Glass takes ninth straight district

By Ted Allen

Published: May 16, 2008

E.C. Glass’ boys and girls teams overcame sizeable deficits to GW-Danville and Franklin County, respectively, to capture their ninth consecutive Western Valley District championships, Friday night at E.C. Glass’ Vince Bradford Track.

The Hillltoppers’ girls overcame the Eagles by a 149-131 margin, followed by Halifax (87), Patrick Henry (67), William Fleming (50) and GW-Danville (38).

For the boys, Glass won with 165 points followed by GW (148), Franklin County (82), William Fleming (52), Patrick Henry (46) and Halifax (29).

The meet was a chance for some Hilltopper track athletes to push themselves to greater lengths than they normally do.

For example, Glass senior middle distance runner Jessie Sheffield has only competed in the 1,600 meters in two dual meets this season, but she found her kick on the last lap to pull away from the field and capture the district title in 5 minutes, 20.08 seconds, four and a half seconds ahead of Patrick Henry’s Carter Norbo.

Sheffield defended her title in the event, cutting seven seconds off her winning time from last spring, before attempting to win the 800 for the fourth consecutive season later in the meet.

“I usually do all my workouts with the distance runners in practice, including their speed workouts, and that has given me the extra endurance I need for the 800 (and the 1,600),” Sheffield said. “That’s how I won the mile. I can stay with the distance runners (for the first three laps) and then I have the sprinting edge and I can out-kick them in the last lap.”

Similarly, Hilltopper junior sprinter David Verburg is a relative newcomer to the 400, but his personal best time of 49.91 seconds on Friday was fast enough to win the district title and qualify him for the Group AAA state meet in two weeks at Christopher Newport University.

“I’ve only run the 400 one other time before this, but I ran a good time so the coaches started training me for regionals in it,” Verburg said. “They decided to switch it up for today. I figured I’d get at least top-three, but I didn’t think I’d win. It’s starting to look like that’s going to be my best event.”

He picked up key team points in that event, helping the Hilltoppers to pull away on the track.

“It’s between us and GW-Danville,” Verburg said late in the meet. “Hopefully, we’ll pull out a win. Right now, we’re just trying to get as many points as we can wherever we can.”

Yale-bound senior distance runner Nathan Richards led a 1-2-4 finish for Glass in the 1,600.

“I was pleased with it,” Richards said. “The team did pretty well. Alex (Tatom) got third and he was expected to get fifth and Chas (Lowe) edged out a Patrick Henry runner for fourth. That helped out a lot. It’s going to be close, but right now we’re on track to do pretty well.”

Daniel Inge broke his own meet record in winning the pole vault by clearing 15-feet, 6 inches, helping to push the team over the top in the points standings. He also placed fourth in the triple jump with a distance of 40-8½.

GW’s David Wilson swept all three jumping events, covering 45-10½ in the triple jump and 21-11½ in the long jump as well as winning the high jump and the 100 in 11.03.

Jill Dziewisz started the Glass sweep in the pole vault, beating Franklin County rival Erin Patterson by clearing a school-record 10-3, who has cleared 11-9, but came into the competition at 10-6 and missed all three of her attempts.

“Finally,” said Dziewisz, who plans to vault at Lynchburg College next year. “I’ve been competing with her since our ninth-grade year. We went back and forth before she pulled ahead of me in the 10th grade. It’s my senior year, so I’m really glad to get it.”

Hilltoppers sophomore Spenser Latham finished second in the discus with a heave of 143-2, which broke his personal best by nearly eight feet, and improved by six inches in the shot put to also qualify with a sixth-place throw of 46-4.

“I’ve had steady inclines in the discus, but that was kind of a big jump today,” Latham said.

Glass junior Susanna Timmons was runner-up in the shot put with a toss of 38-2½.

“I’m happy with it,” said Timmons, who had an injury after throwing 39-11 at the end of the indoor season.

Glass won both 3,200 relays with the girls team of Lindsay Hitchcock, Deshanna Bowling, Spencer Angell and Jessie Sheffield holding off Franklin County by 1.6 seconds in 10:42.22 and the boys team of Lowe, Christopher Schweikart, Paul Malloy and Richards winning in 8:46.56 over runner-up Patrick Henry (8:50.35).

Shrhonda Ross finished second to Franklin County’s Shaundra Cook (17-5) in the long jump with a leap of 17-2½.