WARSAW — Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.

The Warsaw girls track team did it again. For the 10th time in a row the Lady Tigers fought, clawed, ran, jumped, vaulted and threw their way to a sectional championship.

Sam Alexander

The Tiger Athletic Complex and Fisher Field were the hosts to this years girls track and field sectional meet. The Tigers welcomed in 13 other teams then carried on to score 173 team points, well-ahead of Concord’s second place effort of 75, to claim bragging rights once again.

“Seeing the number of girls that were up and performing tonight was a great thing,” stated Warsaw head coach Scott Erba in his opening comments. “It helps us this year with fresher girls going into races but it also helps for next year to have girls that have had this experience now and know what it takes to compete at a sectional.

“It’s a stage where you do well, or you don’t advance. Now we have another group of girls that can understand that.”

There were plenty of Tigers doing well Tuesday night as Warsaw advanced athletes to the regional in an impressive 15 of 16 events. Warsaw also crowned champions in eight events.

Sam Alexander took first in the long jump with a mark of 17-2.25. Alexie Day won the high jump for Warsaw’s second field event win of the night. Day moved on with a 5-4. Joining Day in the event at next week’s regional will be Morgan Bruner, who cleared 5-3. Natalie Nichols (discus), Emily Bailey (shot put) and Joelle Messenger (pole vault) each finished third in the respective events to move on. Nichols made the jump to third after entering as the events 12th seed.

Mia Beckham was dominant is her distance events, coming as no surprise. The sophomore clocked a 5:16.75 to win the 1600 meter run and an 11:16.14 to win the 3200. Claire Kehler also qualified in the 1600 meter run with a time of 5:26.97.

Joelle Messenger

Anna Craig won the 800 meter run with her time of 2:21.95 while Emma Bohnenkamper was runner-up and moves on with a mark of 2:24.73.

Audrey Rich may have had the biggest highlight of the Warsaw runners on the night as she set a new school record in the 200 dash with a time of 25.44, enough to win her the event. Rich also won the 100 dash (12.62). Alexander was runner-up in the 100 (12.63).

Remi Beckham punched a ticket in the 400 dash. The freshman clocked in at 1:01.06, placing her third.

Warsaw won all three relays. The 4×800 (Hannah Dawson, Brooke Rhodes, Dayton Groninger and Allison Miller) ran a 9:38.77. The 4×400 (Maygan Bellamy, Alexander, Abbi Curtis, Rich) ran a 4:05.26. The 4×100 (Bellamy, Alexander, Curtis and Rich) took first with a 49.64.

Receiving call backs for Tuesday’s Kokomo Regional for Warsaw were Curtis (200 dash), Angie Sanchez-Vigil (400 dash) and Miller (3200).

“You don’t do anything completely different this week,” said Erba of preparation for Tuesday’s regional. “The girls start to see in conference, and now sectionals, especially the new girls, just how close things can be. That’s what you have to train for. You can’t let up in the last few strides because that will cost you a trip down to state or a place or just points in general. It’s a lot of mental preparation.

“We like to put them in situations at practice this week so they can get a feel for a certain scenario that they might face. That way when they get to the regional, there should really be nothing new or surprising that can happen to them and then they can feel as confident and relaxed as we’d like them to be.”

Wawasee

While the season came to an end for many, there were plenty of bright spots from Wawasee’s individuals that punched tickets to next week’s regional. Wawasee would finish seventh as a team, scoring 40 points.

“The kids that moved on here today just stuck to what they’ve been doing all season,” began Wawasee head coach Scott Lancaster. “They’ve kept improving and that’s the key to this sport, every meet just keeps building on the next until you get to the last one.”

Wawasee left the Tiger Athletic Complex knowing for sure that two of its athletes had secured a spot at the regional. By Wednesday morning Wawasee learned of additional athletes getting a regional call back.

Hannah-Marie Lamle

Hannah-Marie Lamle highlighted the day for Wawasee as she qualified for the regional in both the 300 hurdles and long jump, taking third in both events. In the long jump Lamle hit 16-1.5, edging out Jimtown’s Shawntel James (16-00). Lamle then ran a 48.45 in the 300 hurdles to punch a ticket to Kokomo. Depending on the results of the Western Sectional, Lamle received a call back in the 100 hurdles as she ran a time of 16.21 in the finals, placing her fourth.

“She may end up in three events, we’ll have to wait and see, but we know that she’s in two next week,” Lancaster said. “We’ll train for all three but we’re going to probably focus on the one or two events that she has the greatest chance at making it to state in. That will really be the focus for this next week, getting her to state in at least something.”

Alexis Manges channeled some of her early-season swag as she finished as sectional runner-up in discus throw. After hitting a slump in recent weeks, Manges was able to rebound and threw a 109-4 to take second behind Fairfield’s Andrea Hagar (116-11).

“It’s been a struggle the past few weeks because she has a flaw in her technique that she’s trying to work out and it’s just not coming around like it should,” Lancaster said of Manges’ recent struggles. “She got a pretty decent throw out there, it probably would’ve been enough to win it and then there was a questionable foul and if the throw is never measured then you can’t do anything about it. So, she’s still working through some things and hopefully by next week she’ll have it figured out.”

In what was a big surprise, Katlyn Kennedy did not make the top three in shot for Wawasee. Kennedy had, what can best be described as, an off day and would finish sixth (33-8) despite being the top seed in the field.

“It wasn’t her night and it happened at the worst possible moment,” remarked Lancaster of Kennedy’s performance. “The beauty of this part of the season is also the toughest part, you’ve got to put up or go home. Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t her night and she just wasn’t on top of her game.”

A possible silver lining remained for Kennedy as she had a small shot to make the regional on a call back and the senior lucked out with good news Wednesday morning with an invite to Kokomo.

The The 4×8 relay team of Elizabeth Zorn, Aubrey Kuhn, Kenzie Smith and Sarah Lancaster ran a PR time of 10:11.29, a 19-second improvement. Zorn also got a call back in the 1600 meter run with her time of 5:29.07.