Published: May 07, 2008 11:53 pm            

Central Cambria captures conference championship

The Central Cambria boys track and field team capped a perfect dual-meet season with its first victory in the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference Championship Meet in nearly a decade Wednesday afternoon at Johnstown High School.

“It was a great team win for us, especially when you look at all the competition in the Laurel Highlands,” Red Devils coach Joe Ridgeley said. “Our kids are resilient. We’ve had some things happen with injuries here and there. We have a deep team and they stick together real well. I’m real proud of the kids. They did a great job this year.”

The Red Devils finished with 1191⁄2 points, just ahead of Richland with 104. Bedford (81), Somerset (76) and Penn Cambria (74) rounded out the top five.

“I think we had depth overall and I think that’s what made us successful,” Ridgeley said. “If we look at how many points we scored in the field and how many in track, they’re almost the same. Overall, we did a great job.”

Senior Mike Gowen produced a pair of individual victories for the Red Devils in the 110 hurdles (15.4 seconds) and 300 hurdles (40.7) and anchored the 1600-relay team, which won in a time of 3:37.8. Joining Gowen on the relay were Jordan Paterson, Marcus Lantzy and Ian Sonafelt.

Gowen, who began running track last year, dueled Bishop Carroll’s Chad Panick (15.7) for the win in the 110 hurdles and edged Penn Cambria’s Zak Newton (41.5), who had beaten him in the West Central Coaches Meet, in the 300 hurdles.

“I wasn’t seeded first in the 300 hurdles and I was a little upset about that,” said Gowen, who was the top seed in the 110 hurdles. “Usually I look at the 110s as my best race. You come here to this meet and run against great runners. I’m very competitive, and I don’t like to lose, especially to someone in my own conference and especially to someone from Penn Cambria. Zak’s a great runner. I just didn’t know about him until a couple weeks ago, but I knew he was behind me the whole race (Wednesday) because I could hear him.”

Central Cambria’s 3200 relay foursome of Bobby Bono, Ben Kinley, Corey Sheehan and Phil Steinberg also edged Richland with a winning time of 8:29.6, about two seconds ahead of the Rams.

The Red Devils’ Logan Caldwell won the shot put competition with a distance of 49 feet, 71⁄2 inches with Brad Jacobs claiming the victory in the javelin with a distance of 168-9, just ahead of teammate Caldwell (162-8).

Somerset’s Garrett Breen was a triple winner, with victories in the high (6-2), long (20-10) and triple (42-10) jumps. Golden Eagles teammate Craig Eddy added a pair of wins in the 400 (51.2) and the 800 (2:01.4) while Kyle Pucci claimed the victory in the pole vault (12-6).

The Glenn brothers of Penn Cambria finished 1-2 in the 100 and first and third in the 200 with Johnstown’s Eric Salazar second in the latter race.

Senior Bobby Glenn finished the 100 in 11.5 and junior Matt Glenn was right behind in 11.6. In the 200, Bobby Glenn crossed the line in 23.0, Salazar in 23.4 and Matt Glenn in 23.5.

“I try to save my energy so right at the very end of the race I can kick it in,” Bobby Glenn said. “The Laurel Highlands competition is always tough.”

Bishop McCort’s Jim Spisak won both distance races, running a 4:26.5 in the 1600 – nearly 20 seconds better than second-place finisher Greg Opp of Somerset – and a 9:51.1 in the 3200. 15 seconds ahead of teammate Mike Garver.

“I was hoping to come to the meet and win both events,” Spisak said. “My times were a little slow. It was a little windy to run fast times.”

Johnstown’s Salazar, Kashmir Pretlor, LaQuinn Stephens-Howling and Antwuan Reed nipped Bedford at the line for the win in the 400 relay in 44.1, three-tenths of a second better than the Bisons.

Junior Cody Shippey of Bedford, the fourth seed, won the discus competition with a distance of 145-7.

        

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