Fast Cats: CSE girls track team wins first sectional title in 20 years, earns state berths in 10 events

RUSHVILLE, Ill. — Central-Southeastern track coach Brad Dixon is about to have a busy week, but he doesn’t mind.

“It’s going to be a heck of a lot of fun next week,” Dixon said.

Dixon can have fun because at Wednesday’s Class 1A Rushville-Industry Sectional, the Panthers captured their first sectional title since 2005 and will send four relay teams and four individuals who qualified for six events to the state championship meet, which will take place over three days beginning May 22 at Eastern Illinois University.

“We’ve got boys sectionals on Wednesday, too, so it’s going to be fun to manage both of them,” Dixon said. “I’m super proud.”

Sophomore Adi Foss, who anchored the Panthers’ 4×100 meter relay team and ran the second leg in the 4×200, said the Panthers are going to need extra room for the trip to Charleston.

“We’re going to have to take a big bus this time,” Foss said.

That bus will be packed with relay runners thanks to victories in the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 relays and a second-place finish in the 4×800. The Panthers qualified for state in the 4×100 and 4×200 last season and finished fifth and sixth, respectively.

“I think we’re going to get higher than fifth place,” Foss said. “I think we can do it.”

The 4×100 team of Macie Lierly, Faith Alford, Ellie Foote and Foss finished Wednesday in 49.91 seconds — the exact same time those four ran at last year’s state meet. Foss and the 4×200 sprinters — which also include Lierly, Foote and Vadah Wiskirchen — beat Carrollton by nearly three seconds, finishing with a time of 1:49.45, just a little more than a second off the mark that earned Foss, Alford, Foote and Emily Baker sixth in the state last year.

“We’ve been getting better and better with our handoffs, and Macie has been recovering from (an injury), so she’s even better now, too,” said Foss, who also qualified in the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

Alford and the 4×400 relay quartet that also features Wiskirchen, Elysia Seneczko and Agnes Genenbacher finished with a time of 4 minutes, 18.54 seconds, a mark even faster than the one Alford said she promised Dixon they would reach — as far-fetched as it seemed to Dixon at the time.

“I told him at the last meet that we were going to run 4:19, and he said, ‘If you run 4:19, I’m retiring,’” Alford said. “He didn’t think that we could. He didn’t believe it.”

Dixon did not forget about it, either, after seeing the results of Wednesday’s race.

“He came up to us and he was like, ‘I’m filling out my retirement papers,’ and I said, ‘No, no, no, not until next year,’” Alford said.

Alford gave Dixon two more reasons to stay by setting personal records in the triple jump and long jump. Alford’s best triple jump of 34 feet, 9.5 inches was a foot longer than her previous personal record.

“After I triple jumped, they said what I jumped, and I didn’t believe it,” Alford said. “I thought it was wrong.”

She also pleasantly surprised herself by eclipsing her long jump personal record with a jump of 16 feet, 8 inches, which only trailed reigning state champion Saylor Barry of Mendon Unity.

“I didn’t really get a good night’s sleep last night, so I didn’t think it was going to be a great day,” Alford said.

Genenbacher won the 300-meter hurdles in a personal best 48.49 seconds, and Peyton Ehrhardt was the only shot putter to eclipse 10 meters. This gives the Panthers a shot at a state title in 10 events.

“Fast cats,” Alford said.

“We’re putting Central track on the map,” Dixon said. “We’ve got something special going here.”