Yorktown’s Sarah Hazen competes in a relay at the Delta Sectional Tuesday. The Tigers won the event.
MUNCIE – The Yorktown girls track team was dead set on winning a sectional title on Tuesday. So there wasn’t much talk about breaking individual meet records in advance of the Delta Sectional.
Freshman Madeline Aul only learned she had a chance to break the sectional record in the 3,200 during her last lap, when she was informed by coach Jared Turner. Turner said he saw Aul’s eyes light up, and she finished the race in 11:53.34, breaking the sectional record by .63 seconds. In breaking that record, Aul also provided 10 key points for her team late in a hotly contested meet.
“I was just glad knowing that I had done my part,” Aul said.
Following Aul’s victory, Yorktown won the 1,600 relay with a time of 4:10.53. Long jump was one of the last results posted, and the Tigers’ A’Dreana Howard-Anderson won that event with a mark of 16-feet-7 1/2-inches. Those late wins helped Yorktown win a sectional title with 138 1/3 points. Second-place Jay County netted 106 points, and third-place Central posted 103, though the team championship race was much closer for most of the night.
“(Aul) being able to get 10 points for us there, when she was the only one in that race, was really big,” Turner said. “Because other teams had two people in there, and we had to scratch one of ours, but yeah, Madeline winning the 3,200 was a big tide-turner. And that was probably the first time that we knew that we were probably going to be a sectional champion.”
Aul and Howard-Anderson were Yorktown’s only individual winners, and the team of Kendall Murr, Kelsey Morgan, Hannah Rapp and Howard-Anderson in the 1,600 relay was the only Tigers’ relay win. Yorktown found ways to manufacture points in other ways en route to the team title. Sarah Hazen made a late push to finish fifth in the 1,600, with the three competitors behind her each coming in within 1.22 seconds of her 5:57.20 time.
“There were probably five or six (instances) throughout the meet where we just got one or two positions,” Turner said. “And that’s what we had talked about all week, that’s what it’s going to come down to. When you’re running against a really good team like Jay County who’s won five sectional championships in a row, we’re going to have to have those small victories throughout the meet to be able to come out on top at the end. So, yeah, a lot of those individual instances popped out to me.”
Aul wasn’t the only athlete to break a meet record. Burris’ Kristina Metz posted a 9-9 mark in the pole vault to break a record that had stood at 7-6.
Other winners included Wes-Del’s Perrie Smalley, who took the 100 (12.77) and the 200 (26.93), and Central’s Savannah Jackson, who won the discus (118-10) and the shot put (35-9 1/2).
Jackson’s teammate, Aaliyah Barnes, won the 100 hurdles with a time of 15.58 seconds. Barnes was on the Bearcats’ winning 400 relay team, which posted a time of 52.16 seconds. Central’s Shelby Haggard won the 400 in 1:02.20.
Jay County’s Megan Wellman won the 1,600 (5:36.50) and was also on the Patriots’ winning 3,200 relay squad (10:11.18). Ava Kunkler was also a member of that relay team and won the 800 (2:33.29).
Monroe Central had two individual winners, with Marissa Huddleston winning the 300 hurdles in 49.53 seconds, and Megen Yates winning the high jump at 5-1.
The top three finishers in each event qualify for the Ben Davis Regional on May 26, and athletes may also qualify by meeting the three-participant standard or by being among the best non-top-three finishers at the regional’s feeder sectionals.
Blackford 13th
Blackford finished 13th at the Marion Sectional with six points. The Bruins’ Bailey Cline finished third in the 800 with a time of 2:30.88 to net all six of her team’s points and advance to the Marion Regional on May 26.