Pioneer Girls Track sends 7 girls to Regional and finishes 4th as a team at Kokomo Sectional

By: Steve Strycker RTCtv4

Girls Track

I normally leave the writing to Val, obviously he is the professional! Having been at the Kokomo sectional personally I felt like this was a good opportunity to give you a birds eye up close and personal report of the results by the little engine that could, the Pioneer Panthers girls track team. This team has been amazing us all the entire season from winning the Cass County track meet to the big win at John Glenn in the Dennis Rippy invitational to the HNAC conference win at Knox high school. Tuesday was another one of those days for the Panthers, finishing 4th in a field of huge schools like Kokomo, Northwestern and Western scoring 67 team points. The Panthers will send 7 girls to the regional next Tuesday at Goshen High School. The panthers capped off the incredible night with a monster win in the 4x400M relay, the team of Blair Grigsby, Chloe Chan, Paula Collado Fernandez and Rachel Harding pulled off the win coming from behind to beat the second place Lewis Cass Kings. The Panthers winning time in the relay was 4:14.93. Also winning a sectional title for the Panthers was sophomore Michelle Harding who won the long jump with a mark of 16’8”. Freshman Aspen Moolenaar was outstanding advancing to Regional in all three of her events finishing 2nd in pole vault clearing 9’0”, finishing 3rd in the 100M hurdles with a time of 17.44 and she was part of the 4x100M team of Kirsten Nies, Michelle Harding, Aspen, and Rachel Harding that finished 2nd with a time of 51.34 a mere .42 seconds behind the winning Kokomo team. Kiersten Nies also advanced in high jump with a PR of 5’2” finishing 3rd. Paula Collado Fernandez would also advance in the 400M finishing 2nd with a time of 1:01.35. Makenna Strycker didn’t advance but had a great run in the 800 finishing 10th in a PR of 2:44.01, she would earn a point in pole vault for the Panthers finishing 8th with a jump on 7’6”. Other Panthers scoring points but not advancing included Blair Grigsby 6th place in long jump at 15’10”. Paula Collado Fernandez would score points but not advance in the 200M finishing in 7th place. Rachel Harding finished 7th with a 13.09 in the 100M. Hope you like the story, hopefully I didn’t embarrass Val too much and maybe even gave some good information along the way!