Track

Dawgs and Bears vie in cold at Panther Relays

Invitational affords rivals an early barometer of each other’s strengths

By RICHARD A ROSS

WALLKILL, NY - Contending in Section 9 track and field is often as much about dealing with the exigencies of Mother Nature as it is with reckoning with the daunting challenges of area rivals.

At least this year it didn’t pour as it did during the Wallkill Panther Relays of 2006. Instead, runners, throwers and jumpers and their cadre of supportive onlookers had to deal with icy air blasts and gusty winds on April 7, conditions that increase the possibilities of stiffness and pulled muscles.

Host Wallkill offered up its fine facility to more than a dozen other teams, including the area larger school powers of Washingtonville, Cornwall and Pine Bush, and renowned out-of-area Colonie. Division Two rivals Sullivan West and Tri-Valley represented Sullivan County, which offered athletes from the rival schools a chance to reckon with each other in a non-league preview of their upcoming Division IV meet slated for April 18 at Sullivan West. The meet also allowed both programs to take stock of themselves against Section Three stronghold Fonda-Fultonville.

Spring break travel caused a couple of key participants to be missing-in-action, but times and distances logged gave both the Bears and Bulldogs an early season measure of areas that will require serious work before the division, league, sectionals and state qualifiers define individual and team top performances and titles.

In overall results, the Tri-Valley boys and girls finished ahead of Sullivan West. Last year, Tri-Valley’s boys held the early season edge as well, taking the Division IV title in the schools’ early April dual meet. But Sullivan West’s boys team strengthened as the season progressed and they went on to win the coveted Section 9 title in May. In this year’s Panther Relays, Tri-Valley came in second (131.5) to Fonda-Fultonville. Sullivan West finished fourth with 99.5 points.

Tri-Valley’s girls also bested Sullivan West in the Panther Relays, finishing second to Fonda-Fultonville with 128.5 points to the Dawgs’ fourth-place finish with 60 points. Last season, the Lady Bears bested Sullivan West for the Division IV crown but both teams felt short of the mark in sectionals, which were won by Pine Plains.

Here were some of the winners from each school in Division 2 at the Panther Relays.

Girls 2x1500 Meter Relay, Tri-Valley ‘A,’ 10:57.70 (Courtney Roosa, Meghan Drown, Rachel Sanborn and Shannon Hornbeck).

Girls 1500-Meter Championship run (staged in memory of Lt. Mark H. Dooley, a 1997 graduate of Wallkill who died in Iraq in September 2005), Sullivan West’s Rianne Erlwein took second with a time of 5:31.50.

Boys 3x400-Meter Relay intermediate hurdles, Tri-Valley took first with a time of 2:59.50 (Sean Messenger, Max Fiedler and Gavin Perrella).

Girls 4x800-Meter Relay, Tri-Valley finished first in 11:29.30 (Roosa, Drown, Sanborn and Shannon Hornbeck).

Boys 4x200-Meter Relay, Tri-Valley, 1:44.40 (Sean Messenger, Gary North, Justin Tompkins and Nick Denman).

Girls 3x100-Meter Shuttle Hurdle, Sullivan West, 55:10 (Ashley Murphy, Lindsey Murphy and Sara Alsdorf).

Boys 3x110-Meter Shuttle Hurdle, Tri-Valley, 49:60 (Fiedler, Messenger and Perrella).

Girls Distance Medley, Tri-Valley, 14:32.80 (Roosa,Drown, Sanborn and Hornbeck);

Boys Distance Medley, Tri-Valley, 11:53:40 (Fiedler, Messenger, Michael Kaplan, Denman).

Girls 4x400-Meter Relay Freshman-Sophomore, Sullivan West, 4:54.80 (Alsdorf, Lindsey Murphy, Kendra Barker and Stephany Robison).

Boys Discus, Garrett Grey of Tri-Valley, 140-9.

Boys Shot Put, Alan Ackermann of Sullivan West, 51-3.

Girls Long Jump, Kanacia James of Tri-Valley, 12-07.25.

Girls Triple Jump, James, 30-02.75.

Boys High Jump, Donald Cooper of Sullivan West, 6-0.

Girls Pole Vault, Heather Knox of Tri-Valley, 6-0.

Boys Javelin Throw, Grey, 147-02.

For complete results that include the accomplishments of the Division I winning Pine Bush boys and girls teams, along with other Section 9 entrants, visit tullyrunners.com or riverreportersports.com where you will also find an album of pictures from the meet.