By RYAN WALKER
MARION — The Norwell girls’ team blew away the competition at the track sectional Tuesday night, scoring 55.5 points higher than the second-place team.
The Knights are back on top after not winning the sectional for last year after four straight championships. Head coach Deidre Stoppenhagen breathed a sigh of relief.
“Obviously very excited,” she said, taking a deep breath after receiving the trophy with the team. “Some of these girls were a part of the streak of sectional titles that we’ve had, and so, they suffered that first loss, but they knew they could get it back. They worked hard all this season, and here we are.”
Two years ago, Norwell graduated a haul of seniors that scored most of the team points, asking a lot of new faces to compete on the team scoreboard. The competitive spirit admittedly wasn’t the same. In the off-season, the team took an entire practice and discussed how to work more as a team to produce more points and get back into the sectional conversation, and right away, there was a switch that was flipped, coming full circle with a championship trophy.
“There is a huge difference in the team. There’s just that missing piece. They found out they weren’t competing, so we worked hard all season. Then this year, they came out with their guns blazing, and they were ready to just go after it.”
The Knights had a handful of athletes advance to the regional, as they must place in the top three in their event to move on. Impressively, the team placed first in six individual events, including the 4x800m relay, Claire Bailey in the 100m and 300m hurdles, Jada Dale in the 400m, Emerson Meredith in the pole vault, and the 4x400m team.
Bluffton finished eighth in the meet with 28 points. After seeing some new faces emerge on the team and build up to this stage, head coach Brent Kunkel was happy with the way it went, especially with some events outperforming where they were supposed to be.
“I thought the way that the meet started, it went really, really well,” he said. “We had two girls make the finals in the long jump (Ava Troxel and Haley Gibson). We had a girl sneak in the finals in the 100 (Rylynn Penick), the 200 (Troxel), and the hurdles (Dakota Lee and Sophie Schwartz), all who were really not expected to.
Of course, the highlight of the night was Lauren Reiff, the now two-time sectional champion in the discus. The senior threw a 139-11, which was one inch away from being 30 feet further than second place.
Reiff finished 17th last season at the state meet, so this is just a stepping stone into what could happen within the next few weeks, and her coach understands what’s at stake.
“Her goal is obviously much bigger than tonight, but it has to start tonight,” Kunkel said of Reiff. “When we talked a little bit this week, she’s nervous about the tournament series starting because it’s one night. If you have three bad throws, then all of a sudden, you’re out.”
Finally, Southern Wells placed 13th of 14 schools with a score of 12.75.
The team is filled with seniors and new faces with the freshman class and new runners, who may have struggled at the beginning of the season but have shown massive improvement from then to now.
Head coach Gary Paxson has been working with his girls’ and boys’ teams as he is the head coach for both, reminding them that the majority of the talent they will see in post-season events will be highly skilled and much older than they are.
As a group, the Raiders have learned to grow as individuals but, more importantly, just gain experience throughout this season and just in general.
The head coach was very happy with his team after it was all said and done, with most of the events earning new personal bests in the last meet of the season, and just had a blast.
“Oh, I’m excited,” Paxson said. “Our girls came out relaxed. We came out ready to participate, and we told our girls and our guys we don’t want to be good in March. We don’t want to be good in April. We want to be good in May, and that’s what our girls did.”
Like Bluffton, Southern Wells had a sectional winner that highlighted the night.
Senior Brooke Tonner cleared 5-1 in the high jump, an inch higher than second place.
The champ admittedly didn’t expect herself to be in this position after COVID canceled her freshman season and put running events first for two straight years. But since her junior year, she’s been working hard, and it paid off.
“It was definitely awesome,” she said. “It’s a cool experience because last year, I think I qualified fourth for regionals. I’ve been only doing it at the varsity level for junior and senior year, so it’s like, well, I wish I would have continued with the whole entire career to see where I could have possibly been as a senior now.”
The Southern Wells school record is 5-3, which Tonner still has a chance to break at the regional, but she did give it a try at the sectional. She went three times in a row, nearly clearing it every time, but just missed the mark. The second trial gave her a fun memory, though.
“It was fun. I tried to kind of coach myself during my second attempt, and I ended up hitting my head on my jump, so that was humbling and a funny moment for me,” she said.
All three schools will be represented with in at least one event next week at the regional hosted by Carroll High School. It will start at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 23.
Team scores — Norwell 194, Oak Hill 78.5, Eastbrook 77, Frankton 72, Maron 61, Mississinewa 42, Wabash 31.75, Bluffton 28, Southwood 23, Blackford 21, Northfield 20, Elwood 16, Southern Wells 12.75, Alexandria 5.
3200m relay — 1. 1. Norwell (Meyer, Riley, Reinhard, Reinhard), 10:14.81.
100m dash — 4. Abbigail Dale (N), 13.4; 6. Rylynn Penick (B), 13.45; 7. Jada Dale (N), 13.45.
100m hurdles — 1. Claire Bailey, (N), 16.21; 7. Sophie Schwartz (B), 18.41; 8. Allison Shephard (N), 19.18.
200m dash — 4. Abbigail Dale (N), 27.50; 5. Jada Dale (N), 27.64.
1600m run — 4. Ashley Waldman (N), 5:43.74; 5. Addison Meyer (N), 5:54.92.
400m relay — 2. Bluffton (Gibson, Reiff, Penick, Troxel), 52.90; 7. Norwell (Fuess, Melcher, Archbold, Graft), 53.87.
400m run — 1. Jada Dale (N), 1:00.58; 3. Abigail (N), 1:01.35; 8. Maryn Schreiber (B), 1:08.04.
300m hurdles — 1. Claire Bailey (N), 47.70; 8. Madalynn Reinhard (N), 52.76.
800m run — 3. Ali Riley (N), 2.33.24; 4. Haleigh Reinhard (N(, 2:28.04.
3200m run — 2. Ashley Waldman (N), 12:33.05; 7. Addison Meyer (N), 13:22.15.
1600m relay — 1. Norwell (Bailey, Fuess, Dale, Dale), 4:15.47.
Pole vault — 1. Emerson Meredith (N), 9-0; 2. Kendall Dunwiddie (N), 8-0.
Discus — 1. Lauren Reiff (B), 139-11; 7. Corina Rader (N), 86-0.
High jump — 1. Brooke Tonner (SW), 5-1; 3. Emerson Meredith (N), 4-8; 7. (tie) Brianna Hughett (SW), 4-6; 7. (tie) Jaycee Grzych (N), 4-6. *Two other jumpers also tied for seventh place.
Long jump — 4. Ava Troxel (B), 15-8.25; 8. Lexie Fiechter (SW), 14-10.75.
Shotput — 6. Makenzie Fuess (N), 29-6.5.
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