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Dogs go distance for title
Updated: May 15, 2012 10:14PM
LOWELL — Crown Point junior Lauren McCarroll looked behind her into the stands before the 3,200-meter run at the Lowell girls track sectional on Tuesday evening.
She heard a familiar voice belonging to injured senior teammate Laicee Pierce telling her to believe in herself. At that point, the team scores had just been read over the loud speaker and the Bulldogs were only half a point ahead of Merrillville for the team championship.
Good thing for Crown Point that McCarroll did exactly as her teammate told her. She won the 3,200 in 11:36.97, while teammate Allison Wortel finished third in 12:01.93 to give the Bulldogs a comfortable margin heading into the final running event of the day, the 1,600-meter relay — also won by the Bulldogs (4:06.52).
Crown Point won the team title with 142 points while Merrillville was second with 124.5 and West Side finished third with 82.
“Laicee really helped me out and all the girls were just like, ‘Lauren, we need this, we need this!’ ” McCarroll said. “It just really helped to keep me motivated and pushed me. I felt like, as long as I’m tripling, I might as well go out with a bang.”
What McCarroll was referring to was completing three distance events in the same meet. She also ran a leg of Crown Point’s winning 3,200 relay (10:18.27) and finished second in the 1,600 (5:24.71).
“I hadn’t tripled yet this season, so I was a little anxious about it,” McCarroll said. “But I managed to pull it off pretty well. I feel great. I’m really excited because winning sectionals is a big deal for us as a team. I think we’re going to go into regionals really confident and hopefully qualify for state.”
In this meet, it was depth that won it for the Bulldogs.
“We scored in every single event, which is just phenomenal,” said Crown Point coach Lindsay Hattendorf, who guided the Dogs to their second straight sectional title under her leadership.
“I was biting my nails there a little bit, but I knew that Allison and Lauren were ready to step up to the plate — and that’s exactly what they did. They hit a home run.”
Jaleesa Holmes led Merrillville by winning the 100 hurdles (15.51) and high jump (5-2), while Victoria Collins and Cyerra Sims pulled the Pirates within a half point of Crown Point after finishing first and third in the 800 meters.
Merrillville was dealt a tough break in the 100 dash when sprinter Brianna Thompson hurt her leg and couldn’t continue. Pirates coach Jeff Fairbairn, however, didn’t use it as an excuse.
“We knew it was going to be close,” he said. “We had a lot of kids step up and perform better than they have all year. Our No.1 goal was coming in here and getting as many people into regionals as possible and we did that.”
Kortney Mabone led West Side by winning the 300 hurdles, running a leg of the Cougars’ winning 400 relay, a leg of the third-place 1,600 relay and finishing second in the 100 hurdles.
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