The Warsaw Community High School girls track and field team picked up right where it left off last season.
After a number of the girls earned a trip to the state finals last spring, the Lady Tigers kicked off the 2010 season with an 82-50 victory over visiting Columbia City Monday."It makes me a little more comfortable to have an idea of what we have," Warsaw head coach Scott Erba said. "Also, it's nice to be able to talk to girls and find out what they want to do - individually and as a team. Right now, I see a lot of positives."
Perhaps the biggest positive for Erba is the girl he seems to want to talk about the least, his freshman daughter, Ashley Erba.
After finishing her cross country season with a Northern Lakes Conference, sectional, regional and semistate championship, an illness ailed her at the state meet. However, to open the track season, she went 3 for 3, winning the1600 (5:24.83) and 3200 (11:51.68), while also being a part of the first-place 3200 relay (10:08.61) with senior Cendall Ogle, sophomore Brooke Kline and sophomore Lilly Fleming.
Another qualifier at this year's cross country state meet was Ogle, who also placed first in the 800 (2:32.35) Monday, an event she competed in at state last year.
"We're counting on them to do very, very well," Erba said of counting on his daughter and Ogle for points this season. "Then you put in (senior) Corinne Coon, who's been ailing a little bit, she comes in and runs a 48-second 300-meter hurdles, which as fast as she ran during the first part of last year."
Sophomore Olivia Coon also took first place in the 400 (1:04.68), joining sophomore Kelly Wildman (long jump), junior Hannah Kammerer (pole vault) and two-event winner Madison Long (100, 200) as victorious Lady Tigers in the season opener.
"We have a lot of young girls," Erba said. "We have very, very few juniors and seniors who are returning varsity athletes. A bulk of our team is freshmen and sophomores, and even the ones that are sophomores don't have a lot varsity performances.
"This year, it's about seeing what we have," he added about what he hoped to learn from the first meet of the season. "Having five weeks of practice, then getting into the meet, we just told the girls to relax, have fun and just compete. We were impressed with lot of different efforts."
Among those efforts were that of junior Emily Umbaugh in the shot put, finishing second with a distance of 34-feet, 8 inches.
"She went from not being one of our top throwers last year to being our best shot putter tonight," Erba said. "So, she's really stepping up. It's exciting to see some girls fill in holes."
The contribution of Umbaugh in the shot put will be much needed this season as the Tigers do without the services of two-time sectional champion Sarah Shilling, who opted not to compete this season.
Along with Umbaugh, freshman Ashley Murrell also caught Erba's attention in the high jump, taking second place by clearing 4-foot-10.
"She actually PR'd tonight, which is really saying something in these conditions," he said.
Warsaw gets right back on the track Wednesday at 5 p.m., hosting Penn.
