Brown, Meister Shine At Rochester [VIDEO]
ROCHESTER – It was a huge night for a pair of local track athletes at the Rochester Girls Track Sectional.
Tippecanoe Valley’s Jazzmine Brown qualified for four events and Triton’s Jaela Meister qualified for three events at next week’s Warsaw Girls Track Regional with their showings at Rochester. Needing to place fourth or better to move on, Brown and Meister were stars from a good hand full from their respective teams to move on.
Brown placed third in both the 400-meter dash (1:02.82) and was also third in the high jump with a clearance of 5-0. To end the meet, Brown ran a leg of the third-place 4×400 relay at 4:26.94 as well as helping the 4×100 relay to place fourth at 54.06.
Meister was solid in both hurdles races. Taking second in the 300-meter hurdles at 50.38, Meister also ran a 17.05 to claim third in the 110-meter hurdles. All the while, Meister kept raising the bar on the pole vault, finishing second at 8-6 which broke the Triton school record.
Valley had two others qualify in two events, one of which was an event champion. Lexi O’Connell led the sectional from start to finish in the 100-meter hurdles to win at 16.39, then took fourth in the competitive 300-meter hurdles at 51.35. Teammate Hailee Hunsberger sent both of her throws events to fourth-place distances. Her shot put distance of 33-7.25 and her discus toss of 103-00 both will move onto Warsaw next week.
Triton’s Autumn Kann slipped into next week’s regional in the high jump. After clearing 4-10, Kann’s jumps bested Plymouth’s Cassie Quissell’s 4-10 on attempts, earning the golden ticket.
Triton had one athlete land in fifth place, just on the outside. Alexandra Kann was fifth in that tight 300 hurdles race with a time of 52.47, a good two steps off O’Connell’s pace.
Breelyn Conley placed seventh for Valley in the 400-meter dash at 1:05.77. Triton had several events score points, led by both the 4×100 and 4×800 relay teams placing sixth. The sprint relay timed 56.57 while the distance relay came in at 11:45.10, over 20 seconds faster than its seed time.
Plymouth won the team title with 154.5 points, well past runner-up Culver Academy’s 93.5 points. Tippecanoe Valley were sixth with 51 points and Triton were eighth at 43 points.
The top four places from all events will compete at the Warsaw Girls Track Regional Tuesday. Events begin at 6 p.m. and will be fed from the Bremen, East Noble, Rochester and Warsaw sectionals.