In its first home meet of the year, Warsaw's girls track and field team ran into some stiff competition Thursday.
The Penn Lady Kingsmen may have arrived at the Tigers Athletic Complex a little late, but at the end of the night, left with a 90-42 win."I knew they were going to be very good," Warsaw coach Scott Erba said of Penn. "They have been very good for a few years."
On the night, Penn took first place in 11 of the 16 events, including sweeping the top three places in the 200-meter dash and pole vault, where Lauren Rice cleared 11 feet.
"They're the defending regional champions and have a lot of great girls across the board," Erba said. "To lose to them isn't a big deal. The big thing for us is focusing on how we performed as individuals."
Erba's team evened its record at 1-1, and the coach is still working to mix in some new girls with some veterans.
"We have a lot of new faces," he said. "We have freshmen, but also have sophomores, juniors and even a couple seniors, who are going out for their first time. That's exciting. It's a lot of coaching, a lot of teaching, because a lot of the girls don't have track experience."
The lack of experience was shown in the exchange of batons and other smaller aspects, but Erba is optimistic things will gell as the season progresses.
"We've got a nice group of core runners," he said. "Now, it's a matter of putting others around them."
Among the core runners are Corinne Coon, who won the 100 hurdles (17.45) and 300 hurdles (49.07), as well as Cendall Ogle and Erica Ridderman.
"Erica and Cendall are two girls were putting a lot on," Erba said. "We expect a lot of points out of them this year, and a lot of great performances."
Against Penn, Ogle won the 1600 (5:31.94) and placed second in the 800 (2:27.35), while Ridderman took second in the 1600 (5:33.53) and fifth in the 800 (2:31.12).
The Tigers' only other first place came from another returnee, as Sarah Shilling won in shot put (36-0.5).
