It was the same old story for Brookfield Central’s girls track and field team at Monday’s Hamilton Regional.
The Lancers continued their string of dominance from the Greater Metro Conference season by taking first overall with 168 points and sending more than a handful of individuals to Thursday’s sectional. See full results here.
“Very, very good day,” Brookfield Central coach Trae Hoepner said. “We had a lot of kind of surprises. We had a pole vaulter go 10 feet, which was a foot higher than she had ever gone before. (In) discus we went 1-2, (in the) 3200 (meter) we went 2-3. There are just a lot of areas we doubled up and got a lot of people through which is what we like to see.”
In all, Central qualified for sectionals in 14 different events, including four where they doubled up.
The main focus was once again on senior standout Chidera Obasih, who continues to roll despite missing the first half of the season with a nagging hamstring injury.
“She’s got a long ways to go,” Hoepner said. “I would’ve loved to have had at her three weeks earlier, but at the same time where she is being able to finish…what she did today is very tough to do.
Hoepner, who is Obasih’s sprint coach, said she held up well, looked strong and joked that if she’s anywhere near in the form she was last year when she dominated the field she should be just fine.
Hamilton (102 points) just squeaked past Brookfield East (94) to finish second overall.
The Chargers placed in the top four in nine different events, highlighted by their impressive sweep of all four relay events (400, 800, 1,600 and 3,200).
Hamilton also nearly knocked Obasih off the throne that has been hers for so long in the 100-meter dash when senior Danielle Barbian and sophomores Toney Lock and Amanda Landergott all qualified with faster times than the defending state champ.
Obasih ended up winning with a time of 12.20 seconds, but Hamilton’s three-headed monster was right behind as the trio each finished within 0.65 seconds.
Despite finishing behind Hamilton in the overall standings, Brookfield East actually qualified for more events (11) overall, most notable of which was senior Katie Tolan’s time of 2 minutes, 21.80 seconds in the 800 meter, good enough for first place.
Waukesha North will host the area’s sectional Thursday afternoon.
