Track team ready for sectionals

by Eric Keppeler
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, June 2, 2007

The Lew-Port track team will be well represented at today’s Section VI Track and Field Championships at Starpoint Central School. The girls team will send 11 athletes to sectionals, while the fledgling boys team has a trio of sectional qualifiers.

The top finishers will move on to the state tournament next weekend in Kingston.

“We’re sending about as many as we thought we would,” said Lancers girls track coach Mark Johnson. “We thought we might get one or two more in, but we also had a few surprises. The kids have worked very hard and we’re happy with the way they’re running right now.”

For the second straight year, the Lew-Port girls are sending their 400-meter relay team to sectionals, and this year’s edition looks much the same as the last, with three of the same girls. Senior Jenna Van Dusen and juniors Bobbi Jo Tenke and Stephanie Lozzi will get their second shot together at a sectional crown, this year joined by sophomore Samantha Wilber.

Tenke also has qualified for sectionals in the 100 and 200, and Lozzi also will compete in the 200.

Van Dusen is also one of three Lew-Port girls to qualify in the pole vault, along with seniors Deanna Favero and Adrienne Robinson. Favero, who was the fourth runner in last year’s sectional relay team, this year will compete in the long jump at sectionals.

Van Dusen set a school record in the pole vault last week at the Niagara Frontier League Championships with a leap of 9 feet, 6 inches to win that event.

Johnson says that she and Favero are among the favorites in that event at sectionals.

“I think Deanna and Jenna both have the ability to go over 10 feet in the pole vault,” Johnson said. “I think they’ll definitely be in the hunt.”

Also qualifying for sectionals is Gretchen Herb in the 3,000 and the steeplechase. Freshman Kelsey McGill, who won the NFL cross country championship in the fall, also is going in the steeplechase.

Hailey Guard is headed for sectionals in the pentathlon after finishing second in that event at the NFL Championship. Andrea Favero also will compete in the pentathlon, while Bettina Kaphingst has qualified in the 800.

While the girls track team is an established and successful program, boys coach Randy Lombardo is trying to build his program from the ground up. With numbers barely reaching two dozen, the Lew-Port boys had three members qualify for sectionals.

In just his second year running track, junior Zach Eoute has qualified for sectionals in the 100. Joining him will be David Grabowski in the 400 hurdles. Grabowski took up the event for the first time this year and already has shaved off about 15 seconds from his time at the start of the season.

Pentathlete Terry Seyler is the Lancers’ third sectional qualifier, although Seyler, who won the pentathlon at the NFL Championship, will not be competing at sectionals, according to Johnson.