Wawasee Sparkling In Double Win [VIDEO]
GOSHEN – Not too shabby for a first night out.
Wawasee, running its first outdoor boys track meet of the season, broke five-year losing streaks to both Northridge and Goshen with wins at Foreman Field Thursday night. The Warriors, which hadn’t beaten Northridge or Goshen head-to-head since the 2008 season, bested the Redskins, 71-61, and edged the Raiders 67-65. Goshen would split its night, beating Northridge, 74.5-57.5.
Of the 16 events, Wawasee won 11 of the events straight up, but made the most of its rare depth to steal points in key spots.
The highlight of the night came from Wawasee’s Clayton Cook, who left no doubt in the 200-meter dash in a blazing time of 22.30, setting a new school record previously set at 22.34 by Steve Bahn way back in 1969. Cook also won the 110 hurdles (15.29) and the 300 high hurdles (41.22) as well as running the anchor of the top 4×100 relay with Michael Pena, Cole VanLue and JJ Gilmer at 44.25.
Gilmer was also solid in his field events, winning the long jump handily at 20’05.25″ then clearing 6’4″ in the high jump for first. The rub on the high jump was while Gilmer was running the 4×100, jumps coach Staci Weisser asked the bar be raised to 6’8.25″, which if cleared Gilmer would eclipse the old Wawasee mark of 6’8″ held by Alex Similton. Gilmer, unaware the bar had been raised so high, nearly cleared the bar on the third try, but could not keep the fiberglass on the rails.
“There’s a lot of time to go, but I can see those two heading in a good direction,” said Wawasee head coach Scott Lancaster of Gilmer and Cook’s performances Thursday night. “I didn’t expect Clayton’s 200 to be that fast, but it’s good to see him do that because it came right after he ran the 300 hurdles. Those are the things spring break can do for you. They have been training hard.”
Also having a huge night for the Warriors was Zach Cockrill, who raced with teammate Adam Doll past the field in the one-mile to win at 4:37.96 to Doll’s runner-up 4:40.25. Cockrill then received a great race from Goshen’s Ricardo Castillo in the 800, with Castillo taking a slight lead on the home stretch only for Cockrill to kick into overdrive, put his head down and win at 2:03.67, a full second ahead of Castillo.
Throws had a big night, notably in the discus where Ethan Brown and Jon Walker went one-two. Brown’s first throw sailed 145’11” while Walker landed at 140’08”.
Wawasee also had several key efforts that resulted in sneaky points, that at the time didn’t look like much, but came in handy in the final tally. Austin Rhodes placed fifth overall in the shot put, but was third place in both team stacks. Kevin Carpenter was also fifth in the pole vault, but was second to Northridge in jump standings. Jamison Bolt and Hunter Jones both finished ahead of any Northridge discus thrower, stacking points. Austin Trowbridge finished fourth in the high jump, but established his 5’10” jump before Goshen and Northridge jumpers could reach the height.
“The only way we win the meet is to have guys like that step in,” Lancaster said, noting the accomplishments of several of his roster. “I don’t know how many times we go into a track meet the past few years and come out with more first places but lose because we didn’t have any second or third places because we had no depth. This is a nice thing to have.
“We squeak by the teams, but this is nice to illustrate to the kids how important every single point is to a team. We have a one-point switch and now all of a sudden Northridge wins and we lose.”
Wawasee did have one sour note from Thursday when freshman speedster VanLue went down with an apparent hip injury during the 100-meter dash. VanLue grabbed his hip midway through the race and fell, unable to move and was helped off the course. His immediate status was unknown.
The Warrior JV runners did not record an event win, but did have a near miss in the one-mile. Sam Griner led the race for almost all four of the laps around the Foreman track, but was clipped in the final turn of the last lap by Goshen’s Colton Potter for a 5:12.60 win to Griner’s 5:13.37.
Wawasee, which is 2-0 in the Northern Lakes Conference for the first time since that 2008 season, will run again Saturday at the Fort Wayne North Side Relays. Wawasee will host Plymouth in NLC competition next Thursday.