Baylee McIntyre finishes up her 200-meter dash trials at the HNAC Track Championships at Knox Thursday. McIntyre claimed the title in the 400 at the meet. (Photos by James Costello)

KNOX — Prior to the start of Thursday’s Hoosier North Athletic Conference Track Championships, Triton senior Baylee McIntyre didn’t even want to run the 400.

The race hadn’t gone well for her lately — shin splints and tendinitis in her foot were flaring up — and besides, having already run not a 200-meter trial as well as a leg of the 4×100 directly preceding the open 400 weren’t likely to help her chances there. But McIntyre’s coach insisted; she was seeded fourth in the race after all, and the Lady Trojans couldn’t afford to give away points.

The race McIntyre was so reluctant to run ended up being her best, and she capped off her HNAC career with an unexpected championship, setting a personal-best of roughly four seconds to edge out Winamac’s Hailey Sanders by .02 of a second with a winning 1:03.79 mark in a photo finish.

“I run the 4×1 and then it’s back-to-back with the 400 so I’m dead and then I have two races. And the 400 usually kills me. And my times had been slow this year — like a 1:07 was probably my best — which, I’m older, my injuries are starting to really flare up, and it was just kind of like ‘Well, maybe the 400 isn’t my thing anymore. Maybe I should focus on something different.’ He just told me ‘You’ve just got to try it.’ And that’s what I did,” recalled McIntyre of her conversation with head coach Jason Groves. “I’m really glad he talked me into it. I’m just really happy I did it.”

Headed into the final turn, McIntyre had several runners to catch. She’d started the 400 a little slower than normal, but with 100 meters to go, there was still a lot of work in front of her. She dug down deep and found something she hadn’t known was there. When it was over, she wasn’t sure if either she or Sanders had won the championship. When they told her it was her, McIntyre was ecstatic.

“Something just happened around that last corner, and I was like ‘You know what? I’m going to just go for it because I know we need points. I’m a senior, this is my last conference, I’ve just got to go push through the pain, and the outcome is whatever outcome it is.’ You’ve got to go for it,” she said.

“When they told me, everybody was like ‘You won, you won!’ It was just like ‘Oh my gosh. Really?’ I never got a conference thing as an individual. It’s always been teamwork. I went up to my parents, and they were crying. I was crying. It’s a good way to end the conference as a senior.”

McIntyre’s was Triton’s most surprising championship Thursday, but it wasn’t the Lady Trojans’ only one. Junior Abigail Powell collected a pair of blue ribbons in the two hurdles races in Knox.

Abigail Powell wins the 100-meter hurdles final ahead of Winamac’s Hailey Sanders, left, and North Judson’s Kayla Rossa, right.

Last year, Powell clipped the third hurdle of the 100s hard and never fully recovered, falling short of a championship after winning the HNAC title as a freshman. The memory of that misstep, as well as the knowledge that she and the second seed from Winamac — who else but the same Sanders McIntyre later bested in the 400 — were so closely-matched were making her nervous prior to the finals. But whatever fears Powell had proved unfounded, and she pretty much cruised to another 100-meter hurdles title with a 16.82 stop, well ahead of Sanders’ 17-second time to remain unbeaten in the race this season.

With that one already won, Powell could relax for the 300 race, where she was seeded third. It took her some time to pull away in the grueling 300s, but she simply outlasted the rest of the field, clocking a 49.02 for a second HNAC title ahead of North Judson-San Pierre’s 49.26-second mark. Redemption is a word that’s often overused in sports, but it’s one that definitely fit Powell’s performance Thursday after her disappointing conference finish last year.

“That was for sure a confidence boost,” said Powell of her win in the 100s headed into the 300s. “Not only was it confidence, but I was also like ‘OK, I’ve gotten my win under my belt so I’m already all-conference so if something bad happens, I screw up in the 300s, I’ve still got it.’ So that made me feel more comfortable.”

“I actually told Coach Groves ‘This is redemption year.’ Last year I was like ‘Are you kidding me?’ This was like I got it back and not only did I get confidence back by winning the 100s, but winning the 300s really helped, too. So, yes, this is redemption year for my conference.”

Jaela Faulkner runs the 400.

“That was just a gritty performance, I thought,” said Groves of Powell’s 300. “She kind of dug deep, and that was just her will to win in that one. She just refused to lose. I’m proud of her, too. I know she was disappointed last year, and this was redemption.”

Triton’s girls finished fifth with a total of 80.5 points over two days HNAC championships — the first the field portion Tuesday and then Thursday’s track portion. Winamac won the title with 126.5 points, and North Judson placed second in the team standings with a 110.5 score. But, with only eight athletes on the team, the Lady Trojans definitely punched above their weight class with that fifth-place finish, and they were pleased with the result.

“We have the right combination; we just need a few more,” said Groves. “These girls have done a great job. They’ve worked hard. They come in and do what they do, and it’s pretty impressive with eight girls to finish as high as we did in this meet. I’m proud of the girls. They’ve worked hard, and it means something to them, so that’s a good thing.”

Alongside McIntyre’s top finish in the 400, Triton’s girls got another strong performance from freshman Jaela Faulkner, who clocked a 1:05.81 for third place after entering the race seeded seventh as the Trojans collected 16 points in the quarter-mile alone.

“Those two girls keep getting better each meet so it’s nice to see maybe that momentum going into sectional. I was proud of them,” said Groves.

Brandon Kitch hands off to Rusty Reichard in the 3200 relay.

While the girls were happy with their performance, Triton’s boys added few points to their total from Tuesday’s opening round on the way to five total points and an eighth-place finish. Pioneer won the championship with 144.5 points, and Judson took runner-up honors on the boys’ side, too, with a 121 score.

The Trojans’ only points Thursday came in the 4×8 and the 4×4, where they finished seventh and eighth, respectively. Trenton Barnhart, Brandon Kitch, Rusty Reichard and Breighton Treech clocked 10:08.53 in the 3200 relay, and Barnhart, Hunter McIntyre, Jesse Pate and Treech recorded a 4:15.05 stop in the 1600 relay.

McIntyre finished 11th in the 400-meter finals with a 59.95 stop, Kitch was ninth in the two-mile with an 11:37.61 stop, and Page wound up 10th in the prelims of the 110 hurdles in 20.35 in the only other races where the Trojans were able to crack the top 10 in Knox.

Elsewhere at the meet, Pioneer’s Jack Kiser broke his own record in the 200 with a 22.78-second stop to repeat as HNAC champion there, while teammate Ezra Lewellen edged out Kiser for the 100 title as both broke Kiser’s old record there with times of 11.26 and 11.29, respectively. Caston’s Mitchell Rans rebroke both his own records in both the 1600 and 3200 with respective times of 4:31.85 and 9:46.78.

Hunter McIntyre runs the homestretch of the boys’ 400.