PIAA track and field: Super seconds on second day

The second day’s results of the PIAA track and field championships at Shippensburg University were often apt for lehighvalleylive regional athletes.

Four local athletes posted second-place finishes – Emmaus junior Maddie McCartney in the Class 3A 3,200-meter run, Dieruff junior Aniya Holder in the 3A 400 meters, Whitehall senior Thomas Lloyd in the 3A javelin and Salisbury junior Steven Lozada in the 2A triple jump.

McCartney, Holder and Lozada will, one can hope, get another chance at the top of the state podium as they are juniors. For Lloyd, it was a tough way to end a fine career.

Here’s how the day worked out for them all.

A heartbreaking second

Second place in any PIAA competition should cause no shame at all. In a state as big and as varied as Pennsylvania, second place is very good.

However, the circumstances where you can wind up in second can matter as to how it’s received.

No one would have blamed Whitehall senior Thomas Lloyd had he been upset at coming I n second in the javelin. He entered as the No. 1 seed and was leading the competition with a fine throw of 202 feet – anything over 200 feet in the javelin is elite – when, on his very last throw, State College’s Nathan Haas threw 204-4.

“I knew as soon as he threw it that it was better than mine,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd had a last chance to better Roth; he couldn’t.

Ouch.

But instead Lloyd, a Mount St., Mary’s recruit, took it all in stride and was smiling talking to a reporter afterwards.

“I am upset, but at the same time I am actually happy,” Lloyd said. “I am happy and sad at the same time. The last few years I have come out here and not done so well (16th as a freshman, 14th as a sophomore, 8th as a junior). This year, I’ve done way better than I did the previous two years.”

Lloyd made considerable progress all season, including an excellent postseason, which he is justly proud of.,

“In past years I peaked at the wrong time,” he said. “This year I did well at leagues (197-1) and districts (a personal best of 210-1, the No. 3 throw in lehighvalleylive regional history).

Lloyd said he much enjoyed his time as a thrower at Whitehall.

“It’s been actually awesome,” he said. “Freshman year I came out, not knowing I was going to by anything. My coaches said., ‘You’re a jav thrower, stick to that and you’ll do well.’ So I stuck with it and it’s been great ever since.”

Tough task

Perhaps the toughest ask of a second-placer to beat a first-placer on the day was McCartney. In the 3,200 run, the Green Hornet faced off against Saucon Valley junior Virginia Kraus.

The two have beaten each other in distance races over the years, but Kraus has made it clear “the more kilometers the better” and has made the 3,200 her race. She won states in 10 minutes, 22.81 seconds, the No. 5 time in lehighvalleylive regional history.

McCartney did splendidly, finishing in a four-second personal- best in 10:29.51. the No. 8 time overall in regional history.

And she had enough left at the end to kick past Carlisle’s Ana Bondy and hold on for second.

“(Bondy) came up and I decided to tuck in behind her and try and go off of her, and when I decided to start my kick my last lap, I was just going to go around her,” McCartney said. “And then another girl (Hatboro-Horsham’s Lilian DiCola) came up and I was like, I am just going to see whatever I have left, and I got (Bondy).

McCartney said she feels comfortable at the end of races.

“I always have something left at the end of the race,” she said. “In the last 10 meters I just leave everything out there.”

A complete day

Lozada, who is really a talent to watch, enjoyed a double-medal Saturday,

In the morning triple jump, he took second at 44 feet, 9½ inches, behind winner Daysaun Spencer of Brentwood (District 7) at 45-5¾.

In the afternoon pole vault, no performers were better than Lozada, who vaulted a personal-best 14-6; but Gavin Holcombe of Danville and Ashton Grossman of Moniteau (District 9) had fewer missed vaults so they took first and second with the Falcon third.

A reporter asked the thrilled, almost giddy Lozada if he was a triple jumper or pole vaulter.

“I am both, I am an athlete,” he said. “I started doing pole vault (earlier) so I’d say that my favorite.”

The finish in the jump – just ¼ of an inch off his personal-best – made Lozada’s day.

“I’d say the key part was staying calm,” he said. “There was a lot going on, and people were jumping far. I kept my nerves down. I was seeded seventh so (finishing) second wasn’t really on my mind. I wanted to jump 45 feet, and I was just under that. Second place came out of nowhere – I was not expecting that.”

In the pole vault Lozada said his takeoff was critical.

“I was able to really maximize my jump off the ground,” he said.,

Lozada said he likes big meets and Shippensburg delivered; he credited his coaches and family for help keeping him calm.

“I definitely think I raise my level of competition in the big meets,” he said. “Leagues, districts, I PRed in, every time. I was more ecstatic than I had ever been for anything coming here. The environment, I’d never seen anything like it before, it was everything I thought it would be.”

Stepping forward

For Holder, the season ended a lot differently than it started.

It closed at Shippensburg with only the amazing Kaddel Howard of Cedar Crest, a junior who ran a dazzling 53.12 in the prelims, finishing ahead of the Huskie in the finals, 54.37 to Holder’s 55.86.

“At the beginning of the year, no, not at all,” said Holder if she was expecting a state medal in the 400.

The season started, well, differently.

“I wasn’t expected to run a 400 at all,” said Holder, whose 55.63 performance in the D-11 3A final is the lehighvalleylive region’s top 400 run of the season. “I usually did shorter sprints but I ran (a 400 in a league meet against Bethlehem Catholic), and it wasn’t actually too bad, and from there the time just kept dropping.”

Indeed, from a 59.16 against Becahi to a 55.63 at districts. Not bad.

“I am in the 4×4 race, which I like, and I think I could run a decently and the coaches had faith in me that I would do well individually,” Holder said.

It didn’t take long.

“At the Zephyr Invitational at Whitehall (Apr. 26) I ran a 56 (a winning 56.93), dropping my time by three seconds, and I had a really good competitor against me (Freedom’s Natalie Ray, eighth in the 200 at states) so I knew I had push more. But once I got to 56, I kind of knew it would go lower,”

Medal pile

Since athletes can only appear in four events at states, it is absolutely certain that no District 11 athlete has ever come back from Shippensburg with more than the four medals Notre Dame junior Alex Clark earned this year.

Clark won individual medals in the 2A 100-meter dash (eighth) and 200 (fifth) and medals as parts of relays, eighth in both the 400 and 1,600 relays.

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Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@lehighvalleylive.com.