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Sunday, June 1, 2008
So Much Success
Central Kansas, KS
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By: Tom Witherspoon
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Photo(s) By: Steve Adelson
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For some, titles just seem to come easy
When Ethan Ungles popped out his chest, dipped his head over the finish line and emitted a victorious yelp at the end of the 200 meter dash, something other than his golden day at the state track meet was coming into focus.
Memorial Day Weekend was a coup for the Renwick School District. While Ungles won the 100 and 200 and ran a leg on the state-title winning Andale 4x100 relay team to lead the Indians to their second-straight Class 4A track team state title, the Andale-Garden Plain softball and baseball teams had also just completed two state title games in Salina.
Karley Schmelzer, a junior at Garden Plain who plays softball at fellow district school Andale because the Owls do not have a team, pitched the team to a Class 4A state title and a 24-2 record this spring. Schmelzer pitched all three games at the state tournament, including a 1-0 shutout in the semifinals against Andover Central. The district baseball team, Andale-Garden Plain, just missed its own state title, falling 2-1 in the title game to Kansas City Ward.
Back at the state track meet, where the schools competed separately as in every other sport but baseball and softball, Garden Plain had a multi-event champion of their own to match Ungles of Andale. On Friday, Garden Plain senior Zack Puetz had the longest shot put of the state meet, 56’4”, to win the Class 3A state title. He came back on Saturday to win the 3A discus.
On top of this, the prolific success for these two schools during the 2007-2008 school year was not limited to the spring. In the fall, Puetz had led a smash-mouth offensive line which literally ran over the opposition during Garden Plain’s sprint to the 3A football title. And Ungles had sprinted up and down the sideline and over the middle all fall as a wideout on the Andale football team. In addition to the two straight track titles for the Andale boys the past two years, Ungles and Andale won 28 straight games and two straight 4A titles on the gridiron.
Titles just seem to come easy to some. Wichita Heights sprinter Audacia Moore, who says she would just as soon read a book as practice getting out of the blocks, cruised to two more titles over Memorial Day Weekend 2008. After repeating as the Class 6A 100 meter champ earlier in the day, Moore breezed by her opponents on the turn in the 200 to repeat in that event, as well. Afterwards, without much expression, she pulled on a pair of basketball shorts and a warm-up suit and strolled into the middle of the infield at Cessna Stadium in the company of a few teammates. Two-time champ in the 100 and 200 and headed to Wichita State on a track scholarship? No biggie.
The trophies keep coming to Tiffany Bias, too. Already an undefeated Class 4A state basketball champ as the point guard for Andover Central this past winter, Bias, just a sophomore, returned to the state track meet this spring as the defending champ in the 200 and 400 meter dashes. Bias repeated in both events, running the 400 in 57.39 seconds, the fastest time of any class at the state meet.
Laura Nightengale of El Dorado did not win as many gold medals as she may have in another era – one in which Heather Garcia of Baldwin would not have been a fellow competitor – but once again this spring she fended off all comers in the event she owns, the 800 meter run. While Nightengale was the two-time defending champ in the 800 entering state, Garcia’s trophy case was overflowing. The two-time 4A defending cross country champ, Garcia had already won the 3200 and 1600 meter runs at state for the third straight year entering her final meeting with Nightengale in the 800. Garcia had left Nightengale in second place at the cross country meet the past two falls and in the 1600 the past two springs.
Garcia desperately wanted to win all three distance events at the state meet on her final shot, and it showed. Entering the turn 25 meters past the 400-meter mark, Garcia knew she had to get ahead of Nightengale if she wanted a shot at winning the 800. She sprinted out to Nightengale’s right and tried to cut her off, though prematurely. Garcia was not yet out of ahead of her, and the two runners’ legs would have tangled up and sent them tumbling to track if she would have completed the move.
Nightengale wasn’t having it, however. She brushed off Garcia’s move with a forearm, as her only option other than falling would have been slowing down had she not given the slight shove. After the race, Garcia complained to officials, but to no avail. Nightengale was the 800 champ for the third straight year, achieving the fastest time at the meet for the second year in a row.
Who will replace this extraordinary rivalry next year?
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