TRACK AND FIELD: Hess, Winters star at Shippensburg Invitational

The big meets are fast approaching for high school track and field athletes, and it looks like plenty of Lebanon County competitors are ready for them.

Especially Annville-Cleona's Reagan Hess and Lebanon High's Erin Winters.

Hess, A-C's sophomore sprinting sensation, and Winters, Lebanon High's senior pole vault specialist, highlighted the local effort at Saturday's 89th installment of the Jack Roddick Invitational at Shippensburg University.

Hess captured two gold medals, winning the Class AA 100 meter dash in 12.62 seconds and taking the long jump title with a leap of 18 feet, 3 inches. She also took second in the 200 meter dash and helped A-C to a third place effort in the 400 meter relay event, as well as a sixth place finish in the team standings.

Winters, meanwhile, cleared 11 feet, 9 inches to win the Class AAA pole vault, continuing her comeback from a bout with shingles earlier this season and giving Lebanon County a third individual championship.

But Hess and Winters were far from the only county competitors to shine on Saturday.

Runner-up finishes came from the Northern Lebanon duo of Dakota Leonhard and Nicholas Auchenbach in boys Class AAA and Annville-Cleona's Adam Fox in the AA javelin.

Leonhard fired the shot put 50-7 1/2 to earn his second place finish, while Auchenbach clocked a time of 40.44 seconds en route to his runner-up finish in the 300 intermediate hurdles and Fox tossed the javelin 167-5.

Other notable efforts from county competitors on Saturday included Palmyra's Katie Dembrowski (3rd, Girls Class AAA 800) and Katy McClellan (4th, Girls Class AAA javelin), as well as Derek Bosworth and Jon Zechman of Annville-Cleona, who were fourth in the Boys Class AA 110 high hurdles and 2000 meter steeplechase, respectively. Also, Mason Cooper of Palmyra took fifth in the Boys Class AAA discus.

In addition, Tori Malloy, Timeshah Clark and Veronica Merone joined Hess on A-C's third place 400 relay team, and Jess Dembrowski, Maria Tukis and Sarah Hollen and Kelsei Bixler, combined for a fourth of their own in the Girls Class AAA 3200 relay.