Girls Track Team Places 8th At Invitational
By J.W. Campbell, Sportwriter
Ending the day with nine top-10 performances, the Triad Lady Knights scored an eighth-place team finish at the 26-team Belleville West Invitational on Friday, March 29.
Homewood Flossmor won the team title with 111 points. Rounding out the top 10 were Belleville West (95), Belleville East (61.5), Trinity Catholic (49), Alton (44), Edwardsville (42.5), O’Fallon (38.5), Triad (30), Freeburg, (30) and Harvey Thornton (27.5).
“I did not think that we would be having a meet with the weather forecast, but we showed up and turned out some great performances,” Triad Coach Katie Rahar said. “This meet has never been great weather wise since I have been an athlete and a coach, but the girls were able to push through their hesitations about the day and place eighth as team. This meet has grown and now has very tough competition, so eighth is a pretty big deal for us.”
Triad’s best finish came from the freshman-sophomore 4 x 400-meter relay team of Kayla Edwards, Maddi Schmidt, Sydney Hartoin and Haley Jackson. That foursome was second in a tine of 4:25.87.
Another Triad relay team, the 4 x 800-meter squad of Jackson, Mattie Noyes, Samantha Kilzer and Alyssa Kowalski provided the Lady Knights with a fifth -place performance, clocking in at 10:30.27. In the 4 x 100-meter relay, Triad got a ninth from the quartet of Faith Grapperhaus, Isabel Averill, Kylie Barton and Alexa Seger, running the race in a time of 59.12 seconds.
The best individual performance for the Lady Knights at Belleville West was a third by Bridget Coolican in the pole vault. She cleared 8-6.
Finishing fourth in the long jump for Triad was Denise D’Antonio, who went 16-8 in the event. She also had a seventh in the triple jump with a mark of 35-1.
“Denise D’Antonio and Sydney Hartoin managed to post new Triad top ten records. D’Antonio’s new PR in the Triple Jump of 35-1 places her at number five Triad all time and seventh place at the Lady Maroon Invite,” Rahar said. “This is the qualifying mark for the IHSA state meet that she needs at the sectional meet.”
Hartoin recorded a seventh in the 400-meter race with a time of 1:01.27.
“Hartoin’s time places her at number three Triad all time and seventh place at the Lady Maroon Invite,” Rahar said. “Shaving off one second would make qualifying for the IHSA state meet easy.”
Coming up with a fifth in the discus was Krista Cochran, who had a throw of 104-1.
Lilly Cawvey finished 10th in the high jump for the Lady Knights with a height of 4-8.
Other Triad performances of note were an 11th in the pole vault (7-6) by Morgan Noyes, a 12th in the high jump (4-8) by Grapperhaus, a 12th in the 3200-meter run (13:07) by Claire Schaft, and a 13th in the 4 x 200-meter dash (1:51.84) by the quartet of Grapperhaus, Savannah Viviano, Barton and Bailey Grigg. Finishing 15 in the mile run was Kilzer with a time of 5:58.43.
The Triad girls are slated to host their own invitational beginning at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 5.
