Wharton girls still dominant

By MARK LENNOX
Published April 3, 2005

TAMPA - The Wharton girls found themselves in a familiar position on Saturday - the winner's circle.

Wharton coach Wes Newton is undefeated in the bigger county meets this season, the latest victory coming at the Teresa Manuel Relays at Middleton.

Newton's Wildcats have not tasted defeat in the county since 2001, when they lost by a point to Tampa Bay Tech.

But the win was closer than expected. Wharton edged Armwood by two points, taking the title 85-83.

"Our team really came together," Armwood coach Chris Biernacki said. "We had a great performance all day. We had a lot of personal and school records broken. Our goal at the end of the day was to be in the top three."

Sickles came in third with 53 points, followed by Jefferson, Middleton, Gaither, Brandon, Plant City Durant, Riverview and Hillsborough, respectively.

Armwood took the win in the discus (249-2), followed by Brandon (245-4) and Plant (239-9).

In the shot put, Brandon came away victorious (97-9) beating Armwood (92-2) and Sickles (91-10).

Only four schools had a qualifying score for the pole vault, with Sickles prevailing (22-6) over Armwood (21-6) and Leto (20-6).

Jefferson took the high jump crown (13-8), followed by Durant (13-8) and Wharton (13-6).

Armwood won the triple jump (94-5) ahead of Wharton (94-1) and Durant (93-1).

The long jump was won by Durant (48) followed by Wharton (47-31/2) and Armwood (47-3).

Sickles claimed the shuttle hurdles (1:07.22), edging Riverview (1.07:90) and Wharton (1:08.52).

Wharton claimed victory in the 2-mile relay (10:16.76), followed by Armwood (10:29.39) and Gaither (10:37.76).

Gaither won the distance medley relay (13:39.15) beating Wharton (13:48.84) and Plant (14:12.90).

Wharton (50.02) triumphed over Middleton (50.97) and Plant (51.28) in the 4x100 relay.

The spring medley was won by Wharton (2:28.52) beating Middleton (2:34.11) and Jefferson 2:34.96).

Middleton (1:48.43) claimed victory in the 4x200 relay, edging Armwood (1:51.56) and Jefferson (1:53.93).

[Last modified April 3, 2005, 00:10:19]