Precise Germantown girls track team gets just enough to defend NSC relays crown
Hurdle teams set two league records
May 3, 2013
Germantown girls track coach Greg Siegert was talking to one of his assistants in the days before the North Shore Conference on May 1 and he made an interesting prediction, one that would prove eerily prescient.
"I told him that I thought we'd score about 88 points," he said, "and that in the best case scenario, we'd win the meet by about four points."
He was almost dead on the mark with those contentions.
Behind two conference record setting victories by the hurdle trio of Jennifer Ellis, Sammie Gassner and Leah Wheaton, the Warhawks successfully defended their title with 87 points, to edge out league indoor champ Whitefish Bay, by - you guessed it - four points.
In a rain and cold-truncated spring, the victory was a warm zephyr of a reassuring breeze for the Warhawks, who, like everyone else at the meet, were pleased with the sunshine and the 60-plus degree temperatures at Cedarburg that day.
"It was a good feeling," Siegert said. "You got off the bus, it was a nice day. The weather had cooperated for once and what a great effort. We have such a young team across the board. They can get down so easily, but they understood that because of the way the weather has been, that their time is precious and they really took advantage of that."
"Hey, the last time we were running, it was snowing out," laughed sprint ace Jayne Bertieri.
The Warhawks now take part in the Cedarburg Invitational on Friday and look forward to hosting the North Shore Outdoor meet at 4 p.m. May 14.
Bay scored 83 points for the runner-up spot at the Relays while Cedarburg was third with 77 and Homestead fourth with 70, making certain that the outdoor meet will be a wide-open affair.
Germantown's four-point margin was not secured until the final event, the 1,600-meter relay.
"I told the kids that we had going in, that we would have to do pretty well in that race if we wanted to win (the team title)," Siegert said. "I knew Bay was going hard after that race and that we could probably do no worse than fourth if were to get it done."
And behind a veteran and somewhat
tired grouping of Ellis, Wheaton, Gassner and Bertieri, the Warhawks did
get it done, taking fourth in 4:21.7 as Bay won the race in 4:11.57.
Sprinters
have huge day
All four of those runners had huge
days, no more so than the aforementioned hurdlers.
First they knocked off 0.28 of a
second off a 21-year old record in the 300 high hurdles (49.82) and then the
trio were even more dominant in the 900 low hurdle relay, taking 0.3 of a
second off a three-year mark, as in their separate 300 hurdle races, Ellis
(48.4), Gassner (48.42) and Wheaton (50.1) swept the top three individual
places.
Siegert felt great for Gassner, a
performer who se track career has been marred by injury and bad luck, but who
is finally earning all she has worked for.
"She really has come full
circle," Siegert said. "She's really capturing what it's all about in
the final portion of her senior year."
Bertieri understands that point,
too, as she anchored the 400 relay team that included Gassner, Bethany
Laubenheimer and Erika Bethhauser to a new school record and a 1.37 second
victory in 50.03.
Bertieri has worked with Laubenheimer and Gassner for years but noted
that the newcomer Bethhauser is something special.
"She's new, but she's so
good," Bertieri said. "She's the one who's going to get us to
state."
Field
events score well
Behind those victories, the Warhawks
took four second place finishes, all in the field events.
They included the high jump team of
Beth Kuske, Madeline Heupel and Bethhauser (14 feet-4 inches); the long jump
trio of Gassner, Bertieri and Laubenheimer (45-8 1/4 ); the triple jump
team of Laubenheimer, Bethhauser and Lizzy Gilbert (95-5 1/2); and the discus
crew of Katelyn Turner, Maddie Stewart and Rachel Claussen (266-5).
A third was taken by the shot put
team of Turner, Claussen and Becky Bruenig (89-3) while fourths went to the
3,200 relay team of Andrea Brown, Hannah Knapp, Sarah Ahles and Calli Lemke
(10:52.4); and the 6,400 relay unit of Julia Schroeder, Lucy Delain, Kaitlyn
Ditloff and Kimmie Karin (24.58.6); and the distance medley team of Brown,
Alyse Barelmann, Knapop and Lemke (14:09.16).
Lemke held off a Homestead runner by
0.2 of a second for fourth in the distance medley giving the Warhawks two more
badly needed points.
Siegert said that kind of effort was
key in claiming this title.
"This was sort of like last
year," he said. "We thought we could do some things that others
couldn't and it turned out pretty much like I thought. I keep a spread sheet
with me all the time at meets like this with all the totals on them.
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