PANTHERS RUN BY DEVILS IN BOYS TRACK

Kokomo Tribune - Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Cameron Dessing and Josh Everett led the way as Western’s boys track and field team won its season opener Tuesday at Russiaville.

Dessing and Everett finished as triple winners in Western’s 77-60 victory over Hoosier Conference rival Tipton.

Individually, Dessing won the 100-meter dash (:11.19) and 300 hurdles (:40.93) and Everett ran to wins in the 1,600 (5:01.40) and 800 (2:08.84).

Western coach Gary Jewell pointed to Dessing’s win in the 300 hurdles as one of the highlights of the meet.

“Cameron went head to head with Chase Bess from Tipton in the 300 and Cameron beat him for the first time in his career,” Jewell said. “It was head to head the entire way. Cameron was faster [Tuesday] in the 300 than he was in the state meet last spring.”

Dessing and Bess both reached the state meet last year.

Dessing’s other win in Tuesday’s opener came in the 4x400 relay. Nick Hackler, Reggie Manuel, Elijah Woodring and Dessing posted a time of 3:45.93.

The Panthers swept the relays. Josh Coleman, Mica Beard, Elijah Graves and Alex Newman won the 4x100 in :46.43 and Nate Nicholson, Andrew Granfield, Tyler Lechner and Josh Everetts won the 4x800 in 8:59.54.

Also for the Panthers, Beard was tops in the 200 dash (:24.09), Hackler won the 400 dash (:54.69), Josh Scott won the 3,200 run (11:13) and Zach Zentz won pole vault (9-6).

“We tried to spread guys around,” Jewell said of the Panthers’ approach to the opener. “When you don’t have a baseline to go from, you don’t really know where you are. [Tuesday] we got a good indication of where we stand at this point of the season. We have our next meet Thursday with Northwestern and Hamilton Heights and we follow it up with a big invitational down at Heights on Saturday.”

GIRLS MEET

The Panthers opened the season with a win, scoring a 77. Tipton was second with a 52 and Kokomo finished third with a 37.

“I thought it was a great start to the season, the girls were hungry to get out there,” Western coach Brandon Shawhan said. “I was pleased with the results, just an all-around really good effort, we had some PR’s right out of the gate."

Elle Rush was first in the 100 hurdles in 16.66 for Western. Other Panther winners included Grace Sullivan in the 400 (1:06.47), Bronwyn Getts in the 800 (2:37), Megan Hampshire in the 3,200 (13:23) and Kimberly Miller in the shot put (32-0). Western also earned victories in the 4x400 relay (4:38.81) and the 4x800 relay (11:30).

Jayda Andrews was a double winner for the Kats, taking first in the 100 dash at 12.5 and the 200 at 27.56. Lana Pham was first in the high jump at 5-1, while Taylor Coram took first in the 300 hurdles with a time of 56.22. The 4x100 relay team earned a first-place finish in 53.96.