©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

GA girls resist Charter challenge to repeat as track champ
by TOM UTESCHER

The quest for top honors at the Girls Inter-Ac track and field championship came down to a struggle between a pair of league powers who are familiar rivals, Germantown Academy and Penn Charter. The event was staged at GA on May 13.

The sprinters for the PC Quakers gave impressive performances, but when the cinders settled, a strong showing in the field events helped meet host GA repeat as the Inter-Ac champ. The Patriots had also gone undefeated in league dual meets for the second straight year.

In the final team tally at the championship meet, Germantown scored 117 total points to Charter’s 96.5, but the battle for third place was much closer, with Springside School squeezing past Episcopal Academy, 41.5 points to 41. The Academy of Notre Dame was farther back in fifth place, with 15 points for the day.

Between them, the Patriots and Quakers broke nine league records during the meet. Six of the new standards belonged to GA, which had sophomore Caroline Doty clear 5’7” in the high jump and put the shot 33’1”. Kacie Kergides, still only an eighth grader, surpassed the previous Girls Inter-Ac marks in the two distance races, finishing the 1600 meters in five minutes, 15 seconds and the 3200 in 12:01.

GA’s Jenn Hoy inscribed a 16’2.75” long jump in the record book, and freshman J.D. Whitman sailed to new heights in the pole vault, at 10’0.5”. Hoy, also a ninth-grader, completed a Germantown sweep for first place in all the field events by traveling 34’7.5” in the triple jump. An eighth gold medal for the Pats was captured in the 300 meter hurdles by junior Devon Blount, who crossed the line in 50.04 seconds. She also placed second in the 100 meter dash (12.96) and third in the triple jump (31’1”).

GA junior Jen Kopenitz backed up Kergides by taking second in both the 1600 (5:37) and 3200 (12:35), and Doty was the runner-up in the 400 meters (1:01.2). Doty and Blount also teamed up with senior Jess Golson and freshman J. Leah Ray to place second in the 4 x 100 meter relay (51.63).

Penn Charter won that relay in a meet-record time of 49.37 seconds with a team consisting of Khaaleedah Smith, Marquessa Gray, Kirby Dixon and JaLia Moody. A survey of 4 x 100 times around the Philadelphia region reveals that this way an impressive time for such a young group. All of the four are freshmen with the exception of Moody, a junior who established a meet record on her own when she won the 100 meters in 12.62 seconds.

Smith set an individual meet record in the 400, finishing in 59.34 seconds, and she was second in the 200 (26.8), a race that Moody won in

26.7 seconds.

Meanwhile PC’s Dixon, who just began high jumping last month, cleared five feet to place second, and she was also runner-up in the long jump (14’11.25”). The Quakers also snapped up silver medals through the efforts of sophomore Sierra Tishgart in the 800 meters (2:31.8), and senior Catherine Grigos in the shot put (29’7”).

Pacing the Springside School Lions was senior Kristy Caltabiano, who won the 100 meter hurdles in 17.7 seconds, took second in the triple jump (33’4.75”), and placed third in the 100 meter dash (13.0). Sophomore Kelsey Mullin was the runner-up in the 300 hurdles (52.26), while junior Kim Ashby was third in the 400 (1:01.34) and senior Elspeth Lodge was third in the 1600 (5:41).