Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008

Middletown girls take elusive state crown

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bill ryan⁄the gazette
Walkersville’s Jon Hill soars over the bar during the Class 2A state high jump competition in Landover. Hill, a junior, jumped 6 feeet, 8 inches to win the meet and set a new 2A record.
The Middletown High girls finally earned its state title and three records were shattered at the Maryland Indoor Track and Field State Championships, held at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex on Monday and Tuesday.

The Knights had been runner-ups for five times, with their most recent runner-up finish in 2001. But with a 4x800 relay record in tow, Middletown tallied up 48 points, cruising to an easy victory over their closest competition, Loch Raven’s 31.

Competing on Tuesday in the Class 4A girls shot put, Thomas Johnson’s Emily Vannoy put in a mark of 45 feet, 9.25 inches. It’s a meet record for Class 4A and the overall state tournament.

Not only did Vannoy set the state record for shot put, but all six of her attempts were better than the previous overall record of 42-7.75, set by Atholton’s Lindsay Grigoriev in 2003.

In the 2A boys high jump, Jon Hill of Walkersville reached new heights of 6 feet, 8 inches, adding two inches to the record set by Kelly Murphy of Middletown in 1993.

It was only the third time that Hill had even cleared 6-6, his previous personal record. Hill did that once in AAU track over the summer, and once at an unscored meet at Hagerstown Community College to start the indoor season.

‘‘I have a bit of a back problem, so it affected me a little bit. I had 6-4s, 6-2 and then 6-5. But I felt fine today,” Hill said.

The Middletown girls won only two events, the 4x200 relay and the 4x800.

JoJo Nichols, Megan Buckheit, Emma Nichols and Brittney Caudle won the 4x800 in 9:52.27, shaving three seconds off the mark set by Glenelg in 1997.

Caudle did not know it was a record, even as the meet wound down.

‘‘The state record? I didn’t know. No way,” she said. ‘‘All four of us have never [run] together before, because it’s always just been depending on different events that we were running. We were hoping to get under 10 minutes.”

The interchangeable relay teams worked for the Knights, who were also fourth in the 4x400.

‘‘We’ve never spent a lot of time on baton hand-offs until this season,” Nichols said. ‘‘And we do it every day now. We practice every single option.”

In the 4x200, Middletown missed another state meet record by just under three seconds with the team of Sarah Wreiden, Buckheit, Tara Shaffer and Caudle finishing in 1:47.84.

Caudle was also second in the 500 and third in the 800, while Nichols was fourth in the 800.

Picking up even more points, Lauren Redding was fifth in the high jump, and Ally Hemme was fourth in the pole vault.

In the boys competition, Middletown was third with 36 points, while Walkersville was eighth at 21.

The Knights got a win in the pole vault with Alex Edelmann clearing 13-0 one attempt before teammate Will Bell. It was a foot under Edelmann’s personal record.

‘‘Our coach usually lets us skip heights going up,” Edelmann said. ‘‘But he wanted us to get as many jumps as possible. We ended up jumping every single height. Going at it for an hour or so, it just gets exhausting. We started at 10-6 and went from 11 to 11-6 to 12, 12-6 to 13 to 13-6.”

Frederick County swept the top three spots in the pole vault, with Walkersville’s Josh Haines taking third at 12-6. Fellow Lion Corey Rausch was sixth.

Middletown added more points from the field, with Josh McVoy taking second in the shot put and Corey Blain taking fifth in the high jump. Also for the Knights, Jimmy Greene was fourth in the 3200, and they were fourth in the 4x800.

Walkersville was fourth in the 4x200.

In Class 1A, Catoctin took eighth with 18 points, all from Ceth Parker. The senior won the 1600 in 4:35.91, and was second in the 3200.

Brunswick’s Ben Horner got back to the 50s in the shot put, winning the event with a mark of 52-8.5. Also for the Railroaders, Kyle Shreve was sixth in the 300, win in the girls, Brunswick’s Maria Moss took sixth in the 1600.

In the Class 4A competition, Thomas Johnson finished with five points, with Erick Artusio taking fourth in the pole vault and Branden Kline earning a sixth-place finish in the high jump.

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