Seniors lead Lake Central to crown

Updated: May 19, 2011 11:00PM

HAMMOND — Nobody wants to lose in the postseason — especially a senior.

Some of the senior performances at Thursday night’s Morton Sectional at Zlotnik Field serve as an example.

Lake Central won the meet 138-97.50 over Munster, for its 19th title in school history. In the process, the Indians won five times and two of those victories came from seniors.

On Wednesday, at Munster’s facilities, senior Jake Markiewicz brought home the first points of sectional with a leap of 13 feet, 6 inches in the pole vault. Then Eric Hickok clinched his team’s second victory on Thursday with a time of 4:40.24 in the 1,600-meter run.

“I think it’s kind of important to kind of lead by example and to kind of go out and win the races you compete in,” Hickok said of his win by nearly five seconds over Highland sophomore Zach Glick (who also took a second in the 3,200 and was the anchor a victorious 3,200 relay effort). “I started off in front a little bit and just focused on keeping my position. And once I got comfortable, I just focused on taking the race.”

For East Chicago’s Jonathan Hill, the stakes were raised even higher. Hill, also a member of the basketball team, was still reeling over the Cardinals loss in the sectional championship of that season.

“From us losing in the sectionals (to Munster), with me being a senior, it carried over to track. You can’t lose in anything,” Hill said.

That attitude helped the second-year track member to two firsts: The 1,600 relay (where he was the third leg) and the long jump (in 21-11, beating last year‘s second-place finish). However, it still couldn’t push the fourth-place Cardinals (87 points) into the top three, because Highland scored 94.50.

Munster senior Karlos Young won the 110 hurdles in 14.98. He also took third place in the 300 hurdles when he was allowed to run for a second time after interference in his lane. He improved from seventh and shaved about three seconds.

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