The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
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Track teams trounce Bedford in SEC opener
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: April 26, 2007
The 2007 Saline track teams are off and running.
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In their first dual meets and scored outdoor invitational of the season, the Hornets went 3-for-3. Both teams cruised past Bedford April 17 -- the boys by a score of 98.5-38.5 and the girls 101-36 -- before the Hornets beat out a field of 16 teams to win the coed Milford Relays Saturday.
"The kids performed well," said boys' co-head coach Brian Boze. "(Bedford) was our first meet as a whole team ... a lot of our kids hadn't run (competitively) for five or six weeks, so it's nice to have that first dual meet and compete."
The Saline boys won 12 events at Bedford, including a dominant performance in the throws as Gabe Helmuth (146' 2") and Joey Everett (141' 7") finished 1-2 in the discus and Everett (48' 11") and Quinn Dawson (43' 8") took the top two spots in the shot put. Drew Jurgenson took another field-event first in the long jump with a leap of 19' 11".
The Hornets won all four relays, with Marcus Johnston, Phillip Goeman, Corey Farrell, and Sam Burchyett (46.8) winning the 400-meter relay; Burchyett, Goeman, Farrell and Bobby Schilke (1:37.8) winning the 800; Branden Post, Burchyett, Chris Simon and Joe Zill (3:30.3) winning the 1600; and Blake Johnson, Brian Hernandez, Zill, and Kyle Zill (8:13) winning the 3,200.
Post posted three other wins on the day, taking the 100-meter dash (11.4), 110 hurdles (15.2), and 300 hurdles (38.9).
Other winners included Johnson and Tommy Hunt (4:33) in a near-tie for first in the 1600 and Reed Tornquist (24.6) in the 200 dash.
The Saline girls were even more dominant, posting 13 first-place finishes.
"The weather cooperated for a change, and it was good to run against some competition rather than ourselves in practice," said head coach Mike Smith. "Our running events were very strong, but we do hope to improve in the field events."
Leading the first-place parade was sophomore Taylor Franz, who won both the 200 (26.7) and 400 (1:02.9) dashes and joined Kim Miller-Tolbert, Corrie Castro, and Mary Rzepka (4:14.3) on the winning 1,600-meter relay.
Saline won the other three relays, as well. Lindsey Cummings, Kiley Kilgallon, Molly Blackburn and Alex Leptich (10:13) took the 3200 relay; Karen Gallardo, Rzepka, Lauren Zakrasjek and Stefanie Gallardo (1:51.3) won the 800 relay; and Castro, Miller-Tolbert, Stephanie Gallardo and Rachel Nyberg (51.7) took the 400 relay. Nyberg, a freshman, also won the long jump with a jump of 15' 6".
Castro tied her own school record of 12.5 seconds in winning the 100 dash. In hurdles, Miller-Tolbert (49.4) won the 300 while Angie Johnston (17.6) won the 100.
Megan Creutz and Kate Carter split the top two spots in both the 1,600 and 3,200, with Creutz first in the 1,600 and Carter first in the 3,200. Leptich was first in the 800 in 2:24.6.
Those performances set the stage for the win at Milford, an unusual coed meet in which each event combined the performances of two girls and two boys.
"It's unique," Boze said. "Our performance showed the strength of both our teams and the coordination and camaraderie we have between them. Some teams don't even speak to each other."
Hunt, Brian Conn, Leptich and Carter combined to set a meet record in the 4-by-3,200 relay with a time of 42:30.2.
Other wins included Conn, Johnson, Cummings and Creutz in the 4-by-1,600; Franz, Kyle Zill, Castro, and Post in the 4-by-400; Zakrasjek, Post, Stefanie Gallardo and Kyle Zill in the sprint medley.
Dawson increased his personal-best in the discus by 10 feet, uncorking a 156' 11" throw.
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