After coming up short twice, Knoch girls track and field team aims for WPIAL title

By: Michael Love
Monday, May 6, 2024 | 9:46 PM

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Two years ago, the Knoch girls track and field team qualified for the WPIAL Class 2A semifinals. The Lady Knights came up just short of their goal to advance to the finals.

Last spring, Knoch broke through as one of the final four. The Knights beat Derry, but Winchester Thurston and Quaker Valley stopped Knoch and relegated them to third place.

Knoch is back in this year’s final after dominant performance in the semifinals.

Standing in the way Tuesday at Peters Township High School is a QV team looking for a three-peat along withFort Cherry and Shenango squads hoping, just like the Knights, to upend the two-time defending champs.

“We’re hyped. We’re so thrilled for this,” said senior Ava Santora, who will run the 1,600 and 3,200 meters Tuesday. “We want this really bad. We didn’t get it last year. We are going into it with a lot of motivation. We have a lot of energy behind what we want to do. We want to get it done. We want this for the school and everything.

“For being as small of a school as we are, we have a lot of talent all over this team. Everybody carries their weight to make it happen. Our depth really helps carry us.”

Knoch advanced past the semifinals last week at West Mifflin with a sweep of Mohawk, 103-47; Beaver Area, 114-36; West Mifflin, 122.5-27.5; and Waynesburg Central, 127-23.

“We came into it super confident,” Santora said. “We went there to get the job done, and that is exactly what we did. Wins like that continue to show the work that we put in throughout the winter and the last two months since the start of the season. We’re always ready and motivated to prove ourselves.”

In addition to the semifinal wins, two members of the team — juniors Kara Fennell and Karlee Buterbaugh — had record performances at West Mifflin.

Fennell, who set the school record in the triple jump at 37 feet, 10 inches earlier in the season, tied the school record in the pole vault with an effort of 10-9.

“We weren’t really surprised (with the semifinal victories) because we had been pretty dominant in our (dual) meets throughout the season,” Fennell said. “We just carried that over.”

Buterbaugh threw the javelin 131-5 in the semifinals, an inch better than her own school record.

“I truly didn’t know I did it,” said Buterbaugh, who will throw the shot and javelin and run in the 400 relay Tuesday. “I thought I tied it. Then I looked back at my record and realized I got it.”

The Knoch girls and boys teams celebrated a double section triumph with undefeated 7-0 records.

“Hard work and determination has gotten us to where we are,” Fennell said. “Everyone has the same mindset.”

Buterbaugh said the team can’t take anything for granted in the final.

“We have to give 100% with every run, every jump, and every throw. The competition is so good,” she said.

Buterbaugh said the expectations were there to get back to the finals.

“We knew we only lost a couple of seniors and had some underclassmen we knew who would step up into bigger roles,” she said. “Going in, we had to fill certain spots. Everyone filled in accordingly and upheld their standards.”

The momentum from the semifinals carried over to Pine-Richland on Friday as the girls team scored four medals. Buterbaugh was second in the javelin, Fennell took sixth in the pole vault, sophomore Neah Ewing was seventh in the javelin and senior Madi Hunt placed seventh in the shot put.

“There were a lot of really good schools there, and we had some nice finishes, so it lifted us up more,” Fennell said. “It was a good feeling to be able to continue to perform well there.”

“We were going up against some good triple-A schools, too, and it showed that we can compete with those schools, too,” Santora said.

Knoch coach Amy Formica said the experience of being in the playoffs the past two years helped the team for the semifinals.

“They knew what to expect,” she said. “They were prepared. Honestly, they were working towards this all year. There are some with individual goals they want to reach, but they go about it with knowing how it will help the team.”

The Knoch boys were led at Pine-Richland by the sixth-place finish from sophomore Austin Freidline in the 300 hurdles at a season-best 41.37 seconds.

They were not able to make it past last week’s semifinals at West Mifflin, however, as Ellwood City advanced from that semifinal that also included Riverview, the host Titans, and Waynesburg Central.

“The boys are still working hard to be ready for (individual) WPIALs,” Formica said. “We’re putting together our relay teams and working on fine-tuning some other things with the individual events.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

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