Warsaw’s Emma Bohnenkamper crosses the line first with teammate Mia Beckham just behind her in the final of the 1,600-meter run at the Kokomo Girls Track Regional. (Photos by Tim Creason)

KOKOMO – After a fruitful sectional series, the Warsaw girls track team continued its successful 2018 campaign with top showings at Tuesday night’s Kokomo Girls Track Regional.

Mia Beckham had a standout night, winning the two-mile with authority at 11:19.24 and helping Warsaw to a one-two finish in the mile. Beckham and teammate Emma Bohnenkamper continued to excel in the mile run, but on Tuesday, Bohnenkamper got the late push and won the race at 5:09.87 with Beckham in second at 5:10.64.

Warsaw in total qualified seven athletes and relays to the IHSAA State Finals with top-three performances. The 4×800 relay team of Angie Vijil-Sanchez, Ashlynn Hepler, Adree Beckham and Remi Beckham were third at 9:48.24, and Maygan Bellamy joined Vijil-Sanchez, Adree Beckham and Remi Beckham to take third in the 4×400 relay at 4:02.38.

Alexie Day was second in high jump at 5-5 and Abbi Curtis snuck into the state finals in the 200 at 25.95 in third place, just a half-second faster than NorthWood’s Riley Hershberger.

The Tigers will have a few waiting by their phones for a potential call-back to state after Remi Beckham was fourth in the 800 (2:22.41), Bellamy fourth in the 400 (1:00.40), Caitlin Kehler fourth in pole vault (10-2), Kendall Menzie fifth in the long jump (17-3.25), Morgan Bruner seventh in high jump (5-1) and Lynae Dawson seventh in discus (106-10).

Warsaw, unfortunately, saw an end come for its 4×100 relay team. After setting a record at the sectional last week, the Tigers had an exchange error and were disqualified, taking its top-seeded relay out of the regional.

“Mia did very well,” noted first-year Warsaw head coach Megan Davis, who guided her team to a regional championship with 83 points, well ahead of runner-up Penn’s 66 points. “She was much better in the 3,200 this week than at sectional. She was more aggressive and was strong in taking first place. That was a tough double for her, but she made it look easy. She did what she needed to do.

Warsaw’s Kendall Menzie prepares for flight in the long jump.

“We had a lot of good performances. Remi did very well, running the four-by-eight, then barely missing the open eight and coming back to anchor the four-by-four. That’s a crazy night and she did well with all of it. Our four-by-eight was a little trickier than expected, and Penn is very, very good. We as coaches now have a week to see how we want to stack it for the state finals.”

The regional team title was the ninth overall for the Warsaw program and its seventh straight. It comes one week after the Warsaw ladies claimed the program’s 12th straight sectional championship.

NorthWood’s one automatic state qualifier was a good one, as Erica Stutsman will return to Bloomington for a final time as champion of the 800. The senior broke away from the pack in the final lap to win at 2:18.60. Stutsman finished third in the 800 a year ago at the state finals.

Wawasee will have two athletes with outside shots at a state call. Thrower Sara Pritchard took sixth in discus with a personal best of 111-2 and Bailey Mayhew continued to outdo herself in the 800, running 2:26.88 to take fifth in just her third time ever in the event.

“To PR at a regional meet, I can’t complain,” said Wawasee head coach Doug Slabaugh of Pritchard, who also threw 35-6 in shot put, which was a two-foot PR but landed ninth overall and out of qualification consideration. “Sara had a huge day for us. She had a total of four PRs throughout, which is awesome. She had a great junior year, worked on a lot of footwork in the offseason and just kept getting better.

“Today wasn’t the best tactical race for Bailey,” continued Slabaugh. “The front group made a surge at the 450 mark, and when Bailey got out of her box, she couldn’t catch up. It wasn’t her best time, but it was only her third 800 race.”

Other notables from the regional were champions from the Northern Lakes Conference from Concord in the 4×100 relay, Jill Kissinger of Goshen in the 300 hurdles and CeCe Robinson of Plymouth in the shot put. Elkhart Memorial’s Morgan Dyer also qualified for state in both the one-mile and two-mile.

The top three finishers in each event Tuesday night automatically qualify for the State Finals on June 1 at Indiana University in Bloomington.

