Lady Colts earn 2nd straight title

BY CORY ISENBERG
The Tribune-Democrat

ALTOONA May 03, 2008 12:10 am

— For the second straight year, the girls from Northern Cambria won the Class AA team championship Friday at the prestigious West Central Coaches Invitational Track and Field Meet.
The Colts won with 1061⁄2 points while Central Cambria was second with 71.
Elk County Catholic (411⁄2), Northern Bedford (39) and Bedford (36) rounded out the top five at the 59th invitational, which featured 37 Class AA teams and 17 Class AAA squads.
“The competition here is too good to pass up, you’ve got to come here to this meet,” said Northern Cambria coach Jim Rocco, whose team will compete in the Heritage Conference Meet today at United. “I was very surprised by the point margin. I was sitting here thinking that we didn’t win too many events here, but we took a lot of second places. That’s basically where we made our money is on second places.”
Winners for the Colts included Hayley Paronish in the pole vault, Marybeth Rocco in the javelin and Janae Dunchack in the high jump.
Paronish had a jump of 10-feet while Rocco had a winning toss of 129-11. Dunchack set a meet record in the high jump with a leap of 5-61⁄4.
“I thought my high jump was my strongest event,” said Dunchack, who was also second in the long jump, the 100 and the 200. “I felt really good.”
Chestnut Ridge senior Samantha Valiton won the 100 and 200 dashes, including a personal best in the latter event. Valiton finished in 12.57 in the 100 and 25.75 in the 200.
“I knew I was going to have a lot of competition in the 100,” said Valiton, the top seed in both events. “But the 200 was the best race because Janae Dunchack helped me run the best race of my life. I’ve never been in that tough of a competition before.”
Windber junior Sarah Snyder was a winner in the 300 hurdles in a time of 46.27, holding off Northern Cambria’s Breanna Kochinsky for the win by .06 seconds.
Snyder (46.35) and Kochinsky (47.80), the top two seeds entering the event, both bettered their seeded times in the final.
Snyder was second in the 100 hurdles behind Northern Bedford’s Taylor Crawford while Kochinsky finished fourth.
Central Cambria’s Carly Seymour won the 1600 and the 3200 runs. The senior, who is headed to Duke in the fall, won the 1600 in 5:00.75 and the 3200 in 10:42.82.
“I just focus on getting my splits because I run on my own a lot,” Carly Seymour said.
Central Cambria senior Amber Latterner joined Emily Wright, Ashley Stump and Kendall Seymour, all three freshmen, on the winning 3200 relay. The quartet finished in a time of 9:42.87.
Victoria Brumbaugh, Kelsey Seymour, Wright and Breanna Fox won the 1600 relay in 4:07.40 for the Red Devils.
Sophomore Kelsey Seymour also beat her own record set in the 800 last year with a run of 2:14.55 on Friday.
United senior Kate Kendrick claimed the gold in the discus with a winning toss of 123-3. Kendrick was also second in the shot put behind Heritage Conference foe Nellie Henigin of Saltsburg.
Senior Jerica Snedden of Cambria Heights won the 400 with a time of 1:00.51 while Bedford’s Brandy Harris claimed the victory in the long jump (17-6).

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