Islander Track Stars Win Baker’s Dozen League Titles
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Out of 15 events at the Harbor League finals last week the Islander girls won nine and placed second in three others to dominate the individual championships. Except for Megan Mushovic and Ashlee Houston running legs on the winning 4x100 team, this was done by only four girls. Katherine Wingert dominated the distance events by winning the 3200 meter run in 12:17 on Wednesday followed by a prelim heat in the 800 to qualify for Friday’s finals. On Friday she won the 1600 in 5:38, the 800 in 2:27 and ran the lead-off leg on the winning 4x400 relay team that narrowly beat Lincoln in the near school record time of 4:09.54. The girls weren’t too upset over missing the record by a tenth of a second since it was the same team of Wingert, Jamie Klages, Beth Wittry and Nila Heurtelou that set the record last year at the CIF finals. It’s no coincidence that this same quartet dominated most of the events at this year’s league finals. Heurtelou and Wittry combined with Houston and Mushovic to best Madison by over a second in the 4x100 in 51.72 despite a handoff or two that, um, need a little more work. Heurtelou traded wins with Crawford’s Tanyshia Ridley in the sprints, placing 2nd in the 100 in 13.02 and 1st in the 200 in 26.21. Wittry won the 400 in 60.86 and placed 2nd in the triple jump with 32’ 4”. Her anchor leg on the 4x400 relay was 60.2 seconds.  Mushovic triple jumped over 32 feet as well but had a toe over the take-off board so the jump didn’t count. Klages, after soaring over 5’ 2” in the high jump to win by four inches, had the bar placed at 5’ 4 ¼” in an attempt to break the school record of 5-4 even. On her second attempt she was cleanly over but brushed the bar off with her calf on the way down. In the 100 hurdles she placed 2nd in a photo finish in 16.69 to Hoover’s Shanika White who ran 16.65. Later in the day she won the 300 hurdles in 48.28, less than a second off the current record. To put these performances into perspective; the 100 hurdles time was only 5 hundredths of a second off the old electronically timed school record (she bested it via a converted hand-time last week), she nearly got both the high jump and 300 hurdles records, and ran the third leg on the 4x400 relay which was only a tenth of a second off the record. Each year the harbor league head coaches meet at the finals to select the league’s athlete of the year for track and field events for boys and girls. The girls’ track award came down to a vote between Wingert and Klages with Wingert winning by the poll of 4-2. The coach of a candidate doesn’t get a vote so this was the decision of the other 6 coaches in the league. No one else was even considered. Wingert also won last year and would have won as a freshman had the coaches not given it to one of the other candidates because she was a senior. Katherine has now won the 800, 1600 and 3200 meter runs at league finals for three years in a row.  In the boys’ events, Brady Fitelson placed 2nd in the 100 in 11.56 and 3rd in the 200 in 23.20. He also anchored the 4x400 meter relay team, along with Reid McLean, Brad Munns and Brad Stark, that won by nearly 3 seconds over Crawford in 3:35.50. In the High jump McLean cleared 5-10 with several other jumpers but was given 3rd place based on misses. He placed 2nd in the long jump with 20’ 9.5” to Christian’s Daniel Crescitelli who jumped 21’ 10.75”. Crescitelli was last year’s Division II long jump champion and this year’s Harbor Field athlete of the year. The high jump was won by Adam Munns at 6’. Adam’s twin, Brad Munns, placed 2nd in the 3200 on Wednesday in 10:28 then struggled in the 800 prelims to qualify in 2:12. On Friday he concentrated on the 800, which he won in the stretch with a PR of 2:03.76.  David Hutchison cleared 11 feet to claim this year’s Harbor league pole vault title.  Because Jason Trueblood had hurt his knee in a nasty spill running the 110 high hurdles on Wednesday we had to pull out of the 4x100.