IHSAA GIRLS TRACK REGIONAL

At Kokomo

TEAM SCORES:  Warsaw 83, Penn 66, Concord 43, Mishawaka 43, South Bend Adams 34, Northwestern 23, Plymouth 22, Pioneer 22, Culver Academies 21, Northridge 21, Elkhart Memorial 20, North Miami 20, Kokomo 20, Lewis Cass 17, Columbia City 17, Goshen 17, South Bend Washington 16, NorthWood 15, Elkhart Central 15, Mishawaka Marian 13, Rochester 13, Tipton 10, John Glenn 9, Maconaquah 9, Wawasee 7, Logansport 7, Fairfield 7, Bremen 6, Peru 4, South Bend Riley 2, LaVille 2.

4 x 800 relay:  1, Penn (Lauren Frank, Danielle Spring, Brooke Neal, Nicole Marshall) 9:32.86. 2, Columbia City (Eden Oddou, Lauren Keller, Gabrielle Fry, Lillian Oddou) 9:44.45.  3, Warsaw (Angie Sanchez-Vijil, Ashlynn Hepler, Adree Beckham, Remi Beckham) 9:48.24.  4, Elkhart Central 9:50.38. 5, Mishawaka 10:21.24. 6, Northridge 10:12.15. 7, Riley 10:26.08.  8, Northwestern 10:27.53.

100 hurdles: 1, Joselyn Mwenifumbo (Adams) 14.59. 2, Rylin Bagarus (Mishawaka) 15.11. 3, Alyssa Tincher (Logansport) 15.19. 4, MaKayla Miller (Concord) 15.54. 5, Makayla Pfefferkorn (Northwestern) 15.59. 6, Jasmine Riffell (Concord) 16.49. 7, Makayla Peebles (Washington) 16.56. 8, Olivia Elledge (Fairfield) 17.29.

100: 1, Tionna Brown (Kokomo) 11.71. 2, Paishence Johnson (Mishawaka) 12.01. 3, Oniste Thomas (Concord) 12.39. 4, Makayla Clampitt (Warsaw) 12.41. 5, Claire Pittman (Washington) 12.43. 6, Shelby Heerschop (Northridge) 12.66. 7, Janiy’a Coleman (Adams) 12.74.  8, Joan Easter (Northwestern) 12.91.

1600: 1, Emma Bohnenkamper (Warsaw) 5:09.87. 2, Mia Beckham (Warsaw) 5:10.64. 3, Morgan Dyer (Elkhart Memorial) 5:11.34. 4, Brooke Neal (Penn) 5:16.33. 5, Nadia Winegardner (Maconaquah) 5:22.50. 6, Jana Fisher (Concord) 5:25.04. 7, Nicky Scher (North Miami) 5:29.39. 8, Miah Martin (Lewis Cass) 5:33.40.

4 x 100 relay: 1, Concord (Oniste Thomas, Janiyla Holloway, Jasmine Riffell, Jasmine Hudson) 50.36. 2, Mishawaka (Indiah Jones, Deijana Smith, Claire Shide, Paishence Johnson) 51.12. 3, Marian (Carlondrea Petty, Kassady Chudzicki, Lindsey Matthew, Chloe Lentych) 51.47. 4, Adams 51.75. 5, Penn 51.96. 6, Northwestern 52.19. 7, Elkhart Memorial 52.26. 8, Columbia City 52.34. DQ — Warsaw, South Bend Washington.

400: 1, Jemmia Pennix (Penn) 57.77. 2, Erin Anderson (Culver Girls Academy) 59.04. 3, Jasmine Hudson (Concord) 59.32. 4, Maygan Bellamy (Warsaw) 1:00.40. 5, Joan Easter (Northwestern) 1:01.86. 6, Jayda Miller (Elkhart Central) 1:02.44. 7, Margaret Gallagher (Goshen) 1:02.51. 8, Kayla Leady (Penn) 1:02.96.

300 hurdles: 1, Jillian Kissinger (Goshen) 45.16. 2, Joselyn Mwenifumbo (Adams) 47.04. 3, Cecilia Delinski (John Glenn) 47.14. 4, Madison Kreil (Mishawaka) 47.79. 5, Kelsi Carrico (Penn) 48.08. 6, Kacee Peters (Plymouth) 49.08. 7, Harley Boocher (Bremen) 49.31. 8, MaKayla Miller (Concord) 49.78.

