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By PAUL BEITLER
Sports Editor
FORT WAYNE - Southern Wells senior Heather Roush will be going back to the Indiana girls state track meet next week.
Roush battled four other discus throwers Tuesday night in the IHSAA
regional at Northrop High School for the meet championship but had to
settle for fourth place with a toss of 136 feet.
Even though she was not in the top three, Roush was able to advance by
easily surpassing the state standard of 124 feet, 2 inches.
Allen County Athletic Conference senior rival Kami Klopfenstein of Leo
won the event with a toss of 140-7. Northrop’s Faith Sherrill, who was
the regional shot put champ, was second with a 138-foot throw.
Huntington North junior Adrienne Bigelow took third place at 137 feet.
Homestead’s Stephanie Mitchell also topped the standard with a best of
125-11.
In only her sixth meet of the season, Roush admitted that she was just
did not throw as well as she should. She attempting to win her
fourth-straight regional championship.
She definitely was not going to make any excuses relating to the fact
that her training had been disrupted by back surgery after the
basketball season.
“I really can’t be disappointed, I guess, because that’s the best I’ve
thrown all season,” said Roush, who has been the state runnerup the
last two seasons. “I’m not going to make any excuses because of my back
or anything like that. I just wasn’t good enough to win. I’m still
going on, so I have to be happy about that.”
Roush explained that she had flaws in her technique.
“I think it was mostly my technique, once I got around to the front of
the circle,” Roush noted. “I didn’t quite feel like I was opening up
the right way.”
During the trials, Roush had a throw of 135-9 that felt really good.
“That one felt very fundamentally sound. I didn’t feel like I had to
really throw it hard to get it to go that far. So, I thought that was a
plus,” Roush recounted.
Roush also confessed that her coaches had told her that some of her throws were a little flat.
“I think she has to get a little more height on her throws,” said
Southern Wells coach Mark Lefebvre, “but we’ll leave that to coach
(John) Fouts and coach (Gary) Paxson. They know more about the
technical stuff.
“I’m just happy that she threw her longest throw of the year. They’ll
do a good job with her fixing that and trying to improve it to let her
throw as far as she can throw by next week. We look forward to making
another trip down there.”
Looking at the rest of the meet, the No. 3-ranked Northrop Lady Bruins
rolled to an overpowering victory with 115 points. Their nearest
competitor was Columbia City with 48. Carroll was next with 47 for
third place. Snider was fourth with 46, followed by Huntington North
with 37 1/2. Fort Wayne Bishop Luers and Fort Wayne Concordia Lutheran
were tied with 37. Homestead was eighth with 36 and Leo ended up with
22. Harding rounded out the top 10 with 21.
Norwell finished 19th in the team scoring with 7 1/2 points, while Southern Wells was 27th with 5 and Bluffton 29th with 3.
The Norwell Lady Knights were led by Katy Moore and Kayla Sweet with
two sixth-place finishes. Moore tied for sixth in the high jump,
clearing the bar at 5 feet, 1/2 inches. Sweet was sixth in the
1600-meter run in 5:31.52.
Bluffton’s sophomore shot putter Haleigh Osborne took sixth place with a throw of 36 feet, 10 inches.
Norwell’s 4x800-meter relay team of Moore, Sweet, Jill Watson and Ericka Barber placed seventh in 10:06.59.
Shot putter Jessica Todd with 10th with a throw of 33-9. Jenika Moore finished 11th in the pole vault at 8 feet, 2 inches.
Southern Wells’ freshman Meghan Prible ran her best time of 1:01.66 in
the 400-meter dash and ended up ninth. Freshman classmate Haley
Killingbeck finished 13th in the discus with a throw of 99 feet, 1 inch.
Adams Central sophomore Evie Lehman will be returning to the state meet
in the high jump. Lehman was second with a jump of 5-5 1/2.
Homestead’s nationally-ranked pole vaulter, Katie Veith, set a regional
record by clearing 13 feet, 9 inches. Carroll’s Abby Kimball also broke
the old record of 12 feet with a second-place jump of 12-2. Three other
vaulters cleared the state standard of 10-2 to advance to the state
meet next week.
Northrop senior Tamara Adams broke the regional 100-meter hurdles mark
with a first-place time of 14.37 seconds. She also won the 300-meter
low hurdles in 43.72.
IHSAA Girls
Track & Field Regional
At Northrop High School
Spuller Stadium
(State standards in parentheses)
TEAM SCORES: 1) Fort Wayne Northrop 115; 2) Columbia City 48; 3)
Carroll (Fort Wayne) 47; 4) Fort Wayne Snider 46; 5) Huntington North
37.5; 6) Fort Wayne Bishop Luers 37; 6) Fort Wayne Concordia 37; 8)
Homestead 36; 9) Leo 22; 10) Harding 21; 11) East Noble 18; 12) Fort
Wayne North Side 14; 12) Adams Central 14;14) Dekalb 13; 14) Bellmont
13; 16) Fort Wayne Canterbury 12; 17) Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger 11; 18)
Fort Wayne Wayne 9; 19) Norwell 7.5; 20) Prairie Heights 7; 20) Marion
7; 22) Fort Wayne South Side 6.5; 23) Churubusco 6; 23) Westview 6; 23)
South Adams 6; 23) Oak Hill 6; 27) Southern Wells 5; 28) Blackford 4;
29) Eastbrook 3; 29) Garrett 3; 29) Bluffton 3; 32) West Noble 2; 33)
Central Noble 1; 34) Lakeland 0.5.
3200 Meter Relay (9:30.41): 1. Fort Wayne Concordia 9:36.05 (Kristen
Fletcher,Angel Fincher, Hilary Stickell, Megan Morr); 2. Carroll
9:38.92; 3. Fort Wayne North Side 9:56.47; 7. Norwell 10:06.59 (Katy
Moore,Kayla Sweet, Jill Watson, Ericka Barber).
100 Meter Hurdles (15.06): 1. Adams, Tamara Northrop 14.37 (Regional
record; old record 14.52, April Royal, FW Wayne, 2000); 2. Sefranka,
Taylor Harding 15.07; 3.Leffers, Krista FW B Luers 15.84.
100 Meter Dash (12.47): 1. Adams, Tamara Northrop 12.28; 2. Wims, Allison Northrop 12.58; 3. Johnson, Kristen Snider 12.68.
1600 Meter Run (5:06.58): 1. Bailey, Mychaela Carroll 5:11.47; 2
Schamberger, Theresa East Noble 5:12.00; 3. Doerffler, Kara 5:14.24; 6.
Sweet, Kayla Norwell 5:31.52.
400 Meter Relay (48.72): 1. Fort Wayne Snider 48.86 (Carriell Banks,
Kristen Johnson,April Long, Bianca Reese, Bianca); 2. Fort Wayne
Northrop 49.13; 3. Harding 49.99.
400 Meter Dash (57.67): 1. Stephens, Kelsey Northrop 57.19; 2. Town,
Mariah Huntington North 58.96; 3. Jackson, Porsche FW B Luers 59.86; 9.
Prible, Meghan Southern Wel 1:01.66.
300 Meter Low Hurdles (45.18): 1. Adams, Tamara Northrop 43.72; 2.
Leffers, Krista FW B Luers 44.62; 3. Smith, Andrea FW South Side 45.96.
800 Meter Run (2:16.75): 1. Lengacher, Ashlee Snider 2:15.23; 2. Ade,
Brittany Dwenger 2:15.90; 3. Simonson, Samantha Carroll 2:20.47.
200 Meter Run (25.64): 1. Stephens, Kelsey Northrop 25.54; 2. Eber, Leah Columbia City 25.61; 3. Johnson, Kristen Snider 26.18.
3200 Meter Run (11:06.36): 1. Blanchard, Chelsea Carroll 10:56.19; 2.
Morrical, Katie Leo 11:03.93; 3. Roche, Julianne Canterbury 11:08.44.
1600 Meter Relay (3:57.91): 1. Fort Wayne Northrop 4:00.93 (Tamara
Adams, Brittany Givens, Sabra Shade, Kelsey Stephens); 2. Fort Wayne
Bishop Luers 4:03.83; 3. Fort Wayne Concordia 4:04.17.
Discus (124-2): 1. Klopfenstein, Kami Leo 140-7; 2. Sherrill, Faith
Northrop 138-0; 3. Bigelow, Adrienne Huntington North 137-0; 4. Roush,
Heather (Southern Wells) 136-0; 5. Mitchell, Stephanie Homestead
125-11; 13. Killingbeck, Haley (Southern Wells) 99-1.
Shot Put (40-5.75): 1. Sherrill, Faith Northrop 43-4; 2. Huhn, Melanie
FW B Luers 40-3; 3. Carter, Christina Oak Hill 37-10; 6. Osborne,
Haleigh (Bluffton) 36-10; 10. Todd, Jessica (Norwell) 33-9.
High Jump (5-4.5): 1. Rhoades, Ashley Columbia City 5-6.5; 2. Lehman,
Evie Adams Central 5-5.5; 3. Fisher, Tiffany Westview 5-4.5; 6. (Tied)
Moore, Katy Norwell 5-0.5.
Long Jump (17-8.5): 1. Eber, Leah Columbia City 18-2.5; 2. Burnett,
Jessica North Side 17-9.5; 3. Moore, Michelle Snider 17-6.25.
Pole Vault (10-2): 1. Veith, Katie Homestead 13-9 (Regional Record, old
record 12-0, Brianna Neumann, Northrop, 2005); 2. Kimball, Abby Carroll
12-2; 3. Petridis, Dina Northrop 11-2.00; 4. Ponte, Stefanie Carroll
10-8; 5. Tipsord, Jennifer Churubusco 10-2; 11. Moore, Jenika Norwell
8-2.
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