Pine-Richland relays shine at WPIAL meet

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, May 25, 2018 | 5:06 PM

For the fifth consecutive year, the Pine-Richland track and field team sent its girls 400-meter relay team to the PIAA championship meet after the group's third-place finish at the WPIAL Class AAA championships May 17. They finished in 48.81 seconds.

In addition to the 400 team, Pine-Richland's 1,600 relay took sixth at WPIALs with a school-record time of 3 minutes, 58.18 seconds, granting the unit its third consecutive trip to states.

“Those two relays, we were hopeful to qualify all year,” Pine-Richland coach Bill Crummy said. “We knew we had the girls coming back, and a few new girls coming into the fold that could run a good enough time to qualify,”

“It's exciting … to have two girls relays practicing and working hard to go at it again.”

The 400 and the 1,600 teams feature Danielle Bryant, Jodie Berezo and Meghan Briski. The fourth spot for the 1,600 team is held by Ella Rottinghaus, and the 400 crew is rounded out by Izzy Greco.

Bryant had an especially strong showing at the WPIAL championship meet at Baldwin. The sophomore also took fourth in the 300 hurdles in 45.46 seconds.

“Danielle is still a relative newbie with the hurdles,” Crummy said. “She has a lot of upside potential in that event.

“Obviously, her speed is not a problem. Working on the technique is always the hard part. You can be a really good runner, but it can take you a while to figure out how to run the hurdles. She is getting that part down and really cutting her time.”

Another sophomore, Luke Meckler, earned a spot at the state meet in three events. He combined with Jason DeFrancisis, Dylan Stenson and Jordan Crawford to take fourth (43.21) in the 400 relay. In addition, Meckler grabbed sixth (10.99) in the 100 and fourth in the 300 hurdles (39.63).

Athletes who narrowly missed the cut to qualify for states included Natalie Christel, who finished ninth (15.54) in the 100 hurdles; C.C. Clark, who took ninth (46.74) in the 300 hurdles; and Greco, who was ninth (25.77) in the 200 dash.

In the field, Devon Erb finished in 10th in the girls pole vault after clearing a height of 9 feet, 6 inches.

The PIAA Class AAA championship meet was held over the weekend at Shippensburg, after deadline for this edition.

Kevin Lohman is a freelance writer.

Tags: Pine-Richland