Wildcats successful in Altoona
By STEVE GREECHER — sports@lockhaven.comArticle Photos
Thursday in Altoona, the word perseverance could not have been more clearly defined as it was by the Central Mountain girls’ 4x800 -meter relay team.
Central Mountain was seeded 34 seconds behind the top seed State College heading into the first event of the afternoon. The scrappy Wildcat relay of Morgan Moltz, Heather Houseknecht, Rebecca Miller and Jackie Rodabaugh hung with State College through the first three legs of the race.
On the final leg, Rodabaugh was able to dig deep and push past State down the stretch as the Lady Wildcat relay was able to drop 23 seconds off of their seed time to finish first in 9:52.24.
“We have been looking forward to this race all week,” Rodabaugh said. “I had to kill it. I knew I had to do it, and we really wanted it.”
It left a lot of people, not just State College, in shock.
“Nobody expected that one,” Central Mountain head coach Don Mansfield said. “At the WCC meet, we didn’t feel that they did as well as they could have, but (today), they came together and dropped 23 seconds off of their time. For any team to drop 5.5 seconds per person is simply phenomenal.”
Knowing that it would be difficult to top the performance of their female counterparts, the Central Mountain boys 4x800 team exerted a superior winning effort as well.
The team of Skyler Coover, Brian Sunderman, Caleb Liddick and Wilson Riccardo dropped five seconds off of their seed time and held off State College to win the opening relay of the meet with a time of 8:07.55.
“When the girls won the 4x800 relay, that really set the tone for the boys to win and helped us get off to a great start,” Mansfield said.
The Wildcats should be pleased, ending up third in points behind Altoona and State College respectively. There were plenty of athletes for the boys who contributed to this solid team effort.
Bucky Wheeler took first in the high jump with a height of 6 feet 3 inches, which qualifies him for that state championship meet. Wheeler also nabbed three team points by placing sixth in the long jump.
Coover, in addition to his part on the 4x800 relay, took third in the 300 hurdles and the pole vault.
Junior thrower Jacob Shade also had a solid afternoon, placing third in the shot put with a distance of 48-1/5. Shade took another third in the discus, improving upon his seed by more than eight feet with a hurl of 144-10.
“We came in here today knowing that we wanted to do well. We started strong right off the bat with the 4x800 relay, and I am just very pleased,” Mansfield said.
The Central Mountain girls’ team was able to finish fourth behind State College, Indian Valley and Altoona, respectively.
One of the more notable performances of the meet for the Lady Wildcats came from from senior jumper Kristin Brandt.
Brandt, who qualified for states last year in the triple jump, certainly did her part to help her team as she took first in the long jump, as well as second in the high and triple jump.
Brandt is looking for some redemption after she was a little disappointed with her performance at states last year.
“I had a bad states last year. I was seeded first and ended up fifth,” Brandt said. “This year, I won’t be seeded first, so there won’t be any pressure and I will be able to just go out there and do my thing.”
The long jump and high jump finals were being conducted at the same time and Brandt would literally do a long jump, then turn right around the same minute and fly over the bar at the high jump.
“Doing both events at the same time definitely keeps my legs warm, but it can be tricky because your mind has to shift gears so quickly,” Brandt said.
She certainly expects more of herself this time around as she prepares for the state championship meet. Brandt was seeded first in the triple jump Thursday but placed second.
“Triple jump is definitely my event and I would like to have done better. I’m not disappointed, I just know that I am capable of more,” Brandt said. “I definitely know that I have bigger jumps left in me.”
In addition to the Central Mountain athletes headed to states, Bellefonte’s Brandyn Maddox qualified for the PIAA championship meet in the 100-meter dash.
Maddox was jumping around sharing his excitement with his teammates after his fourth- place finish with a time of 11.04.
“When I finally heard my time, I was just really psyched because it was one of the best times I’ve ran this season,” Maddox said.
There was certainly not a more opportune time to have one of the best times of his season. The senior from Bellefonte will now have a second chance to beat the three who finished above him.
The day also saw four district championship meet records broken.
The Altoona 4x100-meter relay ran a 42.42, breaking the previous district record by two hundredths of a second. Altoona’s Bethany Lender jumped 39 1/2 in the triple jump, breaking the previous record of 38-10 1/2.
State College sophomore Alex Kenney set a new mark in the 200-meter dash. He broke the 20 year old record time of 21.84 with a time of 21.64. As a sophomore, keep an eye out for this kid.
State College also had another young standout performance Thursday. Chloe Schmidt, who is only a freshman, shattered the 800-meter run record of 2:16.54 with a time of 2:12.47.
So after an afternoon of so many outstanding individual accomplishments, you wonder how this could be topped.
Any one of the athletes who qualified for states would certainly have an immediate answer for that.
