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RANDY HISNER
WZBD.com
Bellmont senior Hailey Cole is a regional champ.
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The first-year thrower dominated the shot put competition Tuesday night in the Carroll Regional Track and Field Meet, winning by over three feet with another personal best and school-record performance.
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In the race for the team title, sixteenth-ranked Carroll upset seventh-ranked Homestead, 108 to 80.5. Northrop placed third with 52 points. Heritage led area teams in sixth place with 28 points. Bellmont finished 18th with 10 points, South Adams tied for 22nd with six, and Adams Central tied for 26th with four.
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Cole’s first attempt in the finals sailed 43-7 to easily outdistance Heritage’s Maya Gerber, who took second with 40-5. “It feels great,” said Cole. “I came into this week hoping for that goal, you know, getting to state, qualifying, so it’s just really exciting.”
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Bellmont throws coach Tony Ordway has enjoyed watching Cole’s progress. “It just naturally started clicking with her probably around the Turtletown meet,” he said, “and she just started picking up distance each meet and then kept going further once conference hit. She started peaking at sectionals and obviously again here at regionals, so I’m excited to see how she does next week.”
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Gerber’s teammate, Madilyn Scheumann, completed the Z-Land sweep of the state-qualifying berths in the shot put, placing third with an astonishing two-foot personal best of 39-6.25.
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Scheumann was gratified to see her hard work pay off. “I’ve been working on it so hard all year from indoor season and then outdoor and just, you know, fine-tuning things and getting strong.”
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Her big PR throw wasn’t a total surprise to her. “I’ve been having a couple good ones in practice,” she said, “and I think I’ve just been struggling with trying to carry that over into a meet, so I knew I definitely could do it.”
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Gerber hurled the discus 119-6 to finish second to sectional rival Makenna Dommer of New Haven, who set a four-foot personal record of 139-5 for the win.
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Gerber is excited about going to state with her teammate. “It means the world,” she said. “This was our goal, and we got it done.”
Heritage head coach Matt Smith had high praise for his two throwers. “These girls are the two anchors of our team,” he said. “They’ve given us a ton of points all year long. They gave us 36 points at the conference meet, and they just perform everywhere they go.”
The Starfires got their half dozen points from sophomore 300-meter hurdlers Kapri Bixler (5th in 47.17) and Ava Schmit (7th in 47.43). Bixler was just .01 seconds slower than last week’s sectional-winning time, while Schmit’s time was a new PR.
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Adams Central’s Gabi Landis wrapped up her career with a stellar effort. She placed fifth in the 1600-meter run with a new personal best and school-record time of 5:13.48. She was less than two seconds from third place and a state finals berth, cutting more than six seconds from last week’s time where she broke her previous PR.
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Heritage’s Piper Pierce and Scheumann completed the Z-Land scoring, Pierce taking fifth in the long jump with a leap of 17-2.5 (a big improvement over her 16-4 in the sectional) and Scheumann claiming fifth in the discus with a toss of 109-7. Pierce was just 1.25 inches away from her career best, set against South Adams and Bluffton earlier this year.
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Other Z-Land performances:
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Bellmont: 4X400 relay (Quinn Buchan, Lilly Franz, Adi Knipstein, Khia Cannon), 15th in 4:20.74, the fastest time for the Braves all year.
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Adams Central: 4X800 relay (Madison Gerber, Gabi Landis, Juliana Sipe, Madison Hamilton), 10th in 10:35.65.
South Adams: Kapri Bixler, 9th in the 100-meter hurdles; Ava Schmit, 13th in the 100-meter hurdles; Stella McIntire, 9th in the pole vault at 9-0.
The girls’ state finals will be held Friday, May 31, at the Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex at Indiana University in Bloomington. Field events will start at 3:00 P.M.