ROCHESTER — Already facing an uphill climb at the Rochester Girls Track and Field Sectional due to low turnout this year, Whitko’s climb got even steeper when star jumper/ sprinter Kaity Reed was sidelined with a broken toe last month.

A false start in the finals of the 100, where the Wildcats held the top seed, made it even tougher on Whitko, and they wound up finishing in the middle of the pack at Tuesday’s tournament in Rochester.

Culver Girls Academy captured its first team title since 2013, upending newcomer Bremen after the Lions won a program-first sectional championship in their first year in the Rochester field last year, while Plymouth placed second, 12 points behind CGA’s 120 score. Manchester was fifth with a score of 68.5, Triton was seventh with 35 points, Whitko finished with 33 points for eighth place, and Tippecanoe Valley rounded out the standings with a score of 24.

“We could have had one-two in the 100, one-two in the 200, possibly winning the high jump. It was a little frustrating, but you take what you can get,” said Whitko head coach Gary Sims.

What the Wildcats got were three berths at next Tuesday’s South Bend St. Joseph Regional.

Suzanne Sickafoose won the 200 with a 27.12 time, .48 of a second ahead of Plymouth’s Rachel Crawford, and the duo swapped places in the 400 as Sickafoose took second behind Crawford’s winning time of 59.45 with a 1:01.16 stop there. Lyndsey Sapp set a personal best in the shot put with a toss of 33-00.25 for third place in the team’s final regional-qualifying finish of the evening.

Sickafoose was hoping to punch her ticket out to regional in the 100 as well, and she owned the top seed time coming into Tuesday’s meet — the only sub 13-second seed time and a half-second ahead of second-seeded Tahnee Fuentes of Manchester. But a false start in the finals preempted a possible championship in the event, and the Grace College signee had to settle for one title and one runner-up result at Rochester.

It was disappointing to be sure, but the consolation prizes weren’t so bad for Sickafoose, a program 400-meter record-holder who only narrowly missed a state berth in the quarter-mile at last year’s regional meet.

“We were hoping to get her to regional. She just missed state last year in the 400 by just a few tenths of a second. We were hoping to get another shot at that, getting her to state, so we’ve got another meet coming up,” said Sims.

“I’ve been looking at area times, and, surprisingly, she’s got a good shot at the 200. That’s not something that we anticipated early season, but everything is starting to fall in place for her.”

Sickafoose’s disappointment in the 100 meters left the door open for Tippy Valley sophomore Sarah Tucker, and she was all too happy to step through it.

Seeded fifth in the sprint in advance of Tuesday’s meet, Tucker clocked 13.81 in the prelims to easily make the top eight cut into the finals, then nosed out Triton’s Mariah Musilli by less than a tenth of a second with a 13.6 time for third place behind runner-up Fuentes and Emily Bickel of Bremen and the right to advance to next week’s regional.

“She was aware of the times, but also you’ve got to just be positive. You’ve kind of got to erase that,” said Lady Vikings head coach Jenny Moriarty of Tucker. “Just with the false start with Whitko, that right there kind of eliminated the number one seed, and that was for her, kind of like, ‘Oh wow.’ That was her competition. We knew that would push her. We were glad she was seeded next to (Sickafoose); she needed that push so that was good for her. We were actually focusing on her: ‘Stay with her. That’s where you’re going to be able to excel in that.’ But we’re very proud of her. She’s worked really hard all season.”

Tucker’s was Tippy Valley’s only regional-qualifying performance Tuesday, but there were other solid performances for the overwhelmingly young team.

Hannah Gibbons didn’t place in the shot put, but her 29-6.75 toss represented a PR. Olivia Smith finished sixth in the high jump with a 4-8 clearance, and Haley Hoover — who only started competing in the high jump mid-season — was also a bright spot in the event with a 4-6 leap for eighth place.

But particularly pleasing for Moriarty were the performances of freshmen sprinters Caleigh Bryer and Valeria Jimenez and frosh distance runner Jayden Kolesiak. Moriarty is sad to see her two seniors, Taneisha Brown and Breanna Kruger, leave the program, but the first-year head coach is also excited about what the future holds.

“We’re going to miss our two seniors. We have a lot of young girls that we’re excited to see where they’ll go,” said Moriarty. “That’s what we’re telling them: ‘You’re freshmen. That’s upperclass you’re running against. Just to be competing at sectionals as a freshman is a huge accomplishment.’

“We’re excited also with the eighth grade class coming up. We’ve got some great distance girls in there.”

Like Tippy Valley, Triton collected just one regional berth Tuesday.

Also like the Vikings, the Trojans roster featured just two upperclassmen. One will bid farewell to the program after finishing just on the wrong side of the bubble in her specialty, while one came up short in two events before finally punching her ticket with Triton’s 4×100 relay to extend her senior season.

Musilli was out-leaned by Tucker in the 100 meters to place fourth there with a time of 13.67 seconds, and her best long jump of 14-05.25 left her in ninth place in that event, but she did earn a slot at St. Joe alongside Briana Wilhite, Abigail Powell and Baylee McIntyre in the 400-meter relay as the Trojans crew clocked a 53.36-second time for second place behind Bremen’s winning time of 52.63.

Coming off the mile run, Wilhite kept Triton within striking distance in the opening leg of the relay, while McIntyre caught her squad up, and Powell battled through some swelling in her knee to keep the Trojans on pace before handing off to Musilli, who finished off the regional-qualifying run for her team.

“She usually racks up a lot of points for us each meet, and it’s nice to see her get out in something with the 4×1. She was close in the 100, close in the long jump, but it’s nice to see a senior finish strong,” said Triton head coach Jason Groves of Musilli.

“The 4×1 team has steadily gotten better throughout the year. Looking at the teams, we knew it was going to be close. We ran really well at our conference meet last Tuesday, and we had a really good time. We knew if we could run somewhere similar to that time, we had a chance getting out.

“They did a great job; I was proud of them.”

While Musilli made it out with Wilhite, McIntyre and Powell, fellow senior Katie Hepler fell heartbreakingly short of advancing in the pole vault.

Hepler’s 7-6 finish was well below her 8-foot seed, and it left her in fourth place Tuesday, a foot below Plymouth sophomore Madison Smith’s third-place vault.

“It was tough to see. She got out last year, so she was pretty disappointed. She was upset, but she had a great senior year, so we’re proud of her,” said Groves.

Manchester boasted a grand total of six different regional berths at Rochester, and three of them belonged to star senior Rae Bedke.

Bedke was never pushed as she coasted to wins in both the 1600 and the 3200 with respective times of 5:25.82 and 11:59.49. She bested CGA’s Marissa Rivera by nearly 10 seconds in the mile and shadowed Rochester’s Kelsey Tyler until the final 600 meters of the two-mile before overtaking her on lap seven and cruising to the win, crossing the finish line with a smile on her face.

“She held back; did you know that? That’s not near what she can do,” said Manchester coach Julie Cassel of Bedke. “I know it was paining her, but the distance coach… just wanted her to lay back and save herself a bit. She was 20-some seconds off her PR this year in the mile, and I don’t know how many seconds in the two-mile. But she’s just awesome.”

Bedke also anchored her team’s third-place 4×400 behind Melissa Saucedo, Kara Kline and Fuentes — who had earlier placed second in the 200 and ran a PR split in the 1600 relay — as the Squires clocked 4:30.36 behind Plymouth’s runner-up 4:24.8 time.

Manchester’s 4×800 squad also made the cut out to regional with a third-place finish, and that young crew did it without the help of Bedke. Sydney Deifenbaugh, Jaelyn Webb, Maddy Evans and Clara Burdette combined for a time of 11:10.4 behind Rochester’s 10:50.2 stop to claim the last ticket out to St. Joe.

The Squires’ final regional berth was earned by thrower Bailey Sewell, who PR’d with a throw of 125-04 for third place and the right to advance.

It was a solid showing for Manchester, which was unbeaten going into the season finale.

“The whole season we’ve done very well as a team. These girls were undefeated up until today. They won county, conference, Churubusco Relays so they’ve really had a very good season,” said Cassel.

“All of them are just really hard-working kids. And I told them before we started I wasn’t ready to see the season end so I’m so glad that we got girls moving on. We are very proud of them.”