Wauwatosa – Both the Shorewood boys and the girls started the Kettle Moraine Lutheran Regional track tournament with a flourish. And they finished just as strong.
Both teams won the 3,200-meter relay at the beginning of the afternoon and capped the event with victories in the 1,600-meter relays in the event held at Wisconsin Lutheran College. Both teams will advance to the Division 2 sectional at Kewaskum Thursday. See full results here.
The Shorewood boys finished third in the nine-team regional while the girls finished fourth. Milwaukee Lutheran won in both categories.
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The Shorewood girls coasted to victory in the 3,200 with a time of 9 minutes 55.26 seconds, finishing 32 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Random Lake. That time, however, was nine seconds slower than their best time of the season.
“We ran just to win today, honestly,” Shorewood girls coach Sarah Kopplin said. “All the girls had other races. We wanted to run a very strong time. We didn’t do our ultimate best on the track. We’re going to try to do that Thursday and hopefully at state."
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The Shorewood boys cut their time, winning in 8:21.40, 10 seconds ahead of Kettle Moraine Lutheran.
The Greyhound girls cut five seconds off their time in the 1,600-meter relay with a 4:05.82. “Ending that way was just outstanding,” Kopplin said. “At this time of the season, we’re trying to peak, the girls ran really strong today, the weather was just fantastic.”
The boys finished in 3:26.03, which set a school record. That effort capped what had been a strong performance by Shorewood boys sprinters.
“Traditionally we’ve been a distance-strength program, our distance program is doing what it normally does,” Shorewood coach Dominic Newman said. “Our sprint program has just been elevated. We had a freshman win the (200). That’s incredible our 4-by-100 and 4-by-200 advanced and both were school records.”
The fine performance by the Greyhounds was gratifying for Newman, who is grateful that the weather is starting to improve.
“This has been by far the worst spring I’ve had as coach, “Newman said. “But the guys have persevered. We still need to keep them healthy for another week. They’ve been pretty diligent about taking care of themselves. They’ve done a good job of keeping each other focused and honest about their conditioning.”
Whitefish Bay Dominican got a superb performance from junior sprinter Deysha Smith-Jenkins, who won three events. She won the 100-meter dash in 12.47, the 200-meter dash in 25.33 and the 400-meter dash in 58.59.
