Girls track & field: Fulton leads local contingent to state

ERIE – The Fulton Steamers had quite a half-hour stretch near the start of the Class 1A Erie Sectional on Wednesday at Wayne Hein Field.

After Paige Cramer won the triple jump with a state-qualifying mark of 5.00 meters in the prelims, her teammate Miraya Pessman popped a 4.96-meter leap on her final attempt to take the second qualifying spot.

[ Photos from the Class 1A Erie Sectional girls track & field ]

“After I jumped, I knew. I was just really mentally preparing myself and telling myself that this was my last jump, so I had to get it done. I just wanted to give it all I could, and really just powered through and had a good jump,” Pessman said. “Then right after I landed, I stepped on my hand, so that wasn’t a great feeling. I thought, ‘Wow, that was so good! Ouch, that hurt so bad!’ It was not the best way to celebrate.”

Less than 15 minutes later, the Steamers’ 4x800 relay team qualified for state with the team of Jessa Read, Jordin Rathburn, Brooklyn Brennan and Jasmine Moreland clocking a 10:49.67 to place second. Then in the next race, the foursome of Cramer, Brooklyn Thoms, Haley Smither and Pessman finished third in the 4x100, setting a PR to advance to state based on their time of 50.96 seconds.

“We were pretty confident, but all we really wanted was a PR. We wanted to PR for ourselves, and we knew that would get us to state,” Cramer said. “In the long jump, I felt really good when I was jumping. I just tried to not stress out too much, and just stay kind of chill about it. I didn’t want to overwork myself, stress myself out.”

Fulton had been running under state qualifying in the 4x100 for most of the season, so it wasn’t a surprise that they made it to Charleston on time, even without the top-two finish. But that also took some of the pressure out of the event for the Steamers.

“Running it all season kind of lowered the stress. But we just really wanted to be able to do it in this meet, so PR’ing was really good,” Smither said. “Our handoffs were just really smooth, and that’s most of it. If you have a bad handoff, it can slow you down. It really helped that we got them down.”

A little bit later on, Thoms, Annaka Hackett, Grace Dykstra and Pessman also qualified for state in the 4x200, taking second in 1:48.29. It was another race where the Steamers came in with a seed time faster than the state qualifying mark.

“We kind of expected that coming in, we tried to prepare ourselves and we knew that we could do really well today,” Pessman said. “Our 4x1 has always been under state qualifying, and our 4x2 was also there, and we just went into it confidently and just pulled it out.”

Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio’s Elly Jones qualified for state in the triple jump with a leap of 10.21 meters to finish fourth, then she won the 100-meter hurdles in 16.47 seconds. She was neck-and-neck with Fulton’s Emery Wherry, but Wherry fell down right before reaching the finish line. Wherry finished third, an agonizing .02 seconds behind St. Bede’s Macy Zeglis (17.14) for the second state spot.

Jones, who qualified for state in four events last year as a sophomore, was pleased to get the return trip in her two favorite events, especially after fighting through some recent adversity.

“I actually got injured a few weeks ago, my ankle, so I’ve been dealing with that. So I’m just really glad to be here competing, and especially making it to state,” she said. “I was definitely feeling it a little bit in the triple jump. I could’ve done better, not a PR, but it’s OK. I still have state – and it’ll definitely be better focusing on the events [at state] that I’m really, truly good at.”

Erie-Prophetstown also had athletes making their return to Charleston. Kennedy Buck (11.10 meters) and Brianna Neumiller (10.27) finished 1-2 in the shot put, then Neumiller won the discus with a toss of 34.06 meters.

Buck competed in the shot put, 200 and 400 at last year’s state meet as a sophomore, and is back despite battling a shoulder injury and returning only last week.

“It was my second-best throw of the season; my best one was 11.43, which was indoor, so it’s been awhile. And I actually have a shoulder injury going on right now, so I’ve been off for about three weeks, and I just started throwing again a few days before conference [last week] – and then I qualified for state this week,” she said. “I was a little worried, because I wasn’t throwing above 11 and being as consistent as I was before, but at conference I threw pretty well and got third behind some other really good throwers, and then today I got first throwing even better than I did at conference.”

Olivia Purvis is also heading back to state, qualifying with a second-place finish in the pole vault by clearing 3.07 meters. This season, she’ll go to state with a different mindset, as she’s looking for more in her second go-round in Charleston.

“It feels good. I was really just trying to make qualifying, so after that it was a lot of relief,” she said. “Last year, it was a PR when I made it, so once I got down there, I was just trying to PR, it wasn’t as high-stakes. This year, I’m going in there with higher hopes, maybe make it to finals. I’m hoping to do better down there this year, but it was really just trying to make it to that point and give myself that chance.”

Buck was also part of the 4x200 relay, which finished fourth in 1:50.29 but advanced by beating the state cut; she teamed with Ellie Johnson, Ashlyn Johnson and Aubrey Huisman, who will all be making their first trip to state. Jillian Norman is also headed to Charleston for the first time, taking second in the 1,600 with a time of 5:44.66.

“I think definitely a positive attitude, and my coaches are so supportive. They always tell me, ‘You can do it, you can do it,’ even when I don’t think I can. So that’s been the biggest part,” said Norman, who the Panthers have looked to for inspiration this past week after she won the Three Rivers Conference title in the mile. “And the team was just all around the track, cheering me on the whole time, it was so cool. Just the mental attitude, and my faith plays a huge role in the way I run. My team is just the best support ever.”

