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West Iron County Girls, MHSAA Regional Champions. These girls competed in a steady rain the entire meet in Ishpeming, the girls ended the day winning the Regional Title, by 1 point!
West Iron County Girls, MHSAA Regional Champions. These girls competed in a steady rain the entire meet in Ishpeming, the girls ended the day winning the Regional Title, by 1 point!
By Patrick Browne
The Lady Wykons secured a Regional Championship in Track and Field May 17 by narrowly beating out second place Ishpeming, 55 to 54. Statistically, the meet could not have been closer, and although a track meet consists of 17events and often takes over three hours to complete, the championship was not decided until the final three seconds.
Heading into the final event, the 4 by 400 meter relay, West Iron and Ishpeming were both in competition for the Regional trophy. The outcome of the final event would give first place five points, second place three and third place two. With Ishpeming and West Iron in a virtual tie, Ironwood had the opportunity to play spoiler if they could beat either of the top two teams in the final event. Wykon Coach Kristi Berutti and her team knew the stakes as Wykon and statistician Rachel Fanous was, according to Berutti, “Calculating scenarios after every race.”
The relay started, three teams perfectly passed the baton, ran like gazelles and completed what could only be termed the perfect race. The top two teams ran four minutes and forty-seven seconds, with the third team finishing less than three seconds behind the top two. To the human eye the race was a tie.
Due to the benefits of computer timing, Ishpeming was declared the winner by five one-thousandths of a second and earned five points, West Iron earned three and Ironwood two. West Iron’s heroic run and second place finish to Ishpeming pushed them over the top in team scoring, giving them 55 points to Ishpeming’s 54. The Regional Championship belonged to the Wykons.
Scoring quickly and often, Danica Shamion once again won the 100, 200 and 400 meter races and the High Jump. In winning the four events, Shamion secured 20 points and beat out the last place team, Painesville-Jeffers, who finished with eight points.
Seanna Stine put up six points by placing in the 100 and 300 meter hurdles and contributing to the first place relay teams of 4 by 100 meters and 4 by 200 meters.
Fellow Wykon Rowyn Fiszer garnered five points by placing in the 100 meter, the 100 meter hurdles, the 300 hurdles and contributing to the first place Wykon victory in the 4 by 100 meter relay.
In an impressive afternoon of individual efforts, the Wykon performance in the relays was nothing short of stellar. Two first places and two second places gave the team sixteen points out of a possible twenty. Teamwork never looked so impressive.
Coach Kristi Berutti, whose Lady Wykons took home the victory by a single point was ebullient, “The girls had to work hard for this win and they did. Every point mattered!”