WIAA GIRLS TRACK & FIELD

Lady Toppers’ 4x400 earns team’s first WIAA track title
BY JOHN McNALLY

Saturday, May 31, 2008 11:59 PM CDT

LA CROSSE — The Catholic Central High School 4x400-meter relay team definitely stood out Saturday at the WIAA State Track & Field Meet in La Crosse.

The Lady Toppers squad of senior Katie Kelly, sophomores Lauren Celano and Gretchen Homan and freshman Sarah Stang pulled up their white tube socks and sped around the Veterans Memorial Field track on the campus of UW-La Crosse for a Division 3 state-winning time of 4:05.35.

After coming out of a weak Princeton Sectional, the Lady Toppers just needed to compete with the best Wisconsin has to offer to showcase their skills.

“Our seed time wasn’t so great,” Catholic Central head coach Steve Brandes said. “We were just waiting for a race where we could just run fast. We knew we would run fast here; we just had to find some competition to run with.”

Celano set an early tone by taking the lead for her entire lap around the track as she handed the baton off to Kelly at the 1:05 mark. What was Celano’s strategy for the first leg of the race?

“Don’t get in last,” she said. “(I) tried to get us into a good spot so Katie can keep us there.”

The pack caught up with Kelly as she dropped back to third by going out too fast in the early stages of her leg. But Kelly kept Catholic Central in the running and gave way to Stang, who held her team in third before Homan took the baton and moved into first place right after turn two.

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Homan showed breakaway speed and secured the victory over Wausau Newman by sixth-tenths of a second. Down the final straightaway, Homan was thinking of her teammates and how all the season’s work paid off in the end.

“I was thinking about Katie, she’s a senior, and all my girls,” Homan said. “They deserved it. We really earned this.”

According to Brandes, the victory was the Lady Toppers first WIAA Track & Field title.

Earlier in the day, Homan placed second in the 400 behind defending Division 3 state champion junior Jamie Vandenberg of Niagara. Homan finished at 56.69 and Vandenberg set a Division 3 state record with a time of 56.15. Last year, Homan finished third as a freshman in the 400 and her coach was pleased she didn’t get complacent.

“Taking third, I guess you can take it two ways,” Brandes said. “You (can) figure you got beat by two people, but she took it the second way. She realized there’s two people better than her in the state and she started working in the offseason. She worked hard and got results for it.”

Prairie junior Alexis Mikaelian broke the Division 3 state record in the 800, but so did Vandenberg. The Niagara junior outkicked Mikaelian in the final 25 meters to take the lead and win the race and claim the record at 2:13.29. Mikaelian, who won the 800 last year, finished at 2:13.43 for her third medal of the meet. The two surpassed the record of 2:15.63 set in 2005 by Stratford’s Dani Owen.

“I ran the race how I wanted to,” Mikaelian said. “I gave it everything I had today, unfortunately it was .5 seconds too little.

The junior Hawk was also aware that this was not her last shot.

“This by no means overshadows how good of a season it was,” Mikaelian said. “Luckily, I have another year. If this was my senior year it would probably be a little bit more of a let down.”

Late Friday night, Mikaelian earned her second medal of the meet, taking second in the 3,200 in 11:16.61. Sophomore Mackenzie Weber of Oshkosh Lourdes won the race in 11:01.61.

Also, Racine Lutheran junior Maggie Stevens finished fourth in the 200, crossing the finish line in 26.79.

In Division 2, Union Grove senior Jil Kerkman took third place in the 800 and won a medal with a time of 2:18.06. Kerkman and hurdler Tyler Bloodworth were the only two Broncos to qualify for state and she was pleased to bring some hardware back to Union Grove.

“It was great to represent my school, we’re not a very big track community,” said Kerkman, who finished second in the event last year. “So for me to be able to get up here was a great accomplishment in itself. And I’m really honored to represent the town that I love.”

In Division 1, Waterford’s Shelby Schaal won two medals with sixth-place finishes in the 100 high hurdles (15.52) and the long jump (17-9¼).