800: 1, Erica Stutsman (NorthWood) 2:18.60. 2, Marissa Rivera (Culver Girls Academy) 2:18.85. 3, Nicole Marshall (Penn) 2:21.76. 4, Remi Beckham (Warsaw) 2:22.41. 5, Bailey Mayhew (Wawasee) 2:26.88. 6, Kaitlyn Carothers (Plymouth) 2:27.76. 7, Mackenzie Campbell (Pioneer) 2:28.45. 8, Emma Bohnenkamper (Warsaw) 2:28.46.

200: 1, Tionna Brown (Kokomo) 24.74. 2, Paishence Johnson (Mishawaka) 25.21. 3, Abbigail Curtis (Warsaw) 25.95. 4, Riley Hershberger (NorthWood) 26.55. 5, Oniste Thomas (Concord) 26.56. 6, Janusha Cooray (Penn) 26.61. 7, Kalista Lemberis (LaVille) 26.91. 8, Jasmine Hudson (Concord) 27.63.

3200: 1, Mia Beckham (Warsaw) 11:19.74. 2, Kelsey Tyler (Rochester) 11.21.80. 3, Morgan Dyer (Elkhart Memorial) 11.23.30. 4, Mallory Hiatt (Rochester) 11:29.05. 5, Summer Cooper (Concord) 11:29.97. 6, Jenna Miller (Northridge) 11:34.17. 7, Madison Winegardner (Maconaquahg) 11:34.99. 8, Lauren Dibley (Elkhart Central) 11:36.79.

4 x 400 relay: 1, Penn (Brooke Neal, Nicole Marshall, Kelsi Carrico,  Jemmia Pennix) 4:00.00. 2, Northridge (Ariana Stoltzfus, Madison Sorg, Leah Stacker, Shelby Heerschop) 4:01.81. 3, Warsaw (Angie Sanchez-Vijil, Adree Beckham, Maygan Bellamy, Remi Beckham) 4:02.38. 4, Culver Girls Academy 4:05.92. 5, South Bend Adams 4:08.45. 6, Northwestern 4:09.94. 7, Goshen 4:10.96. 8, Marian 4:11.32.

High jump: 1, Faith White (North Miami) 5-6. 2, Alexie Day (Warsaw) 5-5. 3, Claudia Marohn (Plymouth) 5-3. 4, Cassandra Burdge (Columbia City) 5-2. 5, Harley Boocher (Bremen) 5-1. 6, Julia Adams (Glenn) 5-1. 7, Morgan Bruner (Warsaw) 5-1. 8, Mya Shively (Logansport) 5-0.

Long jump: 1, Claire Pittman (Washington) 19- 2 ½.  2, Faith White (North Miami) 18-5 ¼.  3, Olivia Elledge (Fairfield) 17-6.  4, Makala Pfefferkorn (Northwestern) 17-5 ¾.  5, Kendall Menzie (Warsaw) 17-3 ¼. 6, Jillian Kissinger (Goshen) 17-2. 7, Raygan Plothow (Maconaquah) 16-8. 8, Rylin Bagarus (Mishawaka) 16-2 ¼.

Shot put: 1, Cece Robinson (Plymouth) 39-3 ½. 2, Madison Kauffman (Pioneer) 39-3 ¼. 3, Averi Parker (Lewis Cass) 39-1 ¾. 4, Alecia Parker (Adams) 38-10 ¼. 5, Kelsie Kelley (Peru) 37-7.  6, Abbigail Garwood (Penn) 36-11. 7, Trinity Clinton (Penn) 36-1 ½. 8, DeJanea Johnson (Elkhart Memorial) 35-11 ½.

Discus: 1, Averi Parker (Lewis Cass) 134-3. 2, Madison Kauffman (Pioneer) 125-2. 3, Mia Pulianas (Elkhart Central) 123-10. 4, Tiana Roundtree (Elkhart Memorial) 116-8. 5, Anna Coil (Northridge) 113-7. 6, Sara Pritchard (Wawasee) 111-2. 7, Lynae Dawson (Warsaw) 106-10. 8, Devyn Miller (Mishawaka) 104-11.

Pole vault: 1, Taylor Pierce (Tipton) 11-6. 2, Amanda George (Penn) 11-2. 3, Kassady Chudzicki (Marian) 10-10. 4, Caitlin Kehler (Warsaw) 10-2. 5, Kayla Hill (Pioneer) 9-10. 6, Mariah Schaefer (Columbia City) 9-10. 7, Catie Smith (Northwestern) 9-6. 8, Natalie Tubb (Maconaquah) 9-6.

NOTE: Top 3 finishers in each event advance to IHSAA state finals in Bloomington on Friday, June 1.