Spartans Stay on Track at Milford Invite
In the two day Milford Invitational at Eagles Stadium, Turpin Track placed well and ran races that gave promise to the future. Competing against teams from Sycamore, Anderson, St. Ursula, and McNicholas, Turpin got a good look at what to expect in the coming weeks and learned what it would take to face these teams again at the District meet in May.
On day one, the only events scored were the fields events and the four-man mile relay team. In shotput Jeff Groene and Kelly Ewing led the Spartan throwers with a 7th and 8th place finish, respectively, and Groene also came back to place 3rd in the discus throw while Andrew Flohr finished in 2nd overall. Hannah Zimmerman continued to boost the Lady Spartan's total score by placing 4th in the long jump and 2nd in the pole vault. Matt Olsson won the men's pole vault with his 12 and 1/2 finish. Emilyse Risher and Madeline Turk tied for 4th in the high jump while Shade Whitfield placed 5th for the guys. In the 4 by mile relay, where each member runs a mile individually, the girl's race was dominated by a strong St. Ursula "A" team, but the team of Adrienne Grogan, Alexia Yun, Cassie Bacon, and Kristen Plummer ran well enough for a 4th place 23:42. Sycamore provided the competition in the guy's relay, winning the race in 18:54, but the combined total of Antony Parnigoni, Alex Polivka, Joe Murray, and Nicholas El-Khoury ran well enough for another 4th place finish in 19:24.
Day two started out with the 4 by 800 meter races, where the same 4 by mile team of Polivka, Parnigoni, El-Khoury, and Murray ran a decent time of 8:37 to take 3rd, and the same girl's team of Yun, Grogan, Bacon, and Plummer also took 3rd with 10:18. Having done the preliminaries and semi-finals for the sprinting events on Thursday, the races on Friday ran only the best from the many athletes at the meet. Freshman Brittany Berry continued to improve by qualifying to the 100 meter hurdles final individually to place 7th in 17.6. Shade Whitfield and Joel Neuhart placed 3rd and 4th, respectively, in their hurdles race. Another freshman sprinter, Ali Gradone, also qualified in her 100 meter race to place 7th, while Kevin Comerford ran the finals in 11.5 and 4th overall. The guy's 4 by 200 team of Jon Risher, Charlie Ronan, Kevin Comerford, and Shade Whitfield won the race easily in 1:33.7. Antony Parnigoni ran the mile in 4:49, good for a 6th place finish and the 4 by 100 teams of Brittany Berry, Emilyse Risher, Stephanie Valenti, Brooke Bonne, and Jon Risher, Charlie Ronan, Alec Gates, and Kevin Comerford finished in 3rd and 2nd, respectively, both by .5 seconds from the next closest team.
Adrienne Grogan and Brien Polivka qualified for the 400 meter finals, with Grogan winning the race in 1:01 and Polivka coming in 4th with a 52.8. Carmen Versoza qualified individually to the 300 meter finals, as did Joel Neuhart and James Rohleder, and the trio came in 5th, 4th, and 7th, respectively, in their races. Alexia Yun and Alex Polivka both came in 8th in their 800 meter runs, while Brittany Berry and Kevin Comerford came in 6th and 2nd, respectively in their 200 meter finals. Nicholas El-Khoury, still recovering from injury, ran against Will Fisher of Loveland in the 3200 to take home a close 2nd place for the Spartans, with his time of 10:18. The final race of the night, the 4by400, decided the end result between a strong Sycamore team and the male Spartans for the meet victory. In an extremely close race, the team of Brien Polivka, Shade Whitfield, Joel Neuhart, and Jon Risher were not able to get past Sycamore and their 3:32 lost to Sycamore's 3:31.5. The final result of the meet: Sycamore 118, Turpin 115. The Lady Spartans placed 5th behind Anderson.
With great competition, the Spartans times and records improved greatly and moved them closer to becoming a threat in the FAVC. This Tuesday, the Spartans will be at the Golden Baton Relays to take on Sycamore once again. Please send any photos or questions about track to turpinrunning@yahoo.com.