WARSAW – Sometimes you have to deal the cards given to you. Happy to have a meet against two quality programs, Warsaw took the opportunity and ran with it Wednesday night. With Washington’s team speed and Penn’s heritage really the only obstacles, Warsaw’s girls track team piled up one impressive performance after another in a double win. Warsaw outdid Washington, 111-21, and trumped a short-handed Penn squad, 109-23. Penn took the dual against Washington, 79-49.

Joelle Messenger of Warsaw soars over the bar in the pole vault, on her way to the win Wednesday. (Photos by Mike Deak)

Penn held out several of its varsity roster, according to Warsaw head coach Scott Erba, to rest for the upcoming Hoosier State Relays Indoor Championships this weekend. That wasn’t reason for Erba to hold back his squad, who wanted to break open the 2016 outdoor season in style. The tea leaves in between the scores were certainly of convincing detail.

The wealth was spread throughout the extremely deep Tiger roster, with eight different individuals winning events and Warsaw sweeping the half-mile, one-mile, two-mile and long jump.

Mia Beckham sprinted to the line to win the mile in 5:16.34, with Anna Craig and Allison Miller right with her. Craig led the charge in the half-mile, winning at 2:24.65 with Hannah Dawson and Kenzie Martz also just off the pace. Emma Hayward claimed the two-mile at 12:11.75, beating Miller to the line with sisters Charlene and Lauren Orr three and four of a top-seven for Warsaw distance.

Warsaw distance coach Matt Campbell noted in the post-meet conference the trio of mile times likely are top-15 state times already, and he was positive over 80 percent of the total distance corps set personal records Wednesday night.

Claire Kehler sprints to the finish line to win the JV mile.

“We had such a good cross country season, and those girls are really motivated to continue that into the track season,” Erba said. “With the leaders in that group, I’m not surprised to see them come out and do so well. I was really happy, though, to see the JV kids in those races perform so well.”

Dawson, Martz, Brooke Rhodes and Dayton Groninger took the 4×800 relay (10:05.67), the 4×100 relay team of Maygan Bellamy, Sam Alexander, Abbi Curtis and Maykayla Clampitt edged Washington at 50.88, and the 4×400 grouping of Bellamy, Alexander, Remi Beckham and Morgan Bruner took it home at 4:25.08.

Remi Beckham won the 400 (1:04.05), Alexander soared to a 17-01.25 win in long jump with Curtis and Shunterra Davis next on the sheet, Alexie Day went 5-1 to win high jump, Joelle Messenger cleared 8-0 in pole vault and Natalie Nichols tossed the discus 95-05.5 to highlight the throws.

“I don’t know how we are doing it,” laughed Erba about March already having talking points. “We have such a core group of girls who want to achieve things. They buy in and want to get better, so they are working to get better. We saw a lot of girls – first-year girls, JV girls, whoever – they were just competing at higher levels. I’m like ‘oh, wow, I need to start that jigsaw puzzle a little sooner.’ To have so many girls who were just competing hard is so encouraging to see this early in the season.

“The key for us is going to be, can we sustain it? Can we keep up this type of level into the conference and state tournament season?”

Warsaw will take its chances this weekend at the Hoosier State Relays at Purdue, then head to Homestead next Tuesday for another quality opponent dual. The Tigers will then be off until April 12 when the Northern Lakes Conference season opens with Elkhart Memorial and Plymouth in Elkhart.

“Homestead will be a high-quality meet and then we head into spring break, where a lot of it will be put on the girls,” Erba said. “They will have a chance to recharge and relax a bit, but they will have to find opportunities to exercise and stay fit.”

Warsaw’s Alexie Day races with Penn’s Megan Darr and South Bend Washington’s Ciara Anderson in the 100 hurdles.