LINDEN — It had been a long time coming for both the Southmont boys and the Crawfordsville girls track and field teams. The Athenians and Mounties both shined at the county meet on Monday and each earned a county title. The county crown for the Mountie boys was their first since the 2013 season while it was the first for CHS in a quite some time. Crawfordsville scored 66 points while the Southmont girls finished second with 54 and North Montgomery placed third with 47.
“We couldn’t be more proud of what the girls accomplished tonight,” Crawfordsville coach Sean Gerold said. “The coaching staff did a great job of preparing them to run well and they did just that. We expected this out of them and coming into the season I thought they would be very strong and they’ve been nothing but that for us all year. This team does a great job of supporting one another. They run around the track and are cheering each other during races and you love to see that. It’s awesome to see good performances too and the competition makes this meet a lot of fun.”
Highlighting some the performances for the CHS girls included Shea Williamson’s first place finish in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.66. Williamson also the county title in the long jump. Riley Gardner earned first in the high jump with a height of 5’10 and Campbell White placed second in the discus with a throw of 81’8. CHS also took the 4x100 and 4x400 relays and rounding out the night was Na’arah Byard’s first place finish in the 200 meter dash at 27.76 seconds. Byard also added a second place finish for the Athenians in the 100 meter dash behind Williamson.
Southmont’s boys scored 74 points to take home the county bragging rights. Crawfordsville placed second with 55 points while North Montgomery was third with 38. What makes the county title even more impressive for the Mounties is that they accomplished the feat without arguably their best runner in senior Trent Jones who is still working his way back from a hamstring injury.
“Especially after the way we lost last year, I’m really proud of the way they came out without Trent and put a fantastic performance together. That was pretty special because it’s been since 2013 since we’ve done it. We’ve been close and have finished well in the conference but this was something that we really wanted to achieve.”
Nolan Boyer was named the county champion in the 100 and 200 meter dashes for Southmont. Mason Cass took home first place finishes in both the 1600 and 3200 meter run. Xavier Essex won the discus with a throw of 116’3. Marlin Williamson and Tyler Petroski went finished first and second respectively in the pole vault and the Mounties closed out the wins with victories in both the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.
While the Chargers did place third on both sides, North Montgomery coach Josh Thompson still saw bright spots from his team and knows that the potential for big meet success is there.
“We did have some kids who came out and had good performances and had some PR’s tonight,” he said. “We’ve got more talent on our team than I think our kids give themselves credit for so we have to believe that we can go into a meet and have success. If they do that then I think they can perform a lot better. I have all the faith in the world in our kids, we just have to show up and perform and that starts on Friday at the conference meet.”
Gabe Laws was named the county champion in both the 110 and 300 meter hurdles for the Chargers. Owen Utterback also took home a pair of county titles, first in the long jump with a distance of 19’11.5 and then in the 200 meter dash.
All three county schools will now shift their focus to Friday for the Sagamore Conference meet which will be held at Southmont. Normally the three schools have a full week to prepare for the big SAC meet but due rain postponing the county meet until Monday, the schedule will look a little bit different than in years past.
“It’ll be a little different than what we normally used to,” Hannum said of the schedule change. “Usually we have all week to get ready but the biggest thing for our kids is going to have to be to try and stay as fresh as possible and get ready to finish in the top two or three in the Conference. That will be the goal.”
Thompson sees the short turnaround and two big meets in a single week as just another opportunity for his kids to challenge themselves and get better in live action.
“We use a lot of our meets as training for these end of the season meets and a lot of our good runners had a hard meet so we see it as just another hard practice,” he said. “I think we’ll use this short week to our advantage and as part of training for the week and go from there.”
Gerold like Hannum has high goals for both of his teams heading into another big meet on Friday.
“We want to finish in the top half on the girls side for sure,” Gerold said. “At this point it’s about advancing in the tournament and we may change our lineups some to be in the best position possible to do that.”
