LIZTON — The Sagamore Conference track and field meet took place on Friday at Tri-West as all-three Montgomery County schools produced at least one SAC champion. The Crawfordsville girls and Southmont boys continued their strong seasons as the CHS girls placed second with 142 points to SAC champion Lebanon’s 157. The North Montgomery girls placed sixth with 54 points and Southmont placed seventh with 33. The Mountie boys took third with 89 points behind Lebanon’s 137.50 and SAC champion Danville’s 150. The Cville boys placed fourth with 76.50 while the Charger boys took sixth with 48 points.
For the Cville girls, they walked away with producing SAC Champions in seven different events. For the third straight season Riley Gardner was the SAC champ in the high jump with a height of five feet, five inches which set a personal record for the junior. Both Guinevere Schmitzer-Torbert and Naarah Byard paced the CHS girls team as Schmitzer-Torbert was the SAC champion in both the 100 (16.75) and 300 hurdles (48.56) along with helping the 4x400 team of Caroline Melevage, Bea Swick, Byard take first with a time of 4:11.65. Byard went a perfect 4-4 on the night with wins in the 100 (12.63), 4x400, long jump (16ft. 11in.) and the 4x100 with Lily Hummel, Ally Strickland and Swick.
CHS set two school records on the night with Byard’s time in the 100 and the 4x800 relay team of Caroline and Sophia Melevage, Katherina Novak, and Skylah Strawser as they took second with a time of 10:29.22 which was seven seconds faster than the previous record.
“All of our girls efforts tonight was out of this world and I couldn’t be happier,” first-year CHS coach Amanda Elizondo said. “We set two school records and once again had people digging deep through injuries and they all shined. The girls came in knowing that if they raced their best they could compete for the title and we were so close in a couple of different spots. I’m super proud of Naarah for getting that record in the 100 because that’s something that she’s been chasing for quite awhile now. Alone with her, Sophia, Riley, Guin and the list goes on for the amazing job our girls did.”
Southmont’s boys had impressive showings all night long as well. Vince Reimondo took home three wins with the first coming as part of the 4x800 team which included Mason Cass, Sam Crum, Hunter Gray and Reimondo. They began the night with a first place time of 8:22.70. Reimondo then went to a SAC title in the 800 with a 2:00.21 and then rounded out the night with the 4x400 team of himself, Kyler McCandless, Nolan Boyer, and Tyler Petroski as the four-some were SAC champions with a time of 3:27.76.
Marlin Williams earned a SAC title in the pole vault with a height of 13 ft while Petroski finished in second at 12ft 6 in. Waylon Gomez placed second in the shot put with a distance of 46ft 5in. Overall on the night, Mountie coach Shelley Allen was proud of the her boys team performed against the best the conference has to offer.
“We had some great runs and to finish third going up against this kind of competition is a good accomplishment that our boys should be proud of,” Allen said. “We know that we can count on both Marlin and Tyler in the pole vault. Our 4x400 team has been one of our anchors all season long and they ran fantastic and to have a Vince win in three different events, it was an all-around good night for us.”
Other SAC champions for the three county schools came in the boys 110 hurdles with Cville’s Alec Saidian winning with a time of 15.42 and North Montgomery’s Owen Utterback who took first in the long jump with distance of 22ft 4 1/4 in. The Chargers also got a second place finish from sophomore Ella McManomy with a time of 1:01.46. Utterback also placed third in the 200 (23.43) and second in the 400 with a 50.07 which broke Utterback’s school record that he set at the county meet.
Charger coach Josh Thompson took the time to compliment his runners for their performances.
“For Owen to pull out the title in the long jump, that was one of his goals that he wanted coming in and I’m super pumped for him,” Thompson said. “Setting another school record in the 400. I thought our boys throwers (Jacob Rice in shot put and Gunar Hardy & Andy Veselji in discus) did well. Our girls 4x100 did a great job and out performed themselves. Now it’s about putting it all together for all of us and seeing what we can do to put them in the best position possible to get out the sectional.”
The girls sectional is set to take place Tuesday with Southmont traveling to Zionsville while CHS and North will be at Harrison. The boys will compete on Thursday with South going to Plainfield and CHS and North going to West Lafayette. The top three finishers in each event move on to the Regional.