Morrison’s Erika King is also making her first trip to state, pulling off a bit of an upset in the 800. She came in with the third-fastest seed time, but kicked it in gear down the final stretch and passed Indian Creek’s Caroline Bend to finish in 2:29.99 to take second behind Riverdale’s Mattea Wuest (2:29.18) and earn the state berth.

“I kind of just said, ‘I really want this, I want to make state my senior year,’ and I just made my move, kicked in everything I had,” King said. “I came through slower than what I wanted to, so I knew I needed to kick the last lap in, and I did. It feels really good, I’m excited.”

Lynn Stringini and Quinc Haverland both qualified for Milledgeville-Eastland, as did the Missiles’ 4x100 relay team, which dropped two seconds off its previous best to advance with a fourth-place finish (51.97 seconds) faster than the state cut.

Haverland advanced in the discus, where she took second with a toss of 33.85 meters. It was a bit of redemption for the Eastland senior, who just missed out on qualifying last year.

“I’m super excited; I’ve been wanting this since freshman year. Last year, I think I lost it by something like .008, so it’s definitely super exciting to make it this year,” she said. “I didn’t throw the best that I’ve thrown, but I was excited for how I did.”

Stringini was equally fired up about her trip to Charleston, after she was runner-up in the 300 hurdles in 49.78 seconds. She said it was her usual fast start that made the difference.

“I feel like I struggled a lot this year, because I run really fast with bad form, or I run with good form and really slow. I was really wanting to put it all together tonight,” she said. “I’d say the best thing in that is getting really good starts, because a lot of the girls in those races, they don’t come out very fast, but I feel like that’s what I’m the best at, so I get a really big lead and then I just try to push it all the way around the corner to the end of the race. I come out of the box first and I go over the hurdle first, and that’s what’s always worked for me.”

Bureau Valley’s lone state qualifier was Jillian Hulsing, who surprised herself by winning the high jump by clearing 1.47 meters. She won the title with fewer misses than runner-up Cami Anderson of Sherrard and third-place finisher Mary Jo Lechtenberg of Ottawa Marquette.

“I didn’t think I had a really big chance. I knew there were some other good girls that I would be going up against, but I didn’t think I would qualify,” Hulsing said. “My steps were really good, and I felt really good the jump before I went out. Just having my individual event is helpful, because I’ve been doing it for a little bit, so I know the right form and what I need to do to clear the bar.

West Carroll’s Emma Randecker was a close second in the 100-meter dash, finishing in 12.81 seconds to earn a return trip to state. While she felt she could’ve run a better race, she knows she’s still got next weekend to look forward to.

“I’m not quite happy with the [100] race. My start was really bad, and I felt like I tripped right over there. It was all right, definitely not my best time, but I made it to state,” she said.

That sour taste was washed away after she clocked a 26.27 to win the 200, then turned around in the meet finale and teamed with Drusiana McIntyre, Sienna Young and Olivia Shelly to take third in the 4x400 in a state-qualifying time of 4:19.58; it was a tenth of a second faster than the state cut.

“The 100 race definitely fired me up. And trying to get Olivia to state in her final year, too; that was motivation, that’s for sure,” Randecker said. “I was just thinking that I had to get in front of two people, because we were handing off at the same time. So I just started really hard; I thought I got out too hard, but I guess it just carried me the rest of the way. I got down there [in the far turn] and Coach was yelling at me to pump my arms, and it just took me the rest of the way.”

As the results of that event were announced over the PA system, the Thunder runners erupted in screams of joy when they heard the word “qualifying” before their name; they were so loud, they didn’t even hear the time when it was read off.

“Third leg, we had a little bit of a shaky handoff, but I’m the only senior on this team, this is my last shot at state, so going through my mind was ‘I gotta get this, I gotta get this,’” Shelly said. “Last race of the year, I was at state last year for triple jump, didn’t quite get it this year, so I was really gunning for this 4x4. We knew this was our shot, and I knew if I could just catch us up a tiny bit, keep us in that position, that our fourth leg would hold it and come through for us. We were all just running our hearts out, really.”

She took that handoff from Young, who ran the second leg and just tried to stay in the same place as when she got the baton from McIntyre.

“I kind of key into the position I’m in and I try to stay up with the runners in front of me for a lot of my lap. Then toward the end, you’ve got to try and push to see how much you can gain on them and if you can pass them,” Young said. “I just try and keep up and catch the runners in front of me, and it worked today.”

McIntyre set the tone in the leadoff leg, going out faster than she expected but still keeping pace with the runners in front of her to put the other Thunder runners in a good position to finish strong.

“I like to get a really good block start and just go as fast as I can the entire time,” McIntyre said. “It’s always really good to have people like my mom and my coaches yelling at me the entire time; I can’t run as fast without any of them. And knowing that my teammate is there waiting for me at the end of the lap, ready to get that handoff and ready to take off is always super encouraging for me. I felt like I was out on a much faster pace, and I thought I was going to be tired by the end, but we did it, we qualified!”

Sherrard ran away with the team title, scoring 113 points to easily outdistance runner-up St. Bede (62). Erie-Prophetstown took third (58.5), Fulton finished fourth (52), and Indian Creek rounded out the top five (52). Milledgeville-Eastland was sixth (44), Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio placed eighth (24.5), West Carroll took ninth (24), Bureau Valley was 11th (21), and Newman and Morrison timed for 14th (10).