2 sleeper seeds make it to the District 3 podium

Last week, Waynesboro senior Austin Kassman celebrated his first-place finish in the javelin at the Mid Penn Conference championships, and he also met the district qualifying mark.

Saturday, like his surprising finish in the conference meet, Kassman stepped onto the District 3 podium as the seventh-place Class AAA medal winner with a throw of 171-6.

"It feels great," Kassman said. "Districts was really hard to get to, and I was hoping to make states today, but I got to the 170 mark, which was good enough to get to finals. And it was good enough to get a medal, which is what the whole season was for - to try to get as many medals as I can."

Kassman's throw was just two inches shy of sixth place, with the top six moving on to states next week.

"I was kind of disappointed, but that's all right - I'm just excited to get here," Kassman said.

Greencastle-Antrim's Lauren Hirneisen also improved on her seed to make it to the podium, with an eighth-place finish in the girls 1600, and she did qualify for states next week.

Hirneisen was seeded 11th, but ran a personal record of 5:11.09 Saturday to sneak into the final qualifying spot by almost a quarter of a second.

"I didn't really expect to medal or get top eight, so going to states is just the icing on the cake," said Hirneisen, who broke her PR by about a second.

Hirneisen is one of seven Franklin County athletes who will return to Shippensburg University next Friday and Saturday for the PIAA Championships.

Friday, Chambersburg's Regan Winebrenner placed fifth in the shot put with a heave of 37-4.75, just over an inch shy of the state qualifying standard.