SPRINGFIELD – Triad's girls track team finished second in Wednesday's IHSA Class 2A Springfield Lanphier Sectional meet, sending three relay teams and three individuals to next weekend's IHSA Class 2A state track meet in Charleston in the process.
The Knights finished with 97 points on the day, behind only Springfield Southeast, who won the team title with 118 points; the host Lions finished third with 73 points, Rochester was fourth with 40 points and Hillsboro rounded out the top five with 29 points. Among area teams, Jersey and East Alton-Wood River finished in equal 12th with 18 points each along with Breese Central.
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The top two finishers in each event advanced to the state meet, along with those meeting IHSA qualifying standards regardless of finish. Triad's 4x100 relay team of Faith Grapperhaus, Alexa Seger, Isabel Averill and Kyleigh Barton advanced with a state-qualifying time of 49.86 seconds, good for third place in the event; the 4x200 relay team of Grapperhaus, Bailey Grigg, Savannah Viviano and Barton finished second in the event with a 1:47.97 clocking and the 4x800 relay team of Sydney Hartoin, Alyssa Kowalski, Haley Jackson and Maddie Keller advanced to Charleston with a first-place finish, turning in a time of 10:05.40.
Keller also qualified for the state meet in the 1600 meters with a second-place finish behind Staunton's Lydia Roller, Keller clocking a 5:32.51. Kelly Pottorf advanced in the discus throw with a toss of 119-6 for the win in the event and also won the shot put with a toss of 41-11. Denise D'Antonio took second in the triple jump with a leap of 34-0.5.
EAWR's Jayden Ulrich was the only Oiler to advance to state with a second-place finish in the shot, 38-0.5 effort.
Courtney Schroeder, the Jersey girls coach, extended congratulations to the JCHS girl's track team on the successful completion of their 2018 season. Those athletes scoring at the Springfield Sectional on May 9 were:
5th place:
*High Jump - Sydney Merle - 4'11"
*Triple Jump - Lexi Liles - 31'10.5"
*400 M Dash - Lexi Liles - 1:03.2
3rd place:
*4x800 Relay Team (Hannah Tonsor, Morgan Cook, Christine Wendell, Sydney Merle) - 10:44.2
?*1600 M Run - Sydney Merle? - 5:42.0
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
