May 26, 2018 3 min read

SHIPPENSBURG – A few strides and two hurdles from the finish line in the 100-meter hurdles, Bentworth’s Brenna Cavanaugh was steps away from winning back-to-back state titles.

“I thought I had it, Cavanaugh said. “Then everything just fell apart.”

With a slim lead on the field, Cavanaugh clipped the second to last hurdle with her front foot, then hit the last hurdle to finish in fourth place in the event at the PIAA Track & Field Championships Saturday.

She crossed in 14.58, behind Nuemann Goretti’s Sydni Townsend (14.53), Susquehanna’s Skyla Wilson (14.52) and champion Tia Taylor (14.48) of St. Basil Academy.

“It’s frustrating,” Cavanaugh said. “I had a really good start. It felt like a really good race. Coming to the end, I saw the finish line, and I was like, ‘This is it.’ Then it hits you.”

Nobody had an answer to the defending state champion until the hurdles tripped her up.

In the preliminaries and semifinals, she raced away from the competition with easy first-place finishes. Cavanaugh won her preliminary heat by 1.27 seconds and the semifinal heat by nearly two-tenths of a second.

To win the title last year, she was forced to run the finals in Lane 8 after falling in the semifinals. She won gold after crossing in 14.44.

“It was going to be hard to repeat but I had it,” she said. “It’s hard to come back from something like that. It would have meant a lot.”

In her third and final event, the triple jump, Cavanaugh found the medal stand again with a sixth-place finish. She jumped a distance of 37-01 ½.

• It was icing on the cake for Waynesburg High School junior thrower Madison Brooks.

Entering the state meet for the first time, Brooks, whose arm sleeve aided an elbow injury earlier in the season, broke a personal record and was the first local athlete to reach the medal stand Saturday. Brooks finished eighth in the Class AA shot put by throwing 38-6 1/2.

“In my heart, I wanted to get on the medal stand,” Brooks said. “I thought if I was able to beat my personal record, it could be enough.”

Brooks has been trying to beat her personal record since the elbow injury, a pulled muscle she suffered near the end of the team track season throwing the javelin. Her previous best was 37-7.

“Even if I just beat my (personal record), I was going to be happy,” Brooks said. “It feels amazing.”

• South Fayette’s Rachel Helbling put together her best time and finish at the state meet in the 400-meter dash, placing fourth after crossing in 55.91.

“I was hoping for a personal record but a season-best time is pretty good,” Helbling said. “I was shooting for top five, so to get fourth was great. I really tried to make up the stagger on the outside lanes quickly, hold it through the back stretch and push through at the end.

Last year, Helbling placed 7th in the event (57.02). As a sophomore, she was fifth (56.27).