Tabb champs team up for nationals
Two boys, two girls to compete in mixed relay at Adidas meet
For the Tabb High mixed 4×400-meter relay team that will run in the Adidas Track Nationals 2024 at the Virginia Beach Sports Center today, it is an opportunity. A top-six finish will earn the Tigers’ quartet All-America status.
Tabb seniors Corinne Lombardo, Lauren Pegher, Lance Koontz and Devin Tietz can also look at the race as a celebration. All are individual state champions running on a relay with each other for the first, and probably only, time in their careers.
“We’ve been together since we were freshmen, so it’s really cool our senior year to be working together,” said Pegher, who won a Class 3 state title at 1,000 meters as a junior. “It will be an opportunity to race some other fast teams with people I’ve been with since freshman year.”
Tietz, a boys champ at 1,000 as a junior, said, “They’re all great people and it’s fun hanging out with them every day,”
Tabb assistant track coach Mike Koontz seconded that emotion.
“They are the easiest kids to coach,” he said. “They all work hard and ask, ‘What can I do next?’
“They are the kind of kids you always want to coach.”
Coach Koontz said he doesn’t have a clue how the Tigers’ foursome will fare because he’s never seen a mixed relay — a relatively recent phenomenon in high school track.
“They’re all competitors and they’re all state champions, so I feel they are going to go after it,” he said.
His son, Lance Koontz, confidently expresses the group’s chances.
“I think we’ll definitely get All-American and a school record,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll win it.”
Lance Koontz has good memories of winning the Class 3 state title last June because his 49.22 time was his first under 50 seconds.
“I remember finishing, looking up at the scoreboard (at Liberty University) and seeing the time,” he said. “It felt like a big accomplishment and I was excited.”
Ditto for Pegher, whose 2:58 in winning the state 1,000 was a personal milestone.
“I had an eye on a sub-3 minute, so it was exciting to become a state champ and get the new record,” she said.
Tietz expected his state success. “I went into it knowing I was going to win because I went in with the best time and I knew the other people in the race,” he said.
He and his relay mates won’t have that advantage today because all of the Tigers’ opponents, save one, will be from out of state. Tietz said it’s important to alternate the relay legs by gender and speed to remain in contention. So, the two longer-distance runners — Pegher and Tietz — will run the first two legs before speedier Lombardo and Lance Koontz will run the final two.
If things remain close, the Tabb runners should be in good shape because Pegher, Koontz and Tietz all captured their state titles in close finishes. Lombardo, by contrast, won her 800 championship by about 3 seconds. That’s fitting because she was a star defender on a Tabb field hockey team that won its state championship last fall while rarely playing a close game.
“Corinne is one of the most impressive people, athletically and academically,” Pegher said. “She’s very musically talented and very, very motivated.
“She does a good job on and off the track.”
Note: The Adidas Track Nationals 2024, featuring high school and middle school athletes from throughout the nation, begin at the Virginia Beach Sports Center at 11 a.m. today, 9 a.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. on Sunday. Tabb’s relay runs at 7:30 p.m. today.