Senior stars lead Allentown to first county crown
HAMILTON » The Allentown High girls track & field team already had a pair of indoor county championships under its belt, but winning a first ever outdoor title is a much tougher task.
The field is deeper, the talent is better and there are more events, which usually weeds out the teams without enough firepower.
But the Redbirds have seniors Devon Hoernlein, Kassidy Mulryne and Carly Roche. The rest of Mercer County, well, doesn’t.
The terrific trio combined for 79 of Allentown’s winning 92 points and the Redbirds ended West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s winning streak at four straight county titles on Saturday afternoon at Steinert High.
“It’s a great feeling because I know last year we got second to South and this year we beat South,” Hoernlein said. “It’s a great thing because this is the first time in school history that we’ve won counties. It’s a great feeling and a great memory to have.”
Mulryne scored a meethigh 38 points with firstplace finishes in the long jump, high jump, triple jump and a second-place in the 110 hurdles.
With triple jump the last event to finish, Mulryne’s leap of 36-06.00 delivered the deciding 10 points for the Redbirds, who won by 4.5 points.
“Triple jump was the one I was least worried about,” Mulryne said. “The rest of my events I was expected to win and if I don’t this might end bad, but I was actually pretty calm.”
Hoernlein ran 3.5 miles on the track, capturing both the 1600 (5:04.74) and 3200 (11:26.72) to go with a fifth-place finish in the 800.
“Too many to count,” she joked, before adding, “I knew running the 800 was something important for the team even though the 800 isn’t my favorite event, but I’ll do it anyway. I went and got fifth, so I got two points for the team. I knew that was big for the team.”
Roche took second in the pole vault (10-06.00) and javelin (95-06) and was fifth in the long jump and sixth in the triple jump.
“I try not to think about how tired I am during the events, but once it’s over, I can feel it,” Roche said. “I have no problem doing a lot of events, and any way I can help the team is what I want to do. If it’s through doing four different events that’s totally fine with me.”
“We all just have heart,” Mulryne said. “We wanted to do it not just for ourselves, but for the team. We’re willing to do what it takes, it doesn’t matter if one event goes bad because we turn around and we’re there to compete in the next event.”
Lillian Hodgeson added a third-place finish in the javelin, Brenna McCormick was fifth in the triple jump, the 4x100 relay took fourth and the 4x400 went sixth to make up the remaining 13 points.
“It shows a lot of our freshmen that even though we’re going to be leaving next year they are a big part, too,” Hoernlein said. “It shows them their points matter. It’s not (just) be- cause me, Kassidy and Carly score the points, but they help us, too, and we’re shaping them into the team next year.”
The second-place Pi- rates were paced by Brianna Hodges, who won the 200 (25.59) and 400 (57.41). WW-PS also opened the meet with a triumph in the 4x800 in a time of 10:04.75.
In the throws, Hightstown’s Samira van der Laan tossed the javelin (107-09) and discus (113-10) farther than anyone else and Hopewell Valley’s Keyana Brooks was impressive in the shot put (39-02.00).
Lawrence’s Mijah Collier won the 400 hurdles (1:06.02), Steinert’s Ashley Navarro raced to a win on her home track in the 800 (2;17.41) and WW-PN’s Emma Faivre was first across the line in 100 dash (12.56).
WW-PN, Princeton and Lawrence rounded out the top five team finishers. Allentown’s Carly Roche competes in the long jump during the MCT Meet at Steinert on Saturday.