By GREG KEIM
THE GOSHEN NEWS
CHURUBUSCO —
The Fairfield boys and the Westview girls captured team titles in the NECC high school track and field meet Friday night at Churubusco.
Fairfield led by Dillon Hinen and Brett Baumgartner amassed 155 points to finish well ahead of second-place Lakeland at 113 in the boys event.
“Our kids performed exceptionally well,” Fairfield coach Bob Miller said. “We are looking great and that is what you want to see at this point of the season.”
Westview — led by the incredible Skyler Carpenter —totaled 130 points to finish ahead of Fairfield at 127 on the girls side.
“Scoring in every event was big for us,” Westview coach Jon Cook said. “We had a number of girls step up for us.”
Carpenter did all that she could to bring the title back to Westview for the third time in her four-year prep career. She won long jump (17-2 3/4), the 100-meter hurdles (14.52), the 300 hurdles (43.26) and the 200 dash (24.96). Both of her hurdles times and her 200 time were meet records.
“I did my best for the team,” Carpenter said. “That was the idea of putting Me in four individual events. It means so much to us to win the team title.”
The Westview girls also won the NECC regular season championship.
When asked about how he felt coming up three points short of Westview Fairfield coach Darin Holsopple said, “That is one way of looking at it. But I prefer to think our team was within three points of Westview. We finished within three points of a team that nearly won the state meet a year ago. If we are within three points on them in three weeks I’ll be doing back flips.”
The meet may have been a costly one for Westview as senior standout Mandy Jones may be lost for the rest of the season.
Jones placed second in long jump (16-10 3/4) to Carpenter and was in a duel with Payton Summers of Churubusco in the finals of the 100.
Jones was second and in her effort to try and outlean Summers at the finish went down to the track.
“She may be done for the season,” Cook said. “She has been bothered by a hamstring injury this season but we felt she was back to 100 percent. This is the first time she has competed in two or three weeks. Mandy said she felt fine after the long jump. I don’t know if she was trying to lean too much at the finish. I saw her go down and didn’t know at first what the problem was but when she got up and grabbed the back of her leg I knew right away.”
Hinen won the 800 (1:57.56) and 1,600 (4:19.57) while Baumgartner took the 100 (10.90) an 200 (21.80) for the Falcon boys.
