Mount track remains unbeaten in league

Posted 4/21/14

Starting out on the anchor leg of the 4 x 800 relay, Mount St. Joe sophomore Julianna Kardish (left) takes the baton from senior Annie McCabe. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher Moving a …

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Mount track remains unbeaten in league

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Starting out on the anchor leg of the 4 x 800 relay, Mount St. Joe sophomore Julianna Kardish (left) takes the baton from senior Annie McCabe. (Photo by Tom Utescher) Starting out on the anchor leg of the 4 x 800 relay, Mount St. Joe sophomore Julianna Kardish (left) takes the baton from senior Annie McCabe. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Moving a scheduled Catholic Academies track meet from last Tuesday to Monday to avoid the rain in the offing, host Mount St. Joseph Academy took advantage of the fine weather to roll up a 106-32 victory over the Golden Bears of Merion Mercy Academy.

The Magic won five individual events on the track and all three relays, as well as taking first in five of the six field events (there was no pole vault competition). In six events, Mount St. Joe swept first, second, and third place.

The victory kept the Magic undefeated in AACA dual meets, with the closest score thus far a 72-60 win over Gwynedd Mercy Academy. A scheduled meet against league rival Villa Maria was cancelled and may not be made up before the teams gather for the Catholic Academies Championships in early May.

Sacred Heart, the smallest school in the league, does not have an official track and field team, but two of their athletes ran at the Mount last Monday.

The Mount’s Sarah Lynch won the 200 meters (26.7 seconds), the 100 meter high hurdles (16.4) and the high jump (5’2”), and placed second in an unfamiliar event, the javelin (85’2”). The versatile senior will attend the College of Charleston in South Carolina, where, fittingly, she plans to train for the heptathlon.

At the other end of the age spectrum, freshman Julie Hoover was the victor in both the 300 intermediate hurdles (50.9) and the triple jump (30’ 4.5”), and she was third in the high jump, behind Lynch and junior Madeline Reiche.

The winner in the 100 meter dash was one of the two Sacred Heart runners, Chelsea Slaughter (13.3), with the other points going to a pair of MSJ freshmen, Sarina Clary (second) and Siobhan McBride. Slaughter finished second behind Lynch in the 200, and third in that race was McBride, hampered a little by a touch of knee pain.

The Mount freshman, who previously had tied the school record of 26.4 seconds in the 200, also won the long jump in last Monday’s meet, travelling 14’ 8.25”.

Some of Merion Mercy’s better results came in the longer track events, with the Golden Bears taking first and second in the 400 (1:06.0) and the 1600 (5:28.0), and placing second in the 800. The winner in the 800 was Magic junior Tara Gallagher (2:28.6), while third-place points came to the Mount through sophomore Jane Prior in the 800, junior Colleen McBride in the 400 and senior Alyssa Kist in the 1600.

Only Mount runners competed in the 3200, and while an everyday distance athlete, junior Georgia Kelly, won the race in 13:29.4, the other three Mount entries were all accustomed to much shorter races. In finishing order, they were sophomore Gabby Good and seniors Courtney Higginson and Theresa Adams.

Backing up Lynch and Hoover to help complete MSJ sweeps in the hurdles were freshmen Tess Wothington (second) and Khalita Jarmon in the high hurdles, and junior Grace Havard (second) and sophomore Katie Strosser in the intermediates.

Merion Mercy was short-staffed in the field events, with a number of its athletes in these disciplines away on Spring Break. The Golden Bears did manage a one-two-three sweep in the discus, but Mount St. Joe dominated elsewhere.

In addition to the aforementioned sweep in the high jump, the Magic also scooped up all the points in the long jump, thanks to Siobhan McBride, runner-up Gen Hagedorn (a senior) and Allie Carter (a junior). Hagedorn won the javelin for the Mount with an 87-foot toss, and she was second in the triple jump.

In the javelin, third place went to MSJ freshman Grace Gelone, a Norwood Fontbonne Academy graduate. The winner in the shot put (26’ 11.5”) was another ninth grader, Sam Bauer, who also made an impact on the Mount swim team this winter.

Mount St. Joe won all three relay races, with its “B” team coming in second in two of them. Taking the 4 x 100 meters in 52.3 seconds were sophomore Lauren Ciasullo, junior Leah Carreres, Siobhan McBride, and Clary. In the 4 x 800 it was junior Aidan Moroz, Prior, senior Annie McCabe and sophomore Julianna Kardish winning in 10:28.2, and the meet ended with a Magic victory in the 4 x 400 (4:23.0) thanks to McCabe, Hoover, Gallagher, and Moroz.

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