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Bulldogs best Lowell by a nose
Updated: May 19, 2011 10:32PM
CROWN POINT — Tristan Peterson knew his team needed a first-place finish, knew Lowell’s Brendon Shanks was closing fast and knew he only had one option left — dive for the win.
Stumbling after clipping the final hurdle, Peterson — a Crown Point freshman — dove across the finish line just ahead of Shanks to win the event for the Bulldogs, who then completed an impressive come-from-behind team title on Thursday at the Crown Point boys track sectional.
The Bulldogs scored 117 points to just nip Hobart (110) thanks to efforts like Peterson’s from a number of their athletes in all grades.
“We were down by about 20 points and our coach just came up and said ‘We need these 10 points,’” Peterson said. “I was hitting the hurdles, losing my balance and I was either going to fall before the finish or just jump out and dive. So, I figured I might as well take it for the team to get the points.”
Combined with Crown Point’s Joel Johnson finishing third in the event, the Bulldogs got a huge 16-point swing to close that 20-point gap to just four. Hobart senior Tom Camacho also hit a hurdle, fell and didn’t finish — after easily winning the 110 high hurdles in a personal record time of 14.79 seconds and entering the 300 intermediates as the top-seeded runner.
“I hate to look at it and say that 300 hurdle race made the difference,” Hobart coach Ty Artherhults said. “We could’ve made it up elsewhere and we didn’t. That’s where it backfired. I just feel really bad for Tom.”
Crown Point kept piling up the points from there, but still needed to finish ahead of Hobart in the 1,600 relay. The Bulldogs team of Travis Kucic, Isreal Mercado, Zack Sneiderwine and Rogerick Shannon did just that by finishing second — three spots ahead of fifth-place Hobart to clinch the win.
It was the first sectional title for Crown Point in boys track since 2007. Merrillville finished third with 85 points and Andrean came in fourth with 77 at the 12-team sectional.
Kucic also came up big by winning the 800, followed by Jon Beyeler in fourth — while Crown Point senior Aquid Bernard gave the Bulldogs another boost by winning the long jump (22-2).
Hobart’s Jarvis McMillian had a rough day, but got good news at the end when he found out he would advance to regionals in the 100 dash, 200 dash and 400. He won the 400 and finished fourth in the 200 to qualify, but finished fifth in the 100. A scratch after the meet, however, opened up a spot for him to advance to regionals in the 100 — which put a small bright side on a tough day.
“Honestly, everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong,” McMillian said. “The saying is forget the past and look to the future, so I’m looking forward to regionals.”
Along with Camacho’s win in the 110 hurdles and McMillian’s win in the 400 (49.62), the Brickies got a win by Ryan McGuire in the pole vault (13-0). They also got several key second and thirds to make it close at the end.
Merrillville’s Rahim Conwell and Austin Jamerson led the Pirates. Conwell finished second in the 100 dash (10.90) and ran a leg of Merrillville’s winning 400 relay (43.16), while Jamerson won the high jump (6-6) and finished second in the long jump (21-04).
Other notable performances included Bowman’s Cornelius Strickland — who blew away a fast field in the 100 meters in 10.54 seconds and also won the 200 (21.71) — and Hanover Central’s Derek De St. Jean, who won the discus (167-02) and shot put (56-0).
Andrean won the distance events, with Blaine Wolf winning the 1,600 (4:34.94), Patrick Musgrave taking the 3,200 (10:03.27) and the 3,200 relay team also winning in 8:12.69.
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