York-Adams athletes had an impressive medal haul Saturday during the second day of the PIAA track and field championships at Shippensburg University.
And they came from a variety of events covering track and field.
Spring Grove’s Laila Campbell led the way with gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters. It was the third double gold of the junior’s career. Her teammate, freshman Ella Bahn won gold in the 300 hurdles in the afternoon after claiming fifth place in the high jump in the morning.
Campbell and Bahn were the only Rockets competing in the meet, but their success allowed Spring Grove to place fifth in the team competition with 34 points. Haverford Township won the girls’ Class 3A title with 51 points, but runner-up North Penn was only three points ahead of the Rockets.
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Bahn competed in three events at the state meet and would love to see the Rockets put together a relay that could compete at that level next year.
“I would love to do a 4×400 with Laila,” Bahn said after receiving her medal.
“What about a 4×100?” Campbell countered after her 200 run.
South Western senior Bernard Bell made it a York County sweep of the Class 3A hurdles by following Bahn to the top of the podium in the boys’ race.
Bermudian Springs Lily Carlson was the lone Adams County gold medalist, nailing 12 feet in a jumpoff to claim the Class 2A pole vault title.
Pole vault overtime
Lily Carlson came into Shippensburg’s Seth Grove Stadium thinking she would need a personal best to snare a gold medal.
The sophomore almost did … or at least a tie.
Carlson and Trinity’s Adeline Woodward were tied for the lead in total misses after neither could clear 12 feet. They were headed for overtime.
The pair, who are good friends and train together in Mechanicsburg, were given another shot at 12 feet. If neither made it, the bar would move three inches lower. If both made it, the bar would be raised three inches. If one of them made it, there was a winner.
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That’s exactly what Carlson did. She went first and easily cleared 12 feet, three inches below her personal best. Woodward missed.
“The funny thing is this happened in a meet two or three weeks ago,” Carlson said. “It was between us and at the same height.”
Carlson said she doesn’t mind the stop-and-go aspect of pole vault, where a competitor can sit for more than an hour before it’s time to jump. Like many athletes, she spent the down time under an oversized sports umbrella, often sharing her shade with Woodward.
“I really enjoy it,” Carlson said of the difference between track and field events. “It really lets me get a feel for the place.”
‘They have crazy kicks’
Susquehannock senior Matt O’Brien had the fastest seed time coming into the Class 3A 3200 meters, but he said after the race it was just on paper.
He said he knew the three runners who finished in front of him Saturday could top his sub-9-minute District 3 time. O’Brien had bested his personal best by 10 seconds when he hit that 8:59.82 to win district gold.
He lowered it another 4 seconds in the state meet to finish in 8:55.76 for fourth place.
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“I knew the top three guys could run sub-9s,” a clearly exhausted O’Brien said after the medal ceremony. “They all ran 8:46 to 8:47 during the indoor season, so they must not have gone all out in districts for me to have the top time coming in. And I knew they would have crazy kicks coming in.”
That top three — winner Brian DiCola of Hatboro Horsham, Ringgold’s Ryan Pajak and Butler’s Drew Griffith — all ran faster than the previous PIAA record, which now belongs to DiCola at 8:47.39. Pajak ran 8:48.20 and Griffith finished in 8:52.20.
O’Brien said he ran his race the way he wanted. He just didn’t expect the top three to make a move as soon as they did. O’Brien was at the head of the pack in the opening laps, and took the lead in the second 800. He stayed there until the midway point when Griffith pulled ahead. And then DiCola took over.
“He took the lead and paced it to make it a faster race,” O’Brien said of DiCola. “Those last laps my legs filled with lactic acid, but I still did the second mile in a negative split.”
O’Brien, who set the District 3 meet record last week, had his sites set on the overall district record. He fell short by .16 second, but he’s not complaining. After cheering on Susquehannock teammate Ryleigh Marks during the silver medal hurdle final, O’Brien was ready to celebrate his own success.
He was going to get some rest.
Campbell goes 6-0
Campbell is in that rarest of air. She doesn’t know what it’s like to start a state final and not win gold. Three Class 3A 100-meter finals. Three gold medals and one meet record. Three 200-meter finals. Three gold medals.
And the current 200-meter record holder believes the record will be Campbell’s next year.
“She has a great stride and she’s so big,” Dasia Pressley said before presenting Campbell with her 200-meter gold. “I thought she was going to break it today, and I wanted to be here to give her the medal.”
Pressley set the record of 23.52 in 2015 while competing for District 1 Pennsbury. Campbell ran 23.55 last year, and won Saturday in 23.54. She was more than a second faster than silver medalist Dani Prunzik of Upper Saint Clair.
“Track is the kind of sport where people forget what you did, you have to keep performing,” the 6-0 junior said. “It took a lot of work to stay here.”
She claimed her third 100-meter title by running 11.56 in the morning final. She was well ahead of Oxford Area’s Macaela Walker and Archbishop Ryan’s Amirah Nesmith, who both ran 11.92.
Campbell has the New Balance Nationals on the horizon before she gets some time off to enjoy summer and make a big decision about her future.
She took official visits in the fall and narrowed her list to three — USC, LSU and Georgia.
“I want to commit before school starts next year, and then sign in early November,” she said. “There definitely is a lot of pressure in making the decision, so I want to do it early.”
Better finish than start
Bahn wouldn’t call it revenge, but she said the hurdle gods certainly owed her something after a false start dropped her from the 100-meter prelims on Friday.
She was rewarded with gold on Saturday afternoon when a late lunge sent her across the finish line .11 ahead of Haverford Township’s Aubrey Leneweaver. Bahn finished in 42.62 thanks to a great second half to the race.
She was the fourth runner over the first set of hurdles once the stagger was eliminated, with only the home stretch remaining.
“I knew I had to get past them and then push at the end,” Bahn said. “I have a lot of confidence in my endurance because I do some distance races. After the 100, it was great how the 300 turned out.”
The hurdle gold was Bahn’s second medal of the day. She finished fifth in the high jump after clearing 5-4 and missing three attempts at 5-5. Chester’s Niya Jeffers won the gold at 5-7.
The Spring Grove freshman isn’t looking to specialize in events as her career unwinds. In fact, she’d like to add to it.
She would like to work on her 800 after not making it out of districts in that event. And with an eye toward the heptathlon in college, she might venture into some throwing events.
Making her Marks
Ryleigh Marks didn’t like how she was coming out of the blocks during Friday’s prelims. So the Susquehannock senior showed up early on Saturday and spent some extra time working with them before the Class 3A 100-meter hurdle final.
That extra attention to detail paid off in silver.
“I had a really good start and a great race,” she said of her silver medal finish. “I worked so hard for this.”
Marks knocked more than .4 second off her prelim time to finish in 14.11. Oxford Area’s Macaela Walker won gold in 13.94.
Just like she cheered on teammate Matt O’Brien during his 3200-meter race, O’Brien moved an interview closer to the track when he realized Marks was running.
His screams of “Go, Ryleigh” turned to an excited “She got second” when the results flashed on the big screen.
Because they compete in completely different events, O’Brien and Marks rarely train together, but support each other.
“I was warming up over in the one curve during his race, and I screamed for him each time he went past,” Marks said.
The future Shippensburg University athlete didn’t have time to celebrate her silver with family and friends. She wasn’t finished adding to her haul. With a leap of 17-6.25, she added an eighth-place long jump medal to her collection.
The Bell tolls
South Western senior Bernard Bell didn’t want to go home without a gold medal.
He missed out on his first attempt at a gold when he finished second in the morning’s 110-meter hurdle final. Pottstown’s Tyrese Washington won the title in 14.01 over Bell’s 14.29.
Bell picked up the top hardware in the 300 hurdles, claiming the title in 37.28 over Downingtown East’s Luis Colmenares-Bittar who finished in 37.98.
The end of the race also marked the end of the hurdling duel between Bell and West York’s Perry Addey, who finished third.
“We have been going against each other since eighth grade,” Bell said. “We haven’t trained together, but we are going to do some of that this summer.”
Bell and Addey finished one-two in the District 3 Class 3A final and were the top two seeds in the PIAA final.
Bell seemed to see a bit of irony in the way his finals played out. He enjoys running the 110 hurdles more than the 300 race, but feels he’s better at the longer race.
“It’s such a hard race,” Bell said of the 300. “I have to hold my speed to finish. It’s not a race I run a lot. I think this was like the third time I ran it all season.”
Bell was basking in the sights and sounds of Seth Grove Stadium, a track he has come to know quite well over his high school career. He’ll get to know it even better over the next four years as he competes there as a Shippensburg Raider.
“I really love this school,” he said. “I know the track and the campus is great.”
When asked what events he expected to do in college, he said the hurdles, the 400 and long jump. Only problem for Bell, instead of the 300 hurdles, they run 400 hurdles in college.
Other medalists
Perry Addey: The West York senior put a bronze shine on his high school career with a third-place finish in the 300 hurdles. He finished in 38.29.
Ava Deming: The Fairfield senior finished eighth in the Class 2A 400 meters in 1:00.28.
Kailey Granger: The Dallastown senior ran 10:36.90 to finish eighth in the Class 3A 3200 meters.
Alison Watts: The Bermudian Springs junior finished in the eighth place in the Class 2A triple jump with a combined leap of 36-9.50.
Other competitors
Garreth Calder: The Northeastern freshman had three jumps over 21 feet, topping out at 21-2.5 to finish 14th in the Class 3A long jump.
Emma Chataginer: The Central York senior cleared 4-10 and 5-0 before missing three attempts at 5-2.
Jackson Gutekunst: The Dallastown senior wrapped up his high school career by finishing 14th in the Class 3A 800 meters with a time of 1:56.45.
Austin Martin: The South Western junior finished 16th in the Class 3A high jump after clearing 6-2.
Victoria Rodriguez: The Dallastown sophomore ran 10:51.78 in Class 3A 3200 meters to finish 16th.