Kokomo Tribune - Sunday, May 01, 2011

Kokomo — For the first time in 22 years the Kokomo boys track and field team successfully defended its title Saturday in the 87th running of the Kokomo Relays at Walter Cross Field, edging Crown Point 110-109.

Marion was third with 93.5 points while Western (79.5) was fourth, Ben Davis (59) fifth, Northwestern (51) sixth, Richmond (26) seventh and Peru (15) eighth.

There was a tie on the girls side as defending champion Noblesville and five-time winner Warsaw finished knotted with 116 points apiece.

Kokomo’s girls finished third with 76, followed by Western (66), Marion (65), Richmond (50), Northwestern (36) and Peru (18).

Adrian Glover, last year’s Walter Cross Award winner, had another impact performance for the Wildkats, who hadn’t won back-to-back titles since the 1988-89 seasons.

“It felt good to win again,” said Glover, who anchored Harvey Lenoir, Troy Solomon and Tyler Pigg to capture the medley relay in 8:08.97 and came back to cruise to the 3,200-meter run crown in 10:28.55.

“I feel like there was maybe not as much pressure [to win] this year, just because we’re a lot more confident. We know what we can do.”

Crown Point’s Israel Mercado was the boys Cross Award winner with firsts in the 4x100 relay and middle distance relay, second in the 100-meter dash and third in the sprint medley relay.

John Alsup and Taylor Killings were Kokomo’s other winners — Alsup with a near-record 23 feet, 63⁄4 inches in long jump, and Killings with a time of 15.13 seconds in the high hurdles.

Also for the Kats, Robert Lancaster was third in the high hurdles while he and Killings helped the shuttle hurdles relay team finish second. In the field, Waylon Coulter was second in high jump and third in pole vault and Lenoir was third in long jump.

“It’s nice for our kids to come out on top,” coach Tom Byrnes said. “It’s great to win a few events, but it’s also just as important to have that kid that came and got that eighth-place point, because that was the difference.”

The Panthers were paced by their 1-2 punch in pole vault — Jeff Stout, who won with a vault of 13 feet, and Garrett Welker (12-6).

Brice Sheets was third in high jump with Matt Riley tied for fourth; Riley was sixth in long jump with Dakota Bagwell seventh in shot put and Jake Boswell seventh in discus.

“We found out about a few of our [athletes],” said Western coach Marvin Boswell. “Kyle Starich ... knocked about four seconds off his 800 [split] time, so that’s pretty awesome for a kid to be able to step up there in his senior year.”

Chris Love was fourth for the Panthers in the 1,000-yard run and freshman Matt Grider finished second to Glover in both the anchor of the medley relay and the 3,200.

Northwestern’s Austin Finley won his second straight high-jump title, clearing 6-3. He also placed sixth in the high hurdles and helped the shuttle hurdles team finish third behind Marion and Kokomo.

“Austin is understanding that he can do multiple things and it actually helps his high jump,” coach Dave Stevens said. “[Saturday] he ran two high [hurdles races], a shuttle [relay], high jumped and came back and ran in the sprint medley. Everything is working well for him.”

Sam Freeman placed third in the 1,000-yard run after stumbling in an attempt to pass race winner Bennie Baker of Peru in the home stretch. Ray Monroe was second in discus and Chris Hendricks was fourth in the 3,200.

Millers, Tigers tie

For the first time in 11 runnings of the girls event two teams finished tied after Noblesville and Warsaw went back and forth all day, with the Millers winning four events and the Tigers winning two.

Walter Cross Award winner Helen Willman of Noblesville captured the 1,000-yard run and led her medley relay team to victory.

The Wildkats showed third place despite the recent loss of senior standout Brielle Bonnafon, who suffered a stress fracture in her foot.

Freshman Summer Blackamore was the Kats’ lone winner. She tossed the shot put 37 feet, 8 inches. Barnes was impressed with her performance, as well as all of his ninth-grade class.

Ma-Ryssa Martin and Iesha Wallace were 5-6 in the 100-meter dash, as were Raven Pugh and Brianna Lancaster in the 100 hurdles. Those four combined to place second in the 4x100 relay.

“For Summer to step up and win shot put, that’s almost two feet beyond her personal best,” Barnes said. “This class of freshmen reminds me of last year’s seniors.”

Corinna Cottingham captured pole vault for the Panthers, clearing 10-3. Caily Tanner was second in shot put for Western and Natylee Nation was third in long jump with Breanna Cable third in discus and Sable Staller third in high jump.

“When you don’t have tons of depth, relays are sometimes tough to put together,” coach Joni McCracken said. “But the girls took what we put them in — they ran some things they were not used to running at all — and they ended up doing really well in them.”

Kylie Ballard made it a clean sweep in the high jump for the Purple Tigers. She cleared 5 feet, 5 inches for the win.