The Boardman girls track team saw their opening meet on March 26 cancelled due to extremely cold conditions. They then opened up their outdoor season on March 29 with a tough 74-63 loss to Austintown Fitch.
The meet began with the 4-by-800 meter relay team racing to victory by running a 10:49. The team consists of senior Katie Heney, freshmen Sydni Ogilive and Breanna Gatte, and junior Victoria Moore. Senior hurdler Nicole Vlad won the 100-meter high hurdles in 16.2 and freshman sprinter, Nicole Hilliard placed third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 13.7. Moore and Heney both came back from the distance relay to place in the 1600 meter run with Moore taking first place running 5:48.7 and Heney running 5:57.4.
Freshman Emma Schwendeman placed third running 6:02.4. In the 400-meter dash, senior Carissa Plourde led the way placing first in 63.9 and sophomore Christina Claybrook took third with a time of 65.3. In the 300 meter intermediate hurdles, Vlad claimed second place honors with a time of 49.5 and Hilliard took another third in the sprint events running 28.2 in the 200-meter dash.
On Moore’s third event of the day, she placed first in the 800-meter run in 2:29.4 and Heney placed first in the 3200 running 12:18.6, also her third event of the meet. Sophomore Daisy Corso placed third in the 3200-meter run with a time of 13:34.6.
In the field events, junior Jen Bresnahan pole vaulted to first place with a vault of 8 feet and senior teammate Shelby Dofka took second place honors with a vault of 7 feet, 6 inches. Carissa Plourde took second in the long jump with a leap of 14 feet, 2 inches and freshman high jumper Morgan Hambrick was third with a jump of 4 feet, 4 inches. In the shot put, sophomore Giovanna Silvestri took second place with a toss of 32 feet, 3 inches and junior Megan Howard was third throwing the shot 31 feet, 1 inch. Sophomore Daisy Robinson placed second in the discus throwing 103 feet, 7 inches and Howard was third with a toss of 97 feet.
Head coach Denise Gorski said she was pleased with the efforts of her young team stating, “On paper I had us down 25-30 points to a very good Fitch team who qualified eight events to the indoor state meet. Our girls gave a tremendous effort and really took Fitch to the wire. They showed a lot of determination and heart and I was very proud of their efforts.”
The team was scheduled to travel to the Bedford Relays on Saturday, April 2 but the meet was cancelled again due to weather.
