Mar 24, 2016 4 min read

Not even an unexpected venue change could take the luster from Thursday’s track meet between Trinity and Washington.

The match was originally scheduled for Washington, but a drainage problem forced the move to Trinity.

When the event ended, the Hillers and Prexies each came away with some positives, and a long list of things to work on.

The Prexies boys team got four wins from Ben Heim and three by Isaiah Robinson to help carve out a 98-52 victory.

The Trinity girls team won all but five events in routing the Prexies, 107-38.

There was, however, more to this day than final scores. Heim gave the Prexies a strong opening day, considering he is rebounding from a stress fracture in his left foot that disrupted his effort in the 800-meter run in last season’s PIAA Championships at Shippensburg University.

Heim turned in a 2:08 in winning the 800 meters, crossed the finish line in the 1,600 in 4:50, posted a 10:54.6 in winning the 3,200, and was a part of the Prexies’ victorious 3,200 relay team (8:55.7).

Maybe the best news was that Heim’s foot was feeling fine after such a heavy workload so early in the season.

“I didn’t know until after the season,” said Heim, a junior who was a part of the Prexies 3,200-meter relay team that won the PIAA Class AA title two years ago. “I knew something was wrong. It was messed up for a month before I went to the doctor’s office. Before cross country, I took an eight-week rest. Now, I’m trying to go low mileage to help it come back. If it were still hurting, I probably wouldn’t have done all four events.”

Heim feels his best event is the 800 and is scaling some of his practice running back. Normally, a week’s worth of running could contain anywhere from 16 to 25 miles.

“In the mile, I don’t have a competitive time to get me into states, at least not right now,” Heim said. “I am going to focus on the 800.”

Robinson turned in a strong performance, winning the long jump (20-3) and triple jump (42-0 1/2), and helping the 1,600 and 3,200 relay teams to victory. Liam Wolf won the discus (101-6) and had a personal best in the javelin (132-7). Kurt Adkins arrived in time after playing on the Prexies’ baseball team to turn in his best time in the 200 (22.8).

Jamie Handra won the high jump (5-0) and 100 dash (17.2) and finished second in the triple jump (27-8) to help pace the Trinity girls to a win. Liz Fleming won the shot put (36-0) and discus (99-2). Fleming was one-half inch from tying her PR in the shot put.

“I was really impressed with Liz Fleming and Jamie Handra,” said Trinity coach Sherrie MacKinney. “Andrew Gomez did really good in the pole vault (9-0). I have a good group of freshmen and sophomores mixed in with juniors and seniors.”

Trinity has nearly 100 athletes out for the track teams and MacKinney believes this could be the season to snap a long postseason drought for the girls team that dates back to 1996.

“I like our chances of the girls getting into the playoffs, as long as we can keep everyone healthy and that’s the situation we have right now,” MacKinney said. “I haven’t talked to them about that. I’m talking about them giving their best effort every day they come out. I want to make sure they are trying to improve their mark in every meet, and get better and better. Starting next week, when we get into sections, I’ll delve into that a little more in practice.”