The road to the Girls Track and Field State Finals begins on Tuesday, and this year, instead of the road to Bloomington, it’s the road to Indianapolis.
With Indiana University deciding not to host high school events this year because of COVID-19 concerns, this year’s boys and girls state meets will be held at Ben Davis High School on June 4 and 5. The first step in the process to get there begins with Tuesday’s girls sectional action.
Columbus East, Columbus North, Hauser and Edinburgh all will be at the Franklin Sectional, which is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. South Decatur will compete in the East Central Sectional at 5 p.m. Brown County will be in the Bloomington North Sectional at 5:30 p.m., Jennings County and Trinity Lutheran will compete in the Seymour Sectional at 5:45 p.m.
At Franklin, the ninth-ranked Bull Dogs figure to be the top challenger to No. 1 Center Grove. Columbus North is strong in the distance and throwing events, while the Trojans are solid in almost every event.
“Center Grove has a good balanced team, but we went up against them at Pike and were missing a couple of kids,” North coach Rick Sluder said. “Individuals from Franklin and Whiteland are going to be really good, too. We should advance a lot of kids to the regional across the board.”
The Bull Dogs are seeded first in five events, based on top regular-season performances. Mackenzie Barnett in the 1,600 meters and 3,200 and Emily Herndon in the shot put are top seeds, along with Columbus North’s state-leading 4×800 relay team and its 4×400 relay squad.
The Bull Dogs’ Helena Ho and La’monica Smith are seeded second and third in the 100, and Lily Baker and Julie Klaus are seeded second and third in the 800. Helen Alderfer is second in the 400, and Columbus North is second in the 4×100 relay. Smith is third in the 200, and Katherine Rumsey is third in the 3,200.
The top three in each event qualify for the May 25 Franklin Regional. Beyond the three automatic qualifiers from each of the four feeder sectional sites to that region, the next-best four performances in each event from the four feeder sectionals are added to give the regional a field of 16 athletes per event.
The Franklin and East Central Sectional sites, along with Connersville and Shelbyville, feed into the Franklin Regional. Athletes from sectionals at Bloomington North, Seymour, Jeffersonville and Terre Haute North feed into the Bloomington North Regional.
Beyond those seeded in the top three, the Bull Dogs will have other contenders including Herndon (fourth in the discus), Brianna Newell (fourth in the 1,600), Olivia Johnson (fourth in the 400), Ava Collier (fourth in the 300 hurdles), Shae Scruggs (fifth in the shot) and Ho (fifth in the 200).
Meanwhile, Columbus East has only one athlete seeded in the top four — Jordan Sims, who is the top seed in the 100. Katie Hagan is fifth in the 300 hurdles and sixth in the pole vault, Emma Gray is sixth in the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles, Caitlyn Lucas is sixth in the discus and Mallory Rupp is sixth in the 200.
“Elise (LaSell) in the high jump, and if Katie Hagan has a good day in the pole vault, she’ll be there,” East coach Glen Brown said. “All three of our relays have a shot. We may not make 1, 2 or 3, but we’ll be fast enough probably to be pulled in for at least one or two of those. We’re just going to go in and do our very best because our sectional is so fast to begin with that we hopefully get pulled in.”
The Olympians are fifth in the 4×100 and 4×400 relays and sixth in the 4×800 relay.
“All year, our goal has been just to keep improving and keep improving, and we haven’t slowed down yet,” Brown said. “Even at the (Hoosier Hills) conference meet, we came in third, but we had some personal-best times, so we keep improving. We’re going to give it our best shot and see what happens at sectional.”
Hauser is seeded 10th in the 4×100 relay, and Carly Beeker in the 300 hurdles and Marnie Schwartzkopf in the 800 are 12th. Edinburgh’s Malkia Willard is 13th in the discus.
Boys sectional action takes place on Thursday.
