WARSAW – How often do you hear of a track team winning a championship without a championship? Warsaw managed to pull off the feat Tuesday night, taking the Warsaw Girls Track Regional championship with nary an individual title holder. Warsaw’s 79 team points, seven better than runner-up Penn, did have plenty of gusto as there will be a lot of black and orange racing in Bloomington in June.

Warsaw didn’t have an event champion, but had six runner-up finishes and and two more competitors finish third to all claim state berths June 6 at the IHSAA Girls Track State Finals. The top three finishers in each event earned automatic qualifiers to state.

Warsaw was more than happy to pose for the cell phone cameras holding its fourth straight ‘Regional Champions’ placard, but coach Scott Erba knows this team had to work extremely hard in an ultra-balanced field.

“A lot of things went really well for us today, some better and some not as good as we thought,” stated Erba. “We just missed some points in the 100 and 1600, but we made up points in other areas. This was just a really competitive regional. You look around at the times today and the distances in the field, and there are a lot of those that go to state a couple years ago.”

All three of Warsaw’s relays were runners-up. The 4×800 team of juniors Hannah Dawson and Brooke Rhodes and sophomores Anna Craig and Allison Miller navigated an oncoming downpour to finish at 9:31.49 behind Penn. The Kingsmen also got the Tiger 4×400 relay, winning at 4:00.73 to Warsaw’s quartet of seniors Nicole Eckert, Jazzmine Brown and Tennie Worrell and junior Audrey Rich’s 4:02.31.

South Bend Adams, which finished third as a team with 69 points, beat Warsaw to the line in the 4×100 by .10 at 48.34 in a fantastic sprint to the line between Adams’ Jessiyah Lottie and Warsaw’s Rich. Adams’ win was a regional record, taking out Warsaw’s 2014 time of 48.52. Rich, along with senior Mariah Harter, junior Sam Alexander and freshman Abbi Curtis, will head to State. The 4×100 team of Harter, Rich, Alexander and Ann Harvuot won the regional title in 2014 and then were state runner-up.

Eckert was second in the 300 hurdles (45.77), Miller was third in the 3200 (11:34.40), Rich was second and teammate Alexander was third in the 200 dash at 26.22 and 26.42, respectively.

Alexander then left the finish line of the 200 and completed her long jumps, where her best sailing at 17-5 placed second overall.

“I’d say I’m pretty happy, I’m going to state,” Alexander said, who noted near misses the past two seasons were still weighing on her mind. “It’s like ‘yes, I’m finally going’. I didn’t win, but I am really happy. I’m going to state, and that’s a win for me.”

Warsaw also had junior Rebecca Lemon clear 10-0 on her final attempt of the quarters but was unable to go any higher, settling for fourth in the pole vault.

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Wawasee will have one athlete making the trip to B-Town in junior Katlyn Kennedy. The shot put specialist for the Warriors was seeded third coming into the event and finished right there, taking third. Her best throw of 37-1 was more than a foot clear of fourth. Elkhart Memorial’s Deanna Cornelius, also the discus champion, was the top shot putter at 42-03.75 with Culver’s Mickella Hardy second at 39-02.50.

“Most of this is routine,” Kennedy said after receiving congratulations from over a dozen supporters. “I like to stay in a routine and I think that showed with the distances I threw. I’m just happy to sit top-three and make it to state. That was the goal.”

Wawasee had four total events land a top-10 finish, with senior Hannah Winters placing eighth in the discus (105-7), freshman Hannah-Marie Lamle taking ninth in the 300 hurdles (48.64) and the 4×800 relay team of senior Sarah Harden, freshmen Aubrey Kuhn and Reagan Atwood and sophomore Delanie Bame taking ninth at 10:25.18.

Whitko standout sophomore Kaitlyn Reed was fourth in the high jump at 5-4, intertwining the rain storm and prelims for the 100 dash to claim her height. Reed earns a trip to Bloomington by making the state standard height at 5-4.

Lexi O’Connell broke the Tippecanoe Valley school record in the 100 hurdles with her time of 15.85, but was just a half step shy of Adams’ Tajaa Fair at 15.76 for third place and the automatic state bid. State or not, the junior from Valley was overjoyed about her race.

“I just ran as fast as I could go and kept an eye on the person next to me,” O’Connell said, smiling ear to ear. “It was close. This still feels really good, whether I go to state or not. I ran my personal best, which is all I could ask for.”

Whitko senior Elaine Warner closed out her spectacular track career with her top effort of fifth in the long jump at 17-00.25. Warner was a state qualifier in the long jump in 2014 after making the state standard with a jump of 17-06.50 to place ninth in the Fort Wayne Northrop Regional field.

The Whitko 4×100 relay team of Reed, Warner, senior Reghan Craig and sophomore Abby Overmeyer set a school record with their time of 50.79. That broke the old school mark set back in 1986.

Mishawaka senior distance ace Anna Rohrer again wowed the crowd with a double-win in the mile and two-mile races. Rohrer won going away in the mile at 4:54.31, then came back to run a meet record of 10:23.88, breaking Culver Academy’s Waverly Neer’s mark by .78 set in 2011. Rohrer, who has already won state titles in both track and cross country, has signed to run at Notre Dame next season.