By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – Before she dashed off to dance practice, Bedford North Lawrence senior Lindley Steele dashed to a victory in the speed race. Before BNL and Mitchell seniors run off to college and military futures, they ran one final dual meet to remember their four-year run.
Their families want time to slow down. Their coaches want their times to come down. Go faster, further.
Thrust together in dual celebrations, as work on the new facilities at Mitchell is underway, the Stars and Bluejackets honored their upperclassmen during pre-meet ceremonies. Then BNL dominated the two county-rival meets, winning every race and event on Monday evening.
BNL cruised to easy victories in the team competition, recording a 110-13 win in the boys meet and a 108-21 triumph in the girls meet. That was a foregone conclusion. The issue confronting the Stars was the future – where will everyone line up for the Hoosier Hills Conference and IHSAA sectional meets? Those answers are nowhere as clear as BNL superiority.
“I like the camaraderie between the schools,” BNL boys coach Brett Deckard said. “Yes, we’re going to win the meet because of sheer numbers, but they competed. We competed, we ran hard. It was a good meet to end the season, with Senior Night.
“We pretty well know what events we’ll put them in for the conference. The sectional depends on what points we want to chase or if we want to get kids out. We will crunch the numbers.”
Here are some numbers and BNL winners in the boys meet: Noah Carter (15.80 in the 110 high hurdles), Cameron Haste (5:15.56 in the 1600), Billy Cline (54.48 in the 400 and 24.41 in the 200), Zane Thompson (42.17 in the 300 hurdles), Jonah Bailey (2:09.04 in the 800), Alex Nicholson (12:04.18 in the 3200), Coleton Sears (5-10 in the high jump), Bracey Ritchison (8-6 in the pole vault), Maddex McFarland (19-3 in the long jump), Carter Kimmel (40-3 in the shot put and 123-10 1/2 in the discus) and all three relays.
In the girls meet, winners were Alessia Agostini (17.86 in the 100 hurdles and 52.49 in the 300 hurdles), Steele (12.97 in the 100), Grace Tanksley (5:45.70 in the 1600 and 12:33.14 in the 3200)), Savannah Russell (1:14.00 in the 400), Ellie Anderson (28.98 in the 200), Cora Brown (6-0 in the pole vault and 14-9 1/2 in the long jump) and Autumn Hall (29-7 1/2 in the shot put and 110-5 in the discus).
“We saw a lot of different things, because we had a lot of different kids in different events, just to see how they would do,” BNL coach Jim Lewis said. “And they excelled. It gives us a lot of decisions to make.
“Even with our limited numbers, the girls have been awesome. We’ve improved steadily. It’s putting them in the right things for them to move on. I have found out a lot about them the last few meets.”
BNL will compete in the Big Blue Relays at Jennings County on Thursday. The BNL boys have won the last two team titles in the event.
