Area athletes assemble at girls track invitational

Posted 4/15/13

Germantown Academy junior Megan McCloskey won both the high jump and the long jump at the Lady Skins Invitational last weekend. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher Girls track and field athletes …

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Area athletes assemble at girls track invitational

Posted

Germantown Academy junior Megan McCloskey won both the high jump and the long jump at the Lady Skins Invitational last weekend. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Girls track and field athletes from Germantown Academy, Germantown Friends, Penn Charter, and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy went on a jaunt to Langhorne’s Neshaminy High School last Saturday to take part in the seventh annual Lady Skins Invitational. A total of 26 teams participated, all from Pennsylvania with the exception of Westwood High School, located near Paramus, NJ.

Sprinters from Springside Chestnut Hill Academy fared well overall. Freshman Brooklynn Broadwater finished third in the 200 meter dash in 25.65 seconds, one one-hundredth of a second behind Swenson High School senior Tichina Rhodes, the runner-up. Germantown Academy senior Kiernan McCloskey was 15th overall in the 200 at 27.50, and 19th, in 27.65, was another ninth-grader for the SCH Blue Devils, Julia Reeves.

Blue Devils senior Drew Davis was ninth overall in the 400 meters, in 1:01.46, and freshman Essence Walden placed 11th in the 100 meters in 13.41 seconds. In the 100, Penn Charter sophomore Carolyn Brady made it into the top 20, ranking 20th with her time of 13.84.

Broadwater, who just began hurdling in March, ran a time of 46.80 seconds to take fifth place in the 300 meter hurdles, where the class of the field was Westwood’s Alex Cimino, in 44.34. GA senior Fran Sweeney was 14th overall in the 300 hurdles (51.67) and was 17th in the 100 meter hurdles (18.19).

Four of the Blue Devils linked up to snag ninth place in the 4 x 100 meter relay, clocking in at 53:28 with a line-up of Walden, freshman Singley Risico, and sophomores Kyra Jackson and Bridget Lipp. SCH had been seeded in the fastest heat of the 4 x 400 relay, along with current Pa. number one Swenson, but a mid-meet injury forced the Blue Devils to withdraw their “A” team.

Germantown Friends ran 20th in that relay with senior Lucy Guida, junior Alison Love, freshman Alice Wistar, and junior Sarah Alden (4:34.05). Springside Chestnut Hill was 23rd in 4:41.07 with Walden, Risico, senior Maddi Hinchey, and Jackson, and Penn Charter placed 25th with junior Margaux Losty, freshman Emily Smith, and seniors Katy Decker and Catie Skinner (4:43.58).

Germantown Friends has strong relay teams in the 4 x 800 meters and the distance medley this spring, but those athletes were given the weekend off in light of the upcoming Penn Relays and a major annual invitational at Henderson High School in West Chester.

Still, the Tigers placed 13th overall in the Lady Skins 4 x 800, with Guida, Wistar, sophomore Arielle Frank, and junior Nicoline Arlett wrapping it up in 10:57.50. GA and Penn Charter had their own internal battle as they ran in the same heat of this event, with the Patriots (freshmen Paige Kupsky and Shayne Cerebe, senior Emily Cannon, freshman Maggie Hallahan) coming in 18th in 11:06.82, while Charter (senior Rachel Morris, sophomores Sofia Toso and Maya Pressley, freshman McKenna Krall) finished 19th in 11:12.60.

In the regular 800 meter event, GA junior Kerry Lawlor justified her seeding in the premiere heat by taking second place overall in 2:18.47, less than two seconds behind the winner from Archbishop Carroll. Her senior sister, Bridie, was 22nd in 2:34.33, and in between them was SCH’s Hinchey, who placed 18th in 2:31.09.

Running with one forearm in a cast, PC’s Skinner was sixth in the 1600 meters (5:19.31), which was won in 5:04.51 by Pennsbury High’s Sara Sargent, the defending PIAA Class AAA state champion. In 11th place in this strong field was Love of GFS, who was timed in 5:35.31. GA senior Maddie Stambaugh was 15th in 5:43.27, and coming in 20th in 5:50.49 was Cece Dye, another Germantown Friends runner.

In the 3200 meter run, PC’s Pressley was 18th overall in 13:15.97.

Clearly, the best performer in the field events was GA’s Megan McCloskey.

The junior tied the meet record in the high jump as she bounded over the bar at 5’6”, and she won the long jump with a leap of 17’2.25”. Older sister Kiernan was fourth in the high jump at 5’2”, and she finished eighth in the triple jump by traveling 31’9.0”.

In the high jump, Hinchey of SCH wound up in a tie for 18th at 4’6”, and one of her teammates, Reeves, went 15’6.25” to place fifth in the long jump, where PC junior Hailey Bennett was 19th in 13’6.5”. Bennett landed 13th in the triple jump at 30’7.75”, three spots behind her sophomore schoolmate, Brady, who hit the tape at 31’2.75”.

In the pole vault, freshman Willow Teirno of Penn Charter came in seventh by clearing the bar at seven feet even, and another ninth-grader, GA’s Tesa Pribitkin, went 6’6” to land in a tie for 11th place.

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