North Penn girls shine at PA Track Classic

PLYMOUTH MEETING >> It was a sunny, breezy day on the track Saturday afternoon at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High, creating the perfect stage for Uche Nwogwugