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Wawasee's Staci Weisser, above, placed first in the high jump with a leap of 5-3. She won the competition last year by jumping 5-2. Weisser also placed first in this year's long jump with a distance of 16-9-/2.
The rains ended Tuesday afternoon, and a few hours later so did the season for Warsaw, Wawasee and NorthWood's girls track and field teams.
The only season left for these teams is for those individuals or relay teams who placed fourth or better in Tuesday's 10-team Warsaw Sectional at Lakeview Middle School. Northridge won the team title with 91 points to move on to Tuesday's Bremen Regional. Warsaw and Elkhart Central tied for second with 80 points. NorthWood and Wawasee finished fourth and eighth, respectively, with 72 and 37 points.
Warsaw's second-place finish was a vast improvement from last year's sixth-place finish. NorthWood, who beat the Tigers in regular season action last week, finished second last year.
"The numbers are good," said Warsaw coach Paul Boyd. "That's pretty good. I couldn't be prouder, we finished ahead of NorthWood. Last week they cleaned our clock."
All three of the Tigers' relay teams will advance to next week's Bremen Regional. The 1600 relay team of Chelsea Boyd, Summer Boyd, Brittany Raber and Kim Kurosky came in seeded No. 1 and walked away with a sectional championship time of 4:12.18. Warsaw's 400 relay team finished second with a time of 51.81 seconds, and its 3200 relay team placed third with a time of 10:30.4.
"I couldn't be more proud," said Boyd. "We have a sectional champion at Warsaw. It's been a while and I still think we can run better."
Other Tigers to advance to the regionals include Ginny Gardonio in the shot put, Amy Robertson in the 400, Summer Boyd and Kim Kurosky in the 800 and Jennifer Finch in the 1600.
NorthWood took two first place finishes, Natalie Nunemaker in the discus with her throw of 36-11 and Grace Bonewitz in the 100 hurdles with her winning time of 16.39 seconds. Bonewitz won the 100 hurdles in last years sectional and came in this year with a No. 1 seed time of 15.7 seconds, a time that was half a second faster than the No. 2 seed.
"I ran that (seed time) on a really nice day," said Bonewitz. "I was worried about the girl from Concord being right on me."
Concord's Crystal Key placed second with a time of 16.57 seconds. Bonewitz was asked if winning last year's sectional put any pressure on her to repeat this year.
"Yes," said Bonewitz. Especially since it's my senior year, the last year I can prove anything. I really wanted to win this."
Other regional qualifiers for NorthWood include Natalie Nunemaker and Carol Duncan in the shot put, Cortnie Sandy in the 3200, Kim Yoder in the 300 hurdles, Michelle Stichter in the high jump and Adria Almager in the discus.
Wawasee finished the evening with two first-place finishes, both coming from Staci Weisser. The Warrior junior won the long jump competition with a leap of 16-9 1/2. Weisser also won the high jump for the second year in a row with a jump of 5-3. She won last year with a jump of 5-2.
After winning Weisser was asked if her No. 1 seed of 5-5 put any undue pressure on her.
"I don't know if it affected me," said Weisser. I was just proud to be up there. The competition was real tough."
The only other Warrior to move on the regional round is Erica Auker whose time of 50.47 seconds in the 300 hurdles was good enough for fourth-place.
