As high school track meets go, the Maxine Ehrman Invitational is not particularly large. Many schools gear down a little for smaller meets like this. But, if ThunderRidge meant to gear down for this one, somebody forgot to let the athletes in on the plan.
Even as the first event results were trickling in, ThunderRidge was building an insurmountable lead on the girls side. Kelsey Williamson, despite a persistent headwind that would slow sprint events all day long, won the 100 in 12.84. Sara Webb and Courtney Bowers went 1-2 in the 100 hurdles, the Grizzlies won the sprint medley by 1.5 seconds and the 4 X 200 by about four seconds. Suddenly, every other team in the competition was playing catch-up. Although The Classical Academy would eventually come up with 143.5 points, nobody could overtake ThunderRidge, who ended with 160 points on the day. Kelsey Williamson would add another first-place finish in the 200 meters, freshman Dominique Gerard would win the 1600, Webb and Bowers would again sweep the top two places in the 300 hurdles (only this time, Courtney Bowers would claim first place), and the Grizzlies finished the day, shown at left, with a blazing 3:59.58 victory in the 4 X 400.
The Classical Academy made a run on the strength of Kaitlin Hanenburg's titles in the 800 and 3200, Noelle Brown's winning high jump, Alyssa Northam's winning triple jump, a 59.93 400 by Shannon Harrell, and an easy victory in the 4 X 800, but the Titans simply could not match the depth of Thunder Ridge.
On the boys' side of the ledger, Windsor managed to stay close to ThunderRidge throughout the day, but was never quite able to overtake the Grizzlies, finishing with 115 points to 126 for ThunderRidge. Mountain Vista senior Alan Duff (pictured at right), however, came up with the most memorable individual performance on the day, winning the 100 in 11.70, the 200 in 22.78, and finishing second in the 400 with a time of 50.53. Thornton's Dey Tuach was never seriously threatend in the 1600 or the 800, winning the former in 4:23.37 and the latter in 1:56.60. There were no other multiple events winners in boys' events. For ThunderRidge, it was more a matter of scoring points across the whole spectrum of events than it was a matter of headliner performances.