Greencastle handles Shippensburg on the track
In its opening track & field dual meet of the season, Greencastle-Antrim showed good form and defeated Shippensburg in a Mid-Penn Colonial Division event Tuesday.
The Blue Devil boys won easily, 112-38, thanks to a career day for Campbell Parker in the throws and absolute domination by Liam Okal on the track.
Parker came into the meet shooting for the school record in the discus and it became obvious while he warmed up that he had a great chance of breaking it. On his second throw he launched a throw straight down the middle that hit the flag marking the record and landed far enough for a new record. Then he caught fire and proceeded to break the record two more times and set a career best of 173 feet even, 10 more than the previous school record (163-10 by Toby Fritz in 1987) and also a stadium record.
“I felt pretty good going into today and was technically sound,” Parker said. “I killed one in warmups, so it was nice to finally get the record.”
Parker won the discus easily and also picked up a victory in the shot put.
While Parker was dominating the throws, Okal was tearing up the track. He picked up effortless wins in the 100 and 200 sprints and anchored the winning 4x100 and 4x400 relays.
“After Liam qualified for districts and states last year, we have pretty high expectations for him and he’s a very hard worker,” G-A coach Devin McCauley said.
Cody Gustafson put in a nice effort for the Greyhounds, as he won both the triple and long jump, and on the track Sam Shamshudin placed first in the 110 hurdles and in the 400 dash.
For the Blue Devil girls, strong performances from their distance runners and sprinters led to a 85-65 victory that could have easily gone the other way. Greencastle won every sprint event except the 400 and won each distance event, including the 4x800 relay that started the meet.
G-A's Jordan Pizzarro picked up victories in the 100 and 200 dashes and Madison Hurley won the 3200 run, along with a second place finish in the mile.
For the Lady Hounds, each of the three Nyes picked up a win - Natalie Nye won the pole vault, Eva Nye won the triple jump, and Julia Nye placed first in the 400 dash. Natalie Nye's 8-6 vault set a school record, breaking her mark of 8-4 set last week.