Calumet Invite hit with technical delay

GARY — As if the weather wasn’t enough to contend with lately at region high school events, technical difficulties in scoring a meet created a long delay, eventually leading to the suspension of scoring and the end of the Calumet Invite.

Computer difficulties created more than an hour delay in the start of the finals, after which officials met and agreed that scoring would be suspended for the entire meet.

Coaches from the participating schools of Munster, Calumet, Gavit, Hammond High, Griffith, Lowell, Andrean, Wheeler and Highland were told of the decision and that any team that chose to leave could do so without any ramifications. Upon that decision, virtually all the teams agreed in the best interest of their runners and avoiding any injuries, they would simply leave.

“We had some difficulties with the software program used to keep the scoring and work diligently to correct it, but unfortunately it was taking some time to do and with the weather continuing to get colder the decision to suspend the scoring was made to prevent any issues and allowing the teams to leave was done with the best interest of the runners in mind in preventing any unwanted injuries due to the long delay,” said Calumet coach Ivan Zimmer.

The Munster girls had started off strong in the preliminary events and were able to advance two in each event and wanted to continue but understood the difficulties.

“We ran very well considering the colder temperatures and were looking forward to the finals, but the extended delay caused many of the runner’s problems stretching out and warming up and for that, we decided to end our participation in the invite,” said Munster coach Rick Sluder.

“This has been a long standing traditional invite and it is truly unfortunate they had the difficulties they had, but that could happen to anyone and we totally understand the decision that was made.”

One of the finals ran prior to the decision was the girls 100 high hurdles won by Highland’s Kat Smailis. She came out strong out of the block and held the lead throughout the race.

 “It wasn’t my best run due to the long delay and the cold weather and it was really hard for all the runners to get loose and prepared to run,” Smailis said.

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