Perkiomen Valley boys snap Spring-Ford’s four-year winning streak
GRATERFORD — For four long years the Spring-Ford boys had been untouchable in Pioneer Athletic Conference track and field dual meets.
But no streak lasts forever, and on Wednesday, the Perkiomen Valley boys put a stop to the Rams’ amazing run on the Vikings home ground.
The Perk Valley boys swept the PAC-10 double dual, beating Spring-Ford, 88-61, and Boyertown, 96-53, to remain undefeated at 8-0 in the PAC-10.
Spring-Ford (6-1) held off Boyertown (2-4), 92-58.
The Perk Valley girls made it a clean sweep, beating Spring-Ford, 100-50, and Boyertown, 115-35, to up their PAC-10 record to 7-1, while the Ram girls (5-1) topped the Bears (3-3), 97.5-52.5.
However, the Perk Valley boys stole the show on this day.
“It’s a good thing that there is a Final Four scenario, because the streak is really meaningless if we don’t win the championship,’ said Rams coach Danielle Stauffer, definitely not looking her usual chipper self. “With the Final Four, the kids do have another opportunity at the end of the season to come back and see what they’ve got. Hopefully, they look at this as something to work off of, instead of taking this as a setback and being upset by the loss.’
The Ram boys are also four-time defending PAC-10 Champions. The PAC-10 championship will be decided in the championship meet May 8th and 9th at Phoenixville High School with the four teams with the best dual meet records eligible to win the team title.
“It was in the field events where we fell off,’ Stauffer said. “We have a lot of young kids and maybe some of them lost a little focus. This was a big competition day and you can’t ever predict what a young kid is going to do.’
As for the Viking boys, they finally crossed the finish line ahead of the Rams after chasing them and falling short for four years. Last year there only dual loss came to the Rams.
“This is a very big win for us,’ Vikings coach Joe Petsko said. “We’ve been building for a long time and, as I said earlier this season, we were taking it one week at a time. And this week it was Spring-Ford. I told the kids this meet was going to come down to a team effort. It wasn’t going to be decided by our best athletes, it was going to be decided by our second and third kids. It was going to come down to us turning the fourth place into a third place, the third place into a second place, because Spring-Ford is a really talented team.
“I’m just really proud of the way our kids competed today. We have a handful of key seniors, but we are still a very young team. And those younger ones had to step up. They bought into our message and put it all together today. We still got Phoenixville next week to close this thing out, and then we got PAC-10s. This is one step, we still got to get the job done in the PAC-10 meet.’
Michael Holland, also a standout cornerback for the Perk Valley football team, is one of those key seniors. And he was all smiles.
“We beat Spring-Ford in football and now we beat them in spring track,’ Holland said, looking happy as can be. “It means a lot because they are not getting the bragging rights, for the football team or the track team. We have the bragging rights.’
Holland won the 100 (11.45), and also anchored the Vikings 4×100 to a win (44.43). Cole Gehman nailed down the first win for the Vikings, winning the 300 hurdles (41.63) and later the 110 hurdles (15.88). Darrell Randle won the high jump for the Vikings (5-8), with Gehman second (5-6). Chris Tyrell took first in the triple jump (42-5), and Mat Soffera the pole vault (12-0).
Spring-Ford’s standout, as always, was distance ace Paul Power, who easily won the 1,600 (2:00.24) and the 3,200 (9:28.18). Power was so far ahead of the field that he slowed down each event at the end and just cruised across since he still had to run on the 4×400 relay, which he anchored to second.
“We all ran our best today,’ Power said calmly. “That’s all you can do, run your best and see what happens. I guess it just didn’t work out for us today. But, we still got PAC-10s. Our season is not over.’
With Power a senior, this is his team’s lone dual meet loss of his high school career. But that fact didn’t depress him.
“Not really,’ he said. “It’s a little disappointing that we lost, but the ultimate goal is to win the PAC-10 championship, and the regular season has no effect on that as long as we’re in the top four. Our focus is on a couple of weeks from now when PAC-10 championships start.’
Boyertown may not have been in the team-win race, but for Bears’ senior Dylan Eddiner, his wins are a must. Despite battling a chest cold, he easily won the 400 (50.66), the 800 (1:57.06), and anchored his 4×400 to an easy win (3:30.73) to come away with the most total wins for the boys.
“Unfortunately, for us, it’s all individual,’ Eddinger said. “Perk Valley and Spring-Ford, are two of the most solid teams in the PAC-10, and we’re just doing what we can to make it difficult for them today.’
The Perk Valley girls were led by Stephanie Hedin, who won both hurdles events, taking the 300 (47.67) and the 100 hurdles (16.51). Cheyenne Churchville won both sprints, the 100 with (12.57) and the 200 (25.84).
Annie Glodek and Michele Daniels, as so often, split it up in the distance events, with Daniels winning the 1,600 (5:23.55), and Glodek the 3,200 (11:35.86).
Rachel Pendrak won the 400 (1:00.52) and Kelsey White won the 800 (2:25.33) in her very first race back after being sidelined for months with mono since last year.
“I took off from November to March,’ White said. “I just had to come back for this one.’
K.T. Armstrong won the shot put (28-10), Jen Maurer the triple jump (34-10) and Rebekah Bondi the long jump (17-2) to make sure that the Perk Valley girls are in that Final Four, too.
