Springfield’s Galligan goes out with a bang
CALN TWP. » If the District 1 Track & Field Championships were his last event as a competitive athlete, at least Springfield’s Owen Galligan left with a medal and a personal best in the Class 3A discus.
A trip to the state meet would have been better, but that was out of his hands. Quakertown’s Mike Weaver, who came into the meet as the eighth seed, unleashed a career-best throw of 150 feet, 4 inches, to knock Galligan from fifth to sixth place.
Only the top five automatically qualify for the state meet. The next three competitors can advance if they meet the state qualifying standard, which is 153-0. Galligan PR’d with a throw of 148-4. That was more than three feet beyond than his previous best (145-0) but not enough to earn a trip to Shippensburg.
“You can only go out there and do your best,” Galligan said. “Everything else is out of your control.”
Spoken like a true Marine, which is what Galligan plans on being when he graduates from Villanova. He’s going there under the Marine Corps Reserve Officer Training Corps program (ROTC), where he hopes to be involved in ground intelligence.
“They have very high standards and the program is really rigorous,” said Galligan, who plans to major in mechanical engineering. “I’m going through all the medical stuff right now and it’s intense.”
Galligan was one of five county athletes to medal on the first day of competition. Strath Haven’s Dayo Abeeb won the triple jump. Garnet Valley’s Larry Coaxum was seventh in the event with a career-best leap of 44-9.
In Class 2A, Delco Christian’s John Finnell was seventh in the javelin (107-7). Teammate Terry Wang took seventh in the triple jump (37-10).
*** Ridley’s Zack Forney took a look at the field for his heat in the Class 3A 1,600-meter run and realized his best strategy for advancing to Saturday’s final was to go out and take the lead early.
“All of those runners have a really big kick at the end, and I wanted to stay ahead of them,” Forney said. “I wanted to run my race.”
It was a successful strategy. Forney finished third in his heat behind Downingtown East’s Evan Kaiser and Bishop Shanahan’s Jonah Hoey, and fifth overall to earn one of the 12 spots in the final. His time was 4 minutes, 23.85 seconds.
“I had so much separation that when they started to kick they had to move forward and catch me,” Forney said. “I didn’t wear myself out so I feel good about tomorrow.”
Forney wasn’t the only Delco athlete to advance to the final. Radnor’s Frank Brown was fourth in a personal-best time of 4:29.87. Haverford’s Aiden Tomov (4:30.67) and Avery Lederer of Penncrest (41:31.76) also lived to race another day.
*** Chester’s day got off to a rocky start. The team’s bus had a flat tire while pulling into the complex.
Fortunately, it was one of the four tires in the back of the bus so the driver was able to drop off the Clippers without any issue.
“It was one of the inside tires on the back so it wasn’t a problem,” Chester coach Jamie Wharton said.
The bus made it to Coatesville, but James Jackson, the No. 1 seed in the 110-meter high hurdles did not.
“I don’t know what happened,” Wharton said. “We had the prom last night and he didn’t make the bus.”
The day was not a total loss for the Clippers. Malik Langley, Lamaj Curry, Abdul Griggs and Malachi Langley ran 3:23.64 in the preliminary round of the 4 x 400-meter relay to claim the last spot in Saturday’s final. Little also qualified for the 300 hurdles final.
*** NOTES » Ridley’s Tony Graham advanced to the semifinals in the Class 3A 110 hurdles and the final in the 300 hurdles. Penn Wood’s Madda Ngaima also made it through in both events. … Elsewhere in 3A, Haverford (Tomov, Josh Fingerhut, Brendan Campbell, Erik McCallion) and Penn Wood (Talus Gaymore, James Nmah, Devon Battle, Tyshaun Truitt) qualified for the 4 x 800 final. … Radnor’s Ethan Zeh and Upper Darby’s Jarnail Dhillon advanced to the 800 meter final. … Upper Darby (Dhillon, Sidney Turner, Richard Moore, Gbarwho Flahn) also qualified for the 4 x 400 final. … In Class 2A, Dante Falasco of Delco Christian advanced to the final in the 100and 200-meter dashes.