When Sports Were Played: Knabb makes clean sweep at WPIAL Championships
For today’s “When Sports Were Played” we travel back 30 years and one day, to May 15, 1990, when Peters Township distance runner Kathy Knabb dominated the WPIAL Class AA Track & Field Championships, winning three events and setting two meet records.
HOOKSTOWN – After last season’s clean sweep of the distance races in the WPIAL Track & Field Championships, Kathy Knabb had to wonder what she could do to top that performance.
How about defending all three titles and setting two meet marks in the process?
That’s what Knabb did at South Side Beaver in the WPIAL Class AA Championships Tuesday afternoon.
Knabb, the talented junior from Peters Township High School, captured the 800 in a scorching 2:18, 1.6 seconds off the mark Riverview’s Jenny Falvo set in 1987. She ripped through the 1,600 run in 5:07.7, breaking the mark of 5:15.4 set in 1982 by Beaver’s Jacki Pupa. Her 11:28.5 in the 3,200 was 4.1 seconds off the record set by Kathy Lennox of Slippery Rock in 1983.
Knabb will make her way to the PIAA Championships May 25-26 at Shippensburg with a number of other female athletes, including Kim Wise, who qualified in the 100 and 200, Charlotte Long (100 hurdles) and the 400 relay team of Washington; and Waynesburg’s Becky Huffman (200).
“I was hoping to get all three but I really wanted the 800 because I was so close to more PRs (personal records),” said Knabb, who was a PIAA runner-up to Kane’s Amy Rudolph and a third-place finisher in the 3,200 PIAA event last year. “I knew if I got the record, I’d get my PR.”
Her victory in the 800 will be the final one of the year as she will not compete in the event at the state tournament. The rigors of the distance races take a toll and Knabb feels her strongest race is the 1,600, which is held shortly before the 800.
Besides the three victories, Knabb got an added bonus by being pushed hard in the 800 by Quaker Valley’s Sally Clark and in the 1,600 by Mohawk’s Diane Kukich. Only at the Baldwin Invitational, where she competed against Baldwin’s Carole Zajac in the 3,200 and 1,600 was Knabb pushed to her limit.
‘I was hoping I would get to run Carole in the 800 (at Baldwin) but she didn’t run it,” Knabb said.” We always talk and she tells me it’s hardest to get someone to push her (in the 1,600). I can stay with her but I can’t give her the push over the final 400 meters.”
Wise’s 12.5 in the 100 and 26.3 in the 200 were good enough to place her second to Mohawk’s Yolanda Shakespeare in each event.
“My block slipped back (in the 200) and I got a terrible start,” said Wise. “I was slipping coming around the curve.
“But I am satisfied with my results. I’ll be looking for first or second at states.”
Huffman, just a sophomore, was handed her first defeat of the season. She said the rainy weather played a role in her third-place finish in the 200.
“The rain made it hard for me to breathe,” she said.
Huffman also suffered her first loss of the year to Wise.
“In the regular season, she’s beaten me a couple of times but this time I got her,” Wise said.
Wise also anchored the Little Prexies’ 400 relay that registered a 51.0 and nipped Burrell by .1 second to win the event. Nicole Moschetta, Natalie Stock and Amy Dates ran the first three legs of the relay. The 51.0 was just .4 off the school record.
“We finally found the right order,” said WHS head coach Penny Gallagher. “Our handoff had been a little shaky until we got to do it a while.
“This is Kim’s best race. She hits the turn and just blows past everybody.”
Long hit her best time of the season in the 100 hurdles at 16.0 and finished third. Jeannette’s Lori Pecoraro set a meet record of 15.0 and Center’s Becky Berad took second at 15.5.
Peters Township’s 1,600 relay team ran a season’s best 4:15.3 and finished second. Washington was fourth at 4:19.