Mellow, Thomas set pace for Methacton

WEST NORRITON » The beauty of a league championship meet is watching the rivalries — whether real or only on the performance sheets — come to a head in real time.

That’s exactly what played out Saturday during the final day of the Pioneer Athletic Conference Track and Field Championships at Norristown.

With the rivalries and competition so tight, everyone wanted a piece of the pie. And in many ways, the wealth was shared with eight different champions among Saturday’s eight girls events.

One unit that didn’t share was the Methacton girls team, which burst to the team championship, the Warriors’ 159 team points comfortably ahead of Spring-Ford (119), Perkiomen Valley (110) and Owen J. Roberts (106).

After senior Coco Dunham’s double-day Friday winning the discus and triple jump, the Warriors on

Saturday were led by sophomores Summer Mellow and Kate Thomas, who captured gold in the 100 meters and 800 meters, respectively.

Mellow and Spring-Ford senior Kaleigh Hudson have been the PAC’s top 2 sprinters this spring, entering 1-2 in the seeding and staying there after Friday’s preliminaries.

Mellow was second to Hudson in both, though. The Rams’ four-year standout — she placed fourth in the 100 at the last PAC Championships in 2019 as a freshman and was a PIAA qualifier in 2021 — became a target for the Warriors’ second-year sprinter as the league’s gold standard.

“Last year she beat me every time. I made it my mission to beat her at least once,” Mellow said.

She needed thousandths of seconds to settle the score Saturday when Mellow closed stronger, winning in 12.404 ahead of Hudson’s 12.410.

“That was awesome,” Mellow said. “I was in the starting blocks and I was very excited for the race. People often think you’d be so nervous especially to go against somebody who’s probably going to beat you, but it’s exciting for me. Second or first place, I would have still felt really good.

“We were neck-and-neck the whole time. I tried to (lean) and get across first and it worked. It was an amazing race, really fun.”

Remarkably, it wasn’t the only time of the day Hudson dealt with such margins. She was on the right side of it in the 200 meters, claiming the PAC title in 25.531 over surprise silver medalist Caleigh Bold of Owen J. Roberts (6th after prelims), who finished in 25.538, while Perkiomen Valley’s Ashley Pickles place third (25.60).

Pickles, a sophomore, had a seed-sheet rivalry with Spring-Ford senior high jump star Nene Mokonchu as the PAC’s only sub-1:00 qualifiers in the 400 meters.

Pushing each other the entire way, Pickles finished in 57.40, narrowly ahead of Mokonchu’s 57.53, both Pa. top 10 times. Pope John Paul II senior Tess Crossan placed third in a personaland PJP-record 58.56 (Pa. top 25).

Methacton’s other individual winner was Thomas, who kicked into gear with 50 meters remaining to finish in 2:19.26, ahead of Perk Valley’s Summer Watts (2:20.09) and Phoenixville’s Kenzie Padilla (2:20.39).

“I got a good start so I wasn’t boxed in. The Phoenixville girl (Padilla) pulled ahead of me so I just tried to stay behind her the whole time and see if my kick was good enough at the end,” Thomas said. “Usually I have a good kick and I try to use that to my advantage.”

Thomas also ran on Methacton’s winning 4x800 relay with Aubrey Beaugard, Devon Petrei and Molly Thomas and the second-place 4x400 relay (with Beaugard, Shannon O’Brien and Kenslee O’Donnell).

With eight placers scoring, Methacton’s depth didn’t allow the team race to be a question at PACs.

“It’s been the goal all year,” Kate Thomas said of the team title. “We knew that we could do it. We really wanted to pull through, but we had some great competition these past few days.”