( ) -WPIAL Championship Meet Placement
* * -PIAA Championship Meet Placement
5/31/04 (5:45 pm)
All marks from the PIAA Championships are now included in the honor roll. If you have any marks that would alter the final list, please forward them to me. The All-Time WPIAL Top 25 is now updated through the 2004 PIAA Chamionships.
The weather for the PIAA Championships at Shippensburg was beautiful, but the wind did cause poorer marks than expected in some of the events. In AAA, the WPIAL, for the most part, did not have the best of meets. We were completely shut out of medals in the distance races and had a less than stellar performance in the jumping events.
Penn Hills turned in the best performance of the WPIAL schools. Besides being the highest team finisher (3rd), the Indians' were the only WPIAL school to win gold. Junior Sha-Tira Snell posted a 14.30 in the 100 hurdles final to capture the WPIAL's lone individual PIAA title. She also teamed with Raquel Bender, Channing Richardson and Jasmine Cottle to win the PIAA championship in the 400 relay. On Friday, the Indians' 1600 relay team qualified for the finals with a 3:56.03 (the fastest time run by a WPIAL team in 27 years), but injuries prevented them from lowering that time on Saturday.
The WPIAL's only silver medalist in the meet was Ringgold senior Bev Rogers. The Ram javelin ace, who has been battling a sore arm the past couple of weeks, lost out to defending PIAA champion and recordholder Ruby Radocaj of Williamsport.
Two WPIAL girls won bronze medals and both were from Upper St. Clair. Sophomore Katie Orchowski, after having to run the anchor leg in the morning's 3200 relay, came back with a gutsy performance in the 400 to earn herself the bronze medal. She also placed third last year at states. In the pole vault, USC junior Ashley Dodd cleared a personal best 11-3 to capture the bronze medal in that event. That vault also put her in sixth place on the All-Time WPIAL Top 25 list.
A recap of the AA meet is provided at the bottom of the AA honor roll.
jfaiella@webtv.net (To submit times & marks)
http://community.webtv.net/jfaiella (Home page)
