Scott Taylor
@Taylor_Sports
CHARLESTON — The girls track and field season came to an end a day early for Valley View at Eastern Illinois University.
Despite coming up short of finals, it was a strong showing for the Romeoville relay squads.
The quartet of Katie Kerwin, Jahnetta Jones, Nia Lee and Kaniyah Rush finished fifth in their heat of the 4×100-meter relay with a time of 48.95 seconds, placing 14th.
The 4×200 relay squad of Kerwin, Jones, Kiara Carter and Rush came home with a time of 1:44.08, which was one spot short of qualifying, finishing 10th.
“The 4×2 went really well,” Carter said. “We pushed ourselves with the weather and we prepared ourself for it. We ran faster than we have throughout the season. The crowd gets the adrenaline pumping and it gets me pumped. Our main goal was to make it to state.”
“Our goal was to make it to finals and if we didn’t do that we wanted to PR, which we did,” Kerwin said. “I think we ran our hardest. I’m proud of our team no matter what. The handoffs were pretty good. There are always things to improve on. It was a lot of fun.”
Long competed in the triple jump finishing with a jump of 34-feet, 6.25-inches and long jump, with a top jump of 16-6.
•The Bolingbrook 4×100 relay team of Claire Young, Karah Evans, Kayla Wilson and Kayla Perry finished fifth in their head with a time of 49.14.
“We’re pretty happy about beating our time from last week,” Young said. “The race overall was pretty good. We ran our fastest.”
“We definitely did better than last week,” Wilson said. “This meet was definitely different and I liked the experience.”
All four girls are expected to be back next year and were in their first year of running on the track at Eastern.
“I feel we did good, we just had to do better with our handoffs,” Evans said. “It wasn’t that bad running from lane nine once you get started. It is a better atmosphere here.”
“The race was pretty good, but we could always do better,” Perry said. “It is exciting to come to state and I would love to be back here next year.
Rachel McNiel competed in the shot put, finishing with a distance of 35-6.
BOYS
Bolingbrook finished in fourth place at the Downers North Sectional with 62 points.
Qualifying for the Raiders for state were the 4×200 relay (1:28.51, 2nd), Justin Rivers in the high jump (6-5, 1st), Jaylan McConico in the 110 hurdles (14.25, 1st) and 300 hurdles (39.35, 1st), and Shawn Showalter in the 100 (10.93, 4th) and 200 (22.17, 3rd).
Romeoville will be represented at state by Voctor Osinloye, who won the discus with a throw of 165-5.