Warsaw Tigers 2nd In Max Truex InvitationalWith rain floating off to the south, Warsaw finished second to Carroll in the Max Truex Invitational boys track meet Friday at Fisher Field. The Chargers finished with 109.5 points to the Tigers’ 91.5. Penn was third with 84 points, 2-1/2 points better than Valparaiso in the nine-team meet. The Truex attracts top teams from the region because of its relay-style scoring, combining the results from two participants from each team in each event. The format puts a greater emphasis on depth. The Tigers won three events without an individual taking first place. D’Andre Street, who signed a letter of intent to play football at Indiana Wesleyan earlier in the day, combined with Ridley Lemon to win the 400 with third and fifth-place finishes, respectively. Tristan Larsh had the third-best time in the 200, and Alijah Wade was fifth, but the duo had the best combined time. In the 4x400 relay, Warsaw’s two teams were second and fifth to take the blue ribbons. The Tigers took second in the 4x100 relay and had third-place finishes in the 100 (Rane Kilburn was fifth, Wade 13th), 3,200 (Zeb Hernandez third, Lucas Howett seventh), shot put (John Svinarich third, Dalton Smoker fifth) and long jump (Kilburn third, Street fifth) “We competed well. I was wondering how things would pan out with the weather and all, but I’m happy with the results,” Warsaw head coach Matt Thacker said. “Of course you’d like to win, but the bottom line is it’s an invitational, and we want the top teams in the area to come here and help us get better. And I think we did that tonight.” Thacker said with eight competitors needed in the relays, the Truex is an opportunity to find out how some athletes perform under a spotlight from good competition. “We found some additional depth in the 4x400, which is good,” he said. “We were able to see what Tristan (Larsh) could really do against some top competition in the 200, and that was good to see. We also did well in the 4x100, and we got both our (3,200 runners) under 10 minutes; that was huge for us. “This is a big confidence boost going into next week and the sectional coming up.” This year the Tigers had a day between a Northern Lakes Conference meet and the Truex, and the day off may have helped. “In the past five or six years we’ve run on Thursday before the meet, so actually it was nice to have a day off in between, and recoup from Wednesday,” Thacker said. “Two days ago we had meets with Concord and Goshen, and they’re some pretty tough competition. We came out and did pretty well tonight.” Warsaw closes out its regular season Wednesday against Plymouth and NorthWood in a meet in Nappanee. The postseason opens with the NLC Meet at Fisher Field May 9.
