Heeding coach’s advice, Forbes responds with career best
HAVERFORD >> Strath Haven’s Grace Forbes wanted to run the 800 one way Saturday at the Haverford Invitational. Her coach, Bill Coren, wanted the sophomore to take a different approach.
He wanted Forbes faster than normal.
Forbes did as ordered and had the best day of her career in the event. Forbes not only ran a personal best time of 2 minutes, 17.50 seconds, but also broke Liz McGroarty’s meet record by more than a second.
“I heard Coren (on the PA system) saying that it might be a 2:15,” Forbes said. “I knew I wasn’t going to do that, but I just pushed through to do the best I could. I had to hold on because my legs died in the last 100 meters.”
Forbes meet-record performance was one of the many highlights for the Panthers. Her older sister, Maddie, won the 1,600 in 5:18.29. Fellow senior Isabel Cardi was third in the 3,200 (11:31.15). The Panthers also were second in both the 4 x 400- and 4 x 800-meter relays
“Usually, we’re running relays so it was nice to run an individual event,” Maddie Forges said. “I hope to do it again.”
It’s been a rather interesting year for Ridley’s Senna Ohlsson. She spent the first five months of the school year in Sweden and has earned enough credits to graduate a year early, which has forced her to expedite her college search.
She’s also off to a good start in the outdoor track season.
Ohlsson won gold and qualified for the District 1 Class 3A championships in her first invitational 400 of the season. Ohlsson edged Downingtown East’s Caroline Roumpz with a time of 59.42 seconds.
“It’s always good to get a qualifying time out of the way early, even if you don’t know whether or not you’re going to run that event,” Ohlsson said. “You know that you’ve done that already and can work on to go out a little getting better.”
Ohlsson’s teammate, Izzy Hamlin, was third in the discus and fourth in the shot put.
Penncrest’s Tara Higgins has been fighting a variety of illnesses recently, but that did not stop her from pulling off a unique double. She was second to Grace Forbes in the 800 and third in the javelin.
“I thought I was over it last week, but it came back,” Higgins said. “I felt a lot better today, just a little tired, but I think that was because we had our (junior) prom (Friday night).”
Sun Valley sophomore Haweh Kwaidah had a pretty good week. She recorded her personal best in the long jump twice this week. She did it in a dual meet and again with a jump of 16 feet, 5 inches to take second Saturday.
Notre Dame’s Allesandra Ciampi was a triple medal winner. She won the 100 hurdles, was fifth in the 300 hurdles and led off the 4 x 100-meter relay that was third.
Jewel Ford of Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast came home with bronze medals in the 100- and 200-meter dashes.
Having home-field advantage helped Haverford’s Cecilia Katcavage. She won the shot put (37-11¼) and was second in the javelin (113-0). Katcavage just missed earning a medal in the discus.