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Republished with permission granted by The Washington Newspaper Publishing Co. LLC d/b/a MediaDC. Back to Montgomery Journal articles
B-CC Girls Win Woodward Title
By Donna Niewiaroski
Special to the Journal
B-CC's Stacy Browne takes the handoff from teammate Jill Vialet en route to one of the Barons' seven victories in Saturday's Woodward Relays. B-CC easily won the girls title with 71 points.
B-CC's girls track coach Kerry Ward is destroying the old adage that there is strength in numbers. He won the Woodward Relays, Montgomery County's early season invitational, on Saturday with only 12 girls who breezed to an easy 71 points. Seneca Valley and Blair, who tied for second, could only manage 32 points when the final results were tallied.
Ward's efficient use of his runners earned him a victory in seven out of the eight scored events on the track. The Barons failed to place in the 440 yard relay only because they dropped the baton. "We would've won," he contends, "we are working on a new pass and I'm surprised they got as far as they did before they dropped it."
"This was our strongest entry ever, there wasn't a relay we couldn't have won. It was like a no-hitter in baseball; but accidents are going to happen. Things'll usually go wrong in the 440 or the 880 relays, that's why its good to have a distance base like we do."
The Barons distance contingent began the meet with an easy victory over Seneca Valley in the two-mile relay. Laurie Douglass, Ella Fredericksen, Jill Vialet and Stacy Brown cruised to a clocking of 9:45.6, a full eight seconds ahead of the Eagles.
Nancy Obendland, who Ward praised for her outstanding efforts on the sprint medley and mile relay, replaced Douglass in the distance medley (880, 440, 1320, mile). The foursome ran the entire race virtually uncontested, crossing the tape at 13:02.2, 20 seconds over second place Rockville.
Douglass rejoined the forces for the final distance relay, the four-mile. Vialet ran her traditional leadoff leg and did what was expected of her, opening a commanding 50 yard lead by the time she handed the baton to Frederickson. The Baron's lead gradually increased to at least 100 yards when anchor Browne stopped the clock at 22:15.1.
Seneca Valley was a distant third when its standout Teresa Brown received the baton in the same race. Brown valiantly fought to make up the ground between herself and the B-CC runners but could only manage to close the gap somewhat and gain the second place berth which remained the Eagles final standing.
B-CC's sprinters hit the track with a bit more speed and turned in the same overwhelming gold medal performances. Suzy Loriaux, Eve Littig, Terri Montague and Cathy Rattray began the sprinting onslaught with a convincing win, by almost two seconds, in the 880 yard relay over Churchill.
Loriaux and Montague showed their hurdling prowess in the very next event and along with Kerry Morrissey and Chris Kissel, ran by themselves to win in an unassailable 1:10.7, four seconds ahead of second place Woodward.
Rattray guaranteed victories with blistering anchors in her next two events, the sprint medley and the mile relay. Ronica Sanders, Obendland and Littig preceded Rattray on the sprint medley; Obendland, Saunders, and Loriaux ran the first three quarters of a closer than expected mile relay. Rattray was forced to turn on her speed, previously untested in the meet, and finished close to two seconds ahead of a tough Seneca Valley contingent.
"Cathy was just Cathy," said Ward, trying to summarize his sprint star's performance. "Everybody else did what they had to and ran very well. Nancy ran two aggressive quarters, she keyed off the mile relay and ran a good leg on the sprint medley. Everyone in the four-mile doubled up and Stacy was a workhorse running three events. Jill did very well, she is extremely tough in the lead and came through running one more event than we had planned for her."
"This is a great meet and we always look forward to it," Ward announced. Then he vocalized the real reason his girls had scored one after another. "The Penn Relays are coming up and they're very competitive among themselves," he explained. "All the distance runners want the two mile relay since they placed third at Penn last year with the third fastest time ever run at that meet...And I've got to choose from six girls for the mile and 400 relays."
Blair's sprinters and jumpers came throuh for the boys title in the end. In the final event, their triple jump team of Adrian Summers, Charles Saunders, and Andy Brizan leaped to a first place distance of 123'8 1/2" which scored enough points to overcome a six-point deficit to the Huskies and the Blazers won the meet, 62-58.
"I knew it would be close," claims Blazer coach Bob Deffinbaugh, "and it was, it came down to the last two events, the mile relay and the triple jump.
"[Peary coach Tom] Nawrocki knew his final total would be 58 because he doesn't have a mile relay. So I got together with our mile relay - which is new since we just put in Tony and Norman to give it some speed. They came through and broke 3:30, they could never get below 3:35 before. They did a good job and took the pressure off the triple jumpers."
The Blazers mile relay of sprinters Best and Edwards, along with regulars Alex Brice and Paul Fletcher, ran their unexpected fourth and 3:29.8.
"We never thought we'd get the time down that quick," exclaimed Deffinbaugh. "Tony isn't a quarter miler but a hurdler and he ran close to a 52. Norman isn't a quarter miler, either, but he's just a terrific athlete. We put these guys in because they're trying to develop a good mile relay this year, which we haven't had for the past few years."
Although the mile relay's performance seems to be the high point of the meet for the Blazers, they also won every sprint relay, tying the meet record of 1:30.9 in the 880 yard relay, grabbing a second place in the long jump relay and scoring a fifth in the shuttle hurdles with the predominantly inexperienced team of hurdlers.
Speedsters Edwards, Saunders, Daryl Greene and Antonio Bruton set the swift pace for the rest of their sprinters with their record tying performance the second event of the meet.
"Norman is only a sophomore, and he's fantastic," said Deffinbaugh, "we split him at a 21.2 in the relay which is moving."
Best, Blair's premier hurdler, replaced Green in the 440 yard relay. The foursome sped to a 43.4, one tenth of a second ahead of Einstein and one tenth off the meet record.
Edwards came back with Green and teamed up with middle distance man Fletcher and quarter miler Brice to win a hotly contested sprint medley.
The lead bounced around among the top three teams - Blair, Kennedy, and Good Counsel - until Edwards opened a lead in his third leg which Fletcher hung on to as anchor and came in on 3:36.0 to Kennedy's 3:37.5.
Walter Johnson's Raymond Cyrus, Leroy Howard, Paul Kolb and Kevin Donohue failed on their bid to capture both the two mile and distance medley relays. The quartet scored an easy victory in the first of their two challenges, the two mile relay. Their 8:01.2 was over 10 seconds ahead of second place Woodward.
However, they could not contend with Landon's Don Kerwin, whose 4:16.8 split in his mile leg secured the gold medal for the Bears in the distance medley. Andy Spence, Peter Arnold and John Shelp teamed up with Kerwin to run 10:38.8.
Blair's victory in the triple jump clinched the boys title at Woodward with Adrian Summers, Charles Saunders (above) and Andy Brizan combining for a leap of 123-feet 8 1/2-inches. Blair, which tied Peary for the Woodward title a year ago, will host the Huskies in a dual meet tomorrow afternoon.
Journal Staff Photos by Linda White
The closest battles of the day at Woodward may have been between Landon and Walter Johnson in the two-mile and distance medley relays. WJ's Raymin Cyrus, Leroy Howard, Paul Kolb and Kevin Donohue won the two-mile but the Bears came back with Andy Spence, Peter Arnold, John Schelp and Don Kerwin to win the medley.
Journal Staff Photos by Linda White
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