Final kick nets PT’s Froelich 2nd state title of weekend
SHIPPENSBURG – Going into the final turn, Katie Froelich sensed Downingtown West’s Julia Kelly was making a move.
Kelly drew alongside and briefly pulled ahead, but Froelich used her soccer instincts to fend her off.
Instead of chasing a soccer ball down, she was hunting the finish line and once again got there first.
Froelich, a freshman at Peters Township, capped an impressive debut at the PIAA Track and Field Championships by winning the Class 3A 3,200 meter run Saturday at Shippensburg University’s Seth Grove Stadium.
“In soccer, I’m a striker so I have to run for the ball all the time, so I was just like ‘I’m going to run to the finish line’,” Froelich said. “I thought her kick was going to be really good, so I had to turn it on.”
Froelich became the first freshman from the WPIAL to claim both the 1,600 and 3,200 state titles in the same weekend.
She won the 1,600 Friday morning and has set an impressive standard going forward.
“It’s really cool and it means a lot,” Froelich said. “There’s been a lot of meets here in the past and hopefully I’ll continue to get better and better each year.”
Froelich thrived during a cold and rainy morning, finishing with a time of 10:18.20 compared to Kelly’s 10:19.25. South Fayette’s Angela Zeng finished third at 10:21.25.
All three pulled away at around the halfway mark. Froelich took the lead on lap three and she set the pace from there as a driving rain fell from the sky.
“I couldn’t really feel my toes, so I was a little worried and my hands were cold, but it was actually really fun,” Froelich said about the conditions. “I was telling my dad on the way here that I’d rather it be this type of weather than it being humid and 80 degrees. That would be horrible.”
Trinity junior Ella Sammel got her second state medal with a runner-up finish in the Class 3A high jump. She also got one in the high jump in her freshman year.
She found out about an hour before the start that the high jump was going to be moved inside.
On one hand not having to deal with the rain was a positive, but going indoors brought its own set of challenges.
“I definitely had to adapt a little bit,” Sammel said. “It was something I had to mentally prepare for, but once I got in there the adrenaline was going and I was ready to compete.
“Where we were high jumping before anyone went, they had to wipe off their shoes, because it was so dusty. You had to wear sneakers, so you really didn’t have any stick or grip.”
After winning WPIALs last week, Sammel, a junior, finished at 5-5, which was second to Franklin Regional’s Jamie Kociela, who finished at 5-6. Seneca Valley’s Jordan Monteleone placed third making it an All-WPIAL top three.
“I’m really happy with how I performed and am really proud of (Kociela) and (Monteleone),” Sammel said. “Having the top three all be from the WPIAL is pretty impressive.”
South Fayette senior Delaney Schumaker capped her career by medaling twice in the hurdle events just like she did last year.
Schumaker, a Pitt recruit, finished fifth in the 100 hurdles and sixth in the 300 hurdles.
“That was my goal this weekend,” Schumaker said. “On Friday, the first goal is to make the finals and after that you see how high up you can get. You always want to place as high as you can, but being on the podium is a reward in itself, so I’m pretty excited with how it went.”
The South Fayette 3,200 relay team finished in third place to secure a state medal for a second consecutive season. They moved up two spots after finishing fifth last year.
The four girls on the team are Nina DiMartini, Ellena Gibbs, Madeline Stock and Zeng.
Zeng ended the weekend with three state medals.