Published: April 30, 2008 10:38 pm            

AMEY TAKES AIM: Track meet provides many OMG moments

TERRE HAUTE — I don’t know Caitlin Fears well enough to know how much she enjoyed the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference track and field championships Friday night.

As far as I can tell, she competed in just one event and placed 15th, but the Terre Haute South quarter-miler can at least say one thing: She beat Candyce McGrone.

About the only thing you can be certain of when watching a MIC championship meet is that you’re going to see speed and power — lots and lots of speed and power. If I knew how, I would have been texting OMGs to everyone I know on several occasions.

At least two of those messages would have involved McGrone, the tall, elegant Warren Central sprinter. She calmly blistered the field in the 100-meter dash, showing impeccable form with textbook economy of motion, then a few moments later took the baton for the anchor leg of the 4x100 relay with about 10 yards to make up. Again she was placid and unruffled, and swept inexorably past an Indianapolis North Central speedster with time to spare.

But the very next girls event was the 400, an event in which McGrone already had a state-qualifying time that was fastest in the field. Maybe she was tired. Maybe she wasn’t happy about this particular order of events — “in a mood,” my daughter Darcy might say. At any rate, her calmless evolved into lethargy. She finished 16th, a mere 16 seconds off her best time of the season.

She might not want to bring that up if she’s hoping for her team’s mental attitude award either; had she finished sixth or better, her team would have won the championship.

But that just further reinforces my theory that you never know what you’ll run into at the MIC meet. This season’s quirk was a wind that pretty much every runner who went around a corner had to run into.

“I was behind Andy Wilson [of Ben Davis] most of the time,” said Terre Haute North’s Zach Mayhew, for example, a few moments after winning the boys 3,200-meter run — and he indicated there was a reason for that positioning.

“When I had the lead,” Mayhew added, “it was like running full speed into a wall. It just drains you. But you have to use the wind as a tool, and that’s what I did.”

North’s Amy Hamilton also had similar strategic success, giving the Patriots a sweep of the longest races. And there were lots of other Vigo County standouts like North’s Shaun Smith, whose third- and fourth-place sprints didn’t get their due because the lateness of the meet forced the complete agate results to run a day late; North’s Aaron Edwards, with a pair of personal bests in throws; South’s Brianne Steppe (see, I really do know how to spell her first name); and North freshman Amber Wilcox.

Another OMG running moment came in the boys sprints, when I noticed that Warren Central’s George Cheesebourough — the Warrior football team’s biggest take-it-to-the-house threat — was in Lane 1 (not the fast lane, in other words) for the 100-meter final.

And then there was the biggest — literally — OMG moment of all. I wandered over to watch the throws during the running trials, and got my first look at Lawrence North’s Felisha Johnson other than in basketball. The future Indiana State thrower won both shot put and discus convincingly — another basketball player, Warren’s Teka Flowers, was second in both events — and with no small amount of intimidation.

As the girls were transitioning from shot put to discus, in fact, I was listening to South’s throwers talking to their coach, Cathy Herron, about Johnson and her habit of jumping rope between throws to stay loose. Finally one of the Braves — Shayla Lewis, I think — looked at Cathy, shaking her head with a smile of resignation and said, “Coach, you got to get us some steroids.”



• NBA bitterness — It’s always been a personal peeve of mine when a professional sports team tries to buy its way to a championship at the last minute (social liberal, fiscal conservative if you’re voting next week), so I was thrilled by a couple of National Basketball Association outcomes on Tuesday.

Both the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns were eliminated that night, the Mavs by the New Orleans Hornets, with Chris Paul running rings around recently acquired Jason Kidd of Dallas, and the Suns by the San Antonio Spurs, with recently acquired Shaquille O’Neal of the Suns missing 11 free throws. I was particularly mad at the Suns for abandoning their entire philosophy — “We were only kidding about being able to win while being entertaining” — to add a plodding, overweight, over-the-hill, overpaid O’Neal.

The best parts? Now Dallas and Phoenix are stuck with huge contracts for next year for their recent additions too, which should clear some space for Portland and Golden State to replace them in the playoffs.

Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at (812) 231-4277 or at 1-800-783-8742; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.

        

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