Fallsnewspress.com - Black Tiger girls track team progresses despite loss

by Frank Aceto

Associate Sports Editor

How do you approach a meet you have no chance of winning?

Cuyahoga Falls head girls track and field coach Dan Scourfield isn't sure. But he'll take a performance like the Lady Black Tigers had May 7 anytime.

The visiting Lady Black Tigers concluded the regular season with a lopsided 102-35 loss to Northeast Ohio Conference River Division rival Twinsburg.

With the win, Twinsburg clinched the regular-season title with a 5-0 record. Falls finished 1-4.

"Twinsburg is good in every event," said Lady Black Tigers head coach Dan Scourfield. "In fact, they have two really good girls in every event."

Ariell Akel placed in two events for Falls. She won the pole-vault competition with a vault of 9 feet and placed second in the high jump (5-0).

"Ariell's vault was a really good effort," Scourfield said.

Chrissy Zimmermann won the 800-meter race (2 minutes, 24 seconds) and placed third in the 1,600 (5:29).

"Chrissy had a really good day," Scourfield said. "I thought the 3,200 was a pretty good race. The wind was howling. She had to fight through some tough conditions."

Jamiee Post placed in four events. She finished second in the long jump (15-6) and third in the high jump (4-10), the 100 hurdles (18.2) and the 300 hurdles (53.4).

"Jamiee learns a little bit every meet," Scourfield said. "She had some pretty good attempts at 5 feet in the high jump."

The Lady Black Tigers took the top two spots in the discus event. Rachel King won with a throw of 100-7 and Katy Roth took second (93-9).

Chelsey Bruce and Michelle Porter each erased 30 seconds off their personal records in the 3,200. Bruce took second (12:34) and Porter placed third (13:01).

"Our field events are pretty solid," Scourfield said. "We have two good high jumpers and long jumpers and some good throwers and vaulters.

"We're pretty young in the sprints, though," he added. "That's the next thing we need to work on. I think it will come. We have the right people."

Falls finished 25th with two points at the 28-team Optimist Meet May 3 at Austintown Fitch High School.

Twinsburg won the competition with 80.25 points and Hudson (74) and North Canton Hoover (73.5) finished second and third, respectively.

The 1,600 relay team of Post, Haylie Flick, Alex Taylor and Chrissy Zimmermann scored the Lady Black Tigers' only two points with a seventh-place time of 4:30.59.

"Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong at the Optimist Meet," Scourfield admitted. "We had some disqualifications and some people didn't perform as well as we expected."

Falls was scheduled to compete at the Green Relays May 9. Results were not available at press time.

The Lady Black Tigers are set to visit Twinsburg High School for the NOC Meet May 15 at 4 p.m. The action is scheduled to resume May 17 at noon.

E-mail: faceto@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-686-3914