown Academy.

Amassing 91 points in the five field contests while Notre Dame Academy culled just six, PC’s Quakers survived a strong showing on the track by the Irish to win out, 150 points to 121. Three-time defending champ GA was the closest to PC in the field events with 29 points, but the Patriots experienced little success elsewhere and finished fifth this time around, with 42 points.

Ahead of them were number three Episcopal Academy, with 83 points, and fourth-place Springside School, with 58. Springside brought the smallest roster of athletes to the event, but the meet MVP, freshman Taylor Ellis-Watson, set two meet records as she won the 100, 200, and 400 meter races for the Lions. Agnes Irwin came in sixth with nine total points, and the seventh member of the league, Baldwin School, did not field a team at all.

Penn Charter won several times when Girls Inter-Ac schools gathered for informal league meets prior to 2004, but when an official championship was instituted that year, Episcopal became the inaugural winner, and GA triumphed 2005-’07.

As the field events unfolded last Saturday, PC junior Kirby Dixon emerged as the winner of the long jump and triple jump, and placed second in the high jump. The high jump was won by her freshman teammate, Aleesha Powell, as Penn Charter pulled down 25 points in that one event alone. An unexpected bonus was junior Janie Hawkins’ victory in the pole vault, according to Quakers coach Liz Flemming.

“She was someone who had been capable of doing eight feet, but she didn’t get there until today,” Flemming said. “She went 8’6”, which is a new school record for us.”

GA junior J.D. Whitman, who set the meet record in the pole vault at 10’3” last year, was coming off of an injury, and in last weekend’s championships she wasn’t able to clear the bar at the ambitious starting height she selected.

Charter’s Flemming revealed, “I felt that if we came out of the field events with a 60-point lead [on Notre Dame], we could hold on to win the meet. When we came out more than 80 points ahead, that gave us an extra cushion in case other things went wrong.”

One of those setbacks was an injury to freshman hurdler Amma Ntoso, who fell during the 100 meter hurdles and was effectively knocked out of contention for the 300 meter event, as well. On the track, Charter was encouraged when its 4 x 100 relay team (Khaaleedah Smith/Marquessa Gray/Dixon/Saudiah Lawrence), which had been seeded third, won the event. Freshman Elyse Wilkinson contributed 18 points by winning the 800 meters in a meet-record time (2:19.8) and finishing second in the 1600, and junior Khaaleedah Smith scored 16 with two third-place finishes and one fourth.

Springside’s Ellis-Watson, who racked up 30 meet points for the Lions, drew everyone’s attention whenever she stepped to the starting line. She won the 100 meter dash in 12.39 seconds (she’d run faster in a dual meet against PC the week before). Running the second-fastest 200 in Pennsylvania this spring (24.73) she broke the meet record there, and she shattered the league standard in the 400 (55.91), producing the third-fastest time in the state this season.

Another ninth-grade Lion, Natalie Bates, came in third in the 3200 and fifth in the 800, and in the relays, Springside took third in both the 4 x 100 (Victoria Walls/Cali Wilder/Natalie Smith/Kelsey Chapman) and the 4 x 400 (Wilder/Chapman/Bates/Ellis-Watson). The Lions garnered most of their points in the field events by placing fourth, fifth, and sixth in the triple jump.

Notre Dame freshman Julianne Garvey, the league’s cross country champ last fall, set a new Inter-Ac record in the 3200 (11:53.48) and also won the 1600. The Irish didn’t win many running events outright, but stacked up points with a lot of other high placings, accumulating 99 points in the individual track events, and another 16 in the relays. Episcopal’s scoring was well-distributed among the various disciplines, with the biggest haul (32 points) coming from first and third-place showings in the 100 and 300 hurdles.

For Germantown Academy, part of the story was who wasn’t compteting. Senior Caroline Doty, the 2008 Aimee Willard Award winner in the Girls-Inter-Ac (and UConn basketball recruit), did not participate, and no one last Saturday came close to her league records in the high jump and shot put. Sophomore Kacie Kergides was away at a club soccer event; she’d won the 1600 and 3200 back in 2006, and while Garvey broke her meet record in the latter event, Kergides’ record time in the 1600 held up.

The Pats were still able to compile the second-highest total in the field events, with 14 points coming their way when senior Lisa Mack took second place in the long jump and third in the triple. GA garnered 13 points in the pole vault, where senior Imogen Cain was runner-up and fellow upperclassman Hilary Barrer tied for third place with PC senior Steph Yuhasz.

MEET RESULTS

100 meters

1. SS Taylor Ellis-Watson 12.39

2. ND Ayanna Fields 12.53

3. ND Maura McKendrick 12.76

4. PC Khaaleedah Smith 12.84

5. EA Zoe LaPalombara 13.19

6. GA J Leah Ray 13.24

200 meters

1. SS Taylor Ellis-Watson 24.73

2. ND Maura McKendrick 25.56

3. PC Khaaleedah Smith 26.38

4. EA Sarah Mumanachit 26.63

5. GA J Leah Ray 26.95

6. EA Zoe LaPalombara 27.14

400 meters

1. SS Taylor Ellis-Watson 55.91

2. ND Ayanna Fields 57.54

3. PC Khaaleedah Smith 1:00.49

4. EA Sarah Bernhardt 1:01.14

5. PC Marquessa Gray 1:05.42

6. PC Grace McInerney 1:05.82

800 meters

1. PC Elyse Wilkinson 2:19.8

2. ND Cassie Cummings 2:27.7

3. ND Patricia Donnelly 2:33.4

4. ND Maura McMahon 2:35.4

5. SS Natalie Bates 2:36.4

6. EA Spencer Burke 2:37.00

1600 meters

1. ND Julianne Garvey 5:25.36

2. PC Elyse Wilkinson 5:29.58

3. EA Alexandra Hahn 5:45.23

4. ND Stephanie Powers 5:47.16

5. AI Courtenay Devlin 5:49.46

6. EA Emma Imbriglia 5:52.53

3200 meters

1. ND Julianne Garvey 11:53.48

2. ND Stephanie Powers 12:31.50

3. SS Natalie Bates 12:47.98

4. EA Emma Imbriglia 12:56.56

5. GA Paige Cross 13:02.12

6. ND Lizzy VanKula 13:10.12

100 hurdles

1. EA Maddi Moore 17:11

2. ND Mary Mulholland 17.54

3. EA Catherine Shugrue 18.66

4. PC Linda Lipski 19.26

5. PC Tess Manning 19.55

6. PC Laura Kroculick 20.23

300 hurdles

1. EA Catherine Shugrue 48.54

2. ND Mary Mulholland 50.01

3. EA Maddi Moore 51.06

4. GA Monica Dewan 52.08

5. ND Moira Reilly 52.98

6. PC Tess Manning 53.45

High jump

1. PC Aleesha Powell 4’11”

2. PC Kirby Dixon 4’11”

3. PC Colleen Fehm 4’10”

4. EA Sarah Mumanachit 4’10”

5. GA Hannah Lindgren 4’4”

6. PC Caroline Snite 4’2”

Long jump

1. PC Kirby Dixon 17’0.75”

2. GA Lisa Mack 14’11.5”

3. AI Moira McGowen 14’9.25”

4. PC Saudiah Lawrence 14’9”

5. PC Nikki Guynn 14’4.5”

6. SS Asha Deane 14’4”

Triple jump

1. PC Kirby Dixon 33’7.75”

2. PC Colleen Fehm 32’7”

3. GA Lisa Mack 32’1.5”

4. SS Victoria Walls 30’7.5”

5. SS Asha Deane 29’5.5”

6. SS Tori Baggio 29’2.25”

Pole vault

1. PC Janie Hawkins 8’6”

2. GA Imogen Cain 7’9”

3. PC Steph Yuhasz 7’6” tie

3. GA Hilary Barrer 7’6” tie

5. PC Lisa Fugelo 7’3”

6. AI Gina Aversa 7’0”

Shot put

1. EA Mykia Thrower 28’5”

2. PC Celia Dedrick 27’3.5”

3. ND Mary Kelly 27’3.25”

4. PC Stormie Romero 26’8”

5. PC Molly Rogers 26’6.5”

6. PC Shaina Levin 25’3”

4 x 100 relay

1. PC 49.88

2. ND 50.64

3. SS 51.86

4. EA 52.19

5. GA 52.58

4 x 400 relay

1. EA 4:06

2. ND 4:07

3. SS 4:12

4. PC 4:18

5. GA 4:27