SYRACUSE — Weathering cold temperatures and strong winds Wednesday, the Warsaw girls track and field team persevered to pick up two Northern Lakes Conference wins at Wawasee High School. The Lady Tigers (6-1, 4-0 NLC) defeated the Northridge Lady Raiders, 67-65, as well as a small-team of Wawasee Lady Warriors (0-5, 0-3 NLC) by a score of 120-12. With the Wawasee team sporting just 16 athletes at the meet, compared to Northridge's 51 and Warsaw's 61, the Lady Warriors took a back seat to the competition between the conference's top two squads. Warsaw and Northridge entered the meet with undefeated NLC marks and finished first and second, respectively, last season in the conference. With that kind of competition between the two schools, the two points that separated them Wednesday wasn't much of a surprise. "You know, going in, they're a quality team — top to bottom," Warsaw coach Scott Erba said about the Lady Raiders. "It's been a tough week, week-and-a-half, with the weather, but it's nothing different than anyone else. They're excited to be here, we're excited to be here. That makes for a great matchup." What turned out to be the biggest event of the night, although no one may have noticed it at the time, was the 200, in which Warsaw's Ann Harvuot's time of 27.94 seconds just beat out Northridge's Lauren Lambert, who placed second in 27.95. The two-point swing that one-thousandth-of-a-second represented, decided the winner between the two schools. "When you're coming down to a meet that's going to be very tight, every point can be important," Erba said. The two teams ended the meet by winning eight events each, although Erba would have liked to have won at least one of the three relays. "We need to go back to the drawing board on a couple things, making sure we don't get swept in the relays again," he said. "That's a big deal. They got 15 points and we got zero." Northridge won the 400 relay by a mere 17-hundredth-of-a-second, but also took the Tigers down the 1600 and 3200 relays, while Warsaw did bounce back in the throwing events. At shot put, Warsaw's Emily Umbaugh took first with a distance of 36-0.25 and Sarah Heagy finished second with a 33-4. The Lady Tigers then placed first through fourth in the discus, led by Lauren Burish's throw of 107-11.75 followed by Samantha Jensen's 107-1.25. Umbaugh and Burish rounded out the top four, finishing third and fourth, respectively. Hanna Kammerer got Warsaw's final first-place finish in a field event, winning the pole vault by clearing 9-4. The strength of each team always seems to be the distance events, and with the top two distance runners in the NLC running in the meet, they split the 1600 and 3200. Running the 1600 first, Warsaw's Ashley Erba looked strong, as her time of 5:22.03 was over eight seconds faster than Northridge's Skylair Hilton. However, in the 3200, which Hilton is the defending NLC champion in, the Lady Raider's 11:25.98 was just under eight seconds faster than Ashley Erba's 11:33.68. "I think it's going to be like that a lot over the course of the season," Erba said about his daughter's races with Hilton. "It just depends on who's hot during the meet." The girls will meet at least twice more this season, with NLC meet taking place at Warsaw on May 10 and the sectional also taking place at Warsaw on May 17. Warsaw also got a big boost from Jackie Ferguson, who won the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles, while Warsaw's other win was accomplished by Leah Moore in the 400. The cold weather kept all the girls bundled up, and once their events were over, they were instructed to get back into their sweats. With those kind of conditions, Erba wasn't necessarily looking at the times and distances, but just how his girls compared with others. "We had some events with great results, with girls posting season bests, but in a strong headwind like this, it can be challenging," he said. "You're really just looking at time differential rather than just times. For the weather we've had, I'm feeling pretty good." Wawasee's top two finishes were achieved by Mallory Rondeau and Sarah Rozow, who each earned second-place finishes, Rondeau in the 800 and Rozow in the pole vault. The Lady Tigers will join the Lady Warriors at Saturday's Churubusco Relays, an event Warsaw had won three-straight times before losing by three points last season to Carroll. "We're hoping to come back this year and be a lot more competitive and hopefully be on top this year," Erba said.
