BLOOMINGTON – After going undefeated this season, as well as winning Northern Lakes Conference, sectional and regional championships, the Warsaw girls track and field team failed to score a point at Saturday’s state finals. The 40th running of the girls track and field state finals was held at the Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex at Indiana University in Bloomington and was won by Fort Wayne Northrop with 60 points, followed by Lawrence Central’s 51. For the Warsaw Lady Tigers, they were represented in six events, but couldn’t get anyone to finish in the top nine, which would have meant a trip to the awards podium and an all-state classification. “One of our goals the last several years has been to get girls down there and perform at their best,” Warsaw coach Scott Erba said. “If they go down to the biggest meet of the year and perform at their highest level, then we’re real happy about that, whether it’s a podium finish or not.” Warsaw’s top performance was turned in by senior Jamie Lacheta, who finished 10th in the high jump after clearing 5-foot-4. South Bend Clay senior Michelle Adeniyi, Madison sophomore Emily Holland and Lawrence Central senior Addison Hall all finished their day at 5-4 too, but earned ninth, eighth and seventh place, respectively, as they cleared the height in fewer attempts than Lacheta. “It was a really strong effort, just not quite enough to get up there (on the podium),” Erba said. “But a really great performance for a first-time senior. At the state meet, there’s a lot of girls that go down there and don’t even get the opening height.” Lacheta wasn’t the only Warsaw senior making her first state finals appearance, as Megan Dearlove and Sarah Ray were in the same boat. Basketball was Ray’s only sport in her first year at Warsaw a year ago. However, this fall she showed what she could do with her legs, finishing 33rd at the cross country state finals. Leading the Lady Tigers’ distance runners following the season-long loss of defending 3200 state champion Ashley Erba, Ray excelled. Winning the NLC title in the 1600 and 3200, she was also the sectional champion in the 3200, and capped her prep career with an 11th-place finish in the 3200 (11:02.66) and was 14th in the 1600 (5:08.66) at the state meet. “The 1600 kind of took her by surprise, with how people were going out and how big of a race it is,” Erba said of Ray. “She had been in big races, but she had not seen that many girls jumping out in front of her on a track. She wasn’t all that happy with the time she had, but she came back in the 3200 and was within a second of her best time.” In the pole vault competition, Dearlove finished 16th with a height of 10-6, and showed some good composure in her first state finals appearance. “The 10-6 is her second-best jump ever,” Erba said. “A really good effort. It’s not easy. The No. 1 seed from Lake Central (junior Brooke Lambert), no-heighted, which happens in pole vault. That just shows how tough it is to get in and get going with all the nerves.” Speaking of tough, junior Jackie Ferguson was in a tough situation, seeded 27th out of 27 competitors in the 300 hurdles. Running in the first of three heats, Ferguson won her race in 45.86, finishing 17th overall. “She came in with the slowest seed and she ran a fantastic race,” Erba said. “She battled hard. I give a lot of credit to coach Ryan Hill, who’s been working with her in the hurdles the past couple of weeks.” Warsaw’s only athletes with previous state finals experience was the 1600 relay of sophomores Megan Kratzsch, Nicole Eckert and Tennie Worrell, and Ferguson. A year ago, the four finished 11th at the state meet in 4:02.10, and this year, they actually ran faster (3:59.65), but finished lower (14th). “The relay broke four minutes and knocked three seconds off what our team did last year at the state meet,” Erba said. “That was our fastest Warsaw state meet time ever, so that’s something to be excited about. We missed the school record by four-tenths of a second, and that would have been a great ending to the meet.” Along with it being the end of the meet, it also capped off a big year for the program, which hadn’t suffered a loss going into the state meet. “It’s pretty stunning when you look back on the season,” Erba said. “We had the weather issues, then to how the girls performed at the NLC (meet) and sectional, and to use a word I don’t like to use, in dominating fashion. Looking at how they compare to other championship teams we’ve had, they were the best NLC team we’ve put together. It was an amazing year with all the adversity we had with the weather and injuries. “We didn’t get all the girls out to the state meet that we wanted, and we didn’t get up on the podium like we had hoped to, but I think it was a really good finish to an outstanding year,” he added.
