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Editorial: Girls track pumps up its fans
Op-Ed · July 02, 2015
A state championship shuttle hurdle relay team — a school first — highlighted a West Branch High School girls track season full of other impressive accomplishments.
The Bears, led by Co-Head Coaches Carol Lumpa and Scott Kelly, talked about setting high expectations for the team, which all coaches should do. Yet when looking back at the success the team had last year, one realizes this year’s goals had to be quite high to really push the returning state qualifiers.
We must start with the shuttle hurdle relay team, which was ranked No. 1 going into Drake Stadium May 21. The Bears finished second last year in this race at state. Paige Miller, Abby Knoop, Maddy Russell and Megan Tadlock had everything to lose. Every other Class 2A team had them in their crosshairs.
They dominated. Their 1:05.30 was one hundredth of a second away from the state record and, obviously, set a school record as well. At state, sprint-based races are often decided by tenths of a second, yet West Branch’s runners finished two seconds ahead of second place.
It was nothing short of spectacular.
Before we continue down the list, notice that you will see Maddy Russell’s name appear a few more times in this editorial. The senior leaves West Branch with 11 state medals, a school record in itself. Sometimes athletes need more than a goal of beating a personal best or a season best, sometimes they need a person to look up to for examples of hard work and dedication. Maddy Russell would be one of those people.
Moving on to the 100m hurdles, Russell came in seeded eighth and finished second. And for those wondering who will fill Russell’s shoes, we think a good possibility would be Abby Knoop, who returns next season as a junior. Both she and Russell finished the prelims with 15:37, a tie, with both beating the school record. In the finals, Russell finished second with 15.39; Knoop finished fourth with 15.60. Knoop has two more years of eligibility. Wow.
In the 4x200, Miller, Knoop, Russell and Jones were seeded sixth and finished fifth with 1:46.58, the second fastest time for a West Branch squad. In the 4x400, Russell, Knoop, Jones and Miller — yep, same group — were seeded 14th and finished sixth with 4:05.96. In the 400m hurdles, Paige Miller finished eighth with 1:06.96, her second-fastest run of the season. And in the high jump, Trystin Luneckas finished 24th, the same as her seeding.
All this is from the state track meet, where the Bears finished sixth with points. But let’s take a step back and really rev things up the “impressive” scale.
At the River Valley Conference meet, West Branch finished in fourth place. Five RVC teams were represented at state, which says a lot about the strength of the conference, and West Branch, on the bigger stage, beat all but one of them in points, moving up two spots.
Very cool.
During the regular season, the Bears won their home meet, the Chad Gates Invitational, and were in the top three in seven of nine meets. Strength and conditioning coach Phil Johnson also deserves a hat-tip for his contributions to the program, giving the athletes that extra advantage that can make the difference between scoring or not.
Congratulations to the high school girls track team on another exciting and wonderful season.
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