Varsity Track
The District 11-3A Championship that was captured by Sacred Heart last Thursday was the cumulation of months of training and competitive meets. There are 19 different events contested at a track & field meet and it takes scoring in as many of those as possible to score high. The Cardinals scored in 17 of the 19 events and came in 1st in six events, 2nd in seven events, 3rd in six events and 4th in three events. The top 4 finishers in each individual event and in the relays move on to the Regional Championships held on Wednesday, April 27 at West Feliciana High School.
In the Long Jump, the duo of Lulu Real '23 and Ekua Commey '22 would take 1st and 2nd place in the competition. District Champion Lulu Real - 15' 6" and District Runner Up Ekua Commey - 15' 4" scored 18 points in that event, while Olivia Boyd '22 in the high jump cleared 4' 10" for 1st place and Eileen Igoe '25 placed 5th with a jump of 4' 4". In the first attempt at the pole vault in three years, Abby Truxillo '26 and Taylor Robert '25 represented their team. Both ladies gave their best efforts and in doing so, Abby captured 2nd place by clearing the opening height while Taylor made great efforts on all of her attempts, but came up just a little short. In the triple jump, Juliet Boyd '24 and Aleyea Mogilles '23 did their hop, step and jump the best they could on this day and were rewarded with Juliet going 29' 0" for 3rd place and Aleyea grabbing 5th place with a leap of 28' 2". In the shot put, Allie Langhetee '23 and Anabelle Adams '25 have been the two representatives for most of the season and did so again for us on this day. Anabelle heaved the shot put 20' 6" while Allie reached another personal best with her toss of 25' 7.5". In both the discus and the javelin events, Allie Langhetee '23 and MC Mazzanti '23 represented the team very well with outstanding throws each. Allie, who has been working all season on getting better at her spin technique, put it together when she needed to and tossed the discus 75' 10.5", just off her PR and good enough for a 4th place finish, while MC finished 5th with a toss of 67' 10". And for the last field event of the meet, the javelin, the roles were reversed, but the outcome was even better than expected. A 1st and 2nd place finish by MC at 92' 2" and Allie in a new PR of 81' 6" for 18 more points and two more tickets punched to Regionals.
In between the field and track events, our three seniors, Katie Kleehammer, Ekua Commey and Olivia Boyd, were honored for their outstanding high school careers in which they have contributed more to the overall success to the program than they will ever realize, and for that, we thank them tremendously.
With the starter's pistol firing, the 4 x 800 Meter Relay was off and running and Olivia Boyd '22 (2:38.97), Colette English '27 (2:45.06), Katie Kleehammer '22 (2:48.53) and Lily Varisco '27 (2:49.23) combined for a wonderful victory in 10:55.74 and will move on to Regionals looking to run even faster. The 4 x 200 meter relay team in 1:52.44, were just outrun to finish 2nd overall with Malina Hull '24 (27.65), Aaliyah Oro '24 (28.86), Ekua Commey '22 (26.90) and Lulu Real '23 (28.69). The wind was blowing extremely hard on the finish line side of the stadium, which made those athletes have to push even harder into a head wind of some 20 mph and helped tremendously on athletes that had it at their backs. The 1600 meters had the cousin running duo of Leah Varisco '26 and Lily Varisco '27 run the four laps around the windy track in pretty decent times of 5:50.05 for 2nd and 6:20.51 for 3rd. In the 100 meter hurdle race, Katherine Benton '24 finished 3rd with a time of 19.69 and Maddie Do '25 in 4th with a time of 20.22 and earned themselves another race at Regionals. With the 100 meters being done in two heats, Malina Hull '24 ran a fantastic race and finished 2nd in her heat of six runners, but ran fast enough to finish 6th overall in a time of 14.34. Lulu Real '23 ran in the second heat and ran a time of 14.52 for 9th overall and looking to run even faster in the two relays she will compete in at Regionals. In the 800 meters, Olivia Boyd '22 and Taylor Robert '25 are no strangers to pushing themselves through pain. Olivia finished 3rd place overall in a time of 2:33.27 while Taylor found her stride over the last 150 meters and passed two runners to grab 5th place in a time of 2:50.87. The relay for the 4 x 100 meters saw the team of Aleyea Mogilles '23 (14.81), Aaliyah Oro ’24 (12.31), Lulu Real '23 (13.18) and Ekua Commey '22 (13.87) come from way back over the last two legs and pick off two teams down the stretch and just missed out on first place by .03 in a time of 54.17. The 400 meters saw Abby Truxillo '26 as our lone entry and she was in a heat with only one other runner. She still ran a very nice time by crossing the line in 1:11.81, some 15 seconds ahead of the other runner. In the 300 meter hurdles, Charlotte Bush '25 and Katherine Benton '24 finished in 2nd and 3rd respectively in times of 54.61 for Bush and 58.97 for Benton, both Regional bound. Aaliyah Oro '24 and Malina Hull '24 would represent the team in the 200 meter dash. Oro made a strong move over the last 35 meters to sneak into 4th place overall in 28.35 while Hull ran 29.43 to capture 9th out of the 14 runners. Up next was the eight laps of the 3200 meter run where Leah Varsico '26 and Colette English '27 toed the line on a slightly humid night and lined up with the boys in order to speed up the meet and possibly the race. Leah claimed 1st place overall in 12:42.78 and Colette claimed 3rd in the girls race with only one boy running faster than her. The last event, the 4 x 400 meter relay was a great way for the team to finish off a great meet and the team of Olivia Boyd '22 (1:03.06), Lily Varisco '27 (1:09.95), Ekua Commey '22 (1:09.87) and Charlotte Bush '25 (1:08.79) each showed why they were there to run and their time of 4:32.33 was the fastest time of the year by them so far. With the meet completed, the remaining members of the team gathered on the infield in anticipation of the results being announced. Sacred Heart was crowned Champions of District 11-3A and will move on to the Regional Championships with a bus load of excited athletes. Go Cardinals!
Overall Team Scoring
1. 173 Academy of the Sacred Heart
2. 131 Patrick Taylor Academy
3. 88 Ursuline Academy
4. 58 Kenner Discovery
5. 46 De La Salle
6. 36 Haynes Academy
7. 31 Thomas Jefferson