SEYMOUR —The Columbus East girls track team fell short of its season-long goal of winning the Hoosier Hills Conference championship, but coach Glen Brown didn’t come away disappointed.
The Olympians scored 89 points to place fourth, and Jennings County scored 69 1/2 points to finish fifth Tuesday night at Seymour. Floyd Central won with 125 points.
“We’ve said all year we have to put ourselves in position, and we’ve got to come and do our best and we came and did our best, and tonight, it wasn’t good enough,” Brown said.
Leading the Olympians were Elena Stoughton, Beyoncey Coleman-Turner and Cortney VanLiew with second-place finishes.
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Stoughton took second in the high jump at 5 feet, 4 inches, Coleman-Turner was second in the discus with a throw of 121-11 and VanLiew finished second in the 400 meters with a time of 1 minute, 0.83 seconds. The Olympians also were second in the 4×400 relay in 4:22.76.
“Cortney did great in the 400, and in the 4×400 and the 200,” Brown said. “My throwers (Coleman and Seene Greiwe) again were 2-3 in the in the discus. They’re state caliber, and hopefully they’ll be going back to state.
“My high jumper went 5-4. She’s just a freshman and that is tremendous for her. The 800 girls came through with some phenomenal runs. Amanda (Pottorff) in the 3200, just across the board, everybody came through at some point. We had some personel bests, which in a meet like this, may not score some points, but the girls’ effort was there.”
Leading the Panthers was Kayla Truesdell with a first in the discus at 124-4 and second in the shot put at 39-0. Panthers coach Leah McLeod said Truesdell has made a lot of improvement from throwing in the mid-90s in the discus at the start of the season.
“If you look at the way Kayla started out the season in discus, she started in the 90s and progressively has just went up — 110, 112 and now we’re sitting at 124. You couldn’t ask for a better time for a kid to peak. She was pretty consistent, and we’re pretty proud of her.
“Amy Gasper (set a personal record) in the 100 hurdles (fourth, 17:51). Denza Simpson in the 300 hurdles finally broke into the 50s (fourth, 50.76), and that’s really exciting for us.”
McLeod said Ashley Heindel had a big time drop in the 3,200 to 13:11.19, and Emma Morrison also dropped several seconds. Both dropped 30-to-40 seconds.
“The way it’s going right now, if we keep doing what we’re doing, I feel the sectional will be really tough,” McLeod said. “It can go between Seymour, Brownstown and us. It will be whoever shows up and runs the best.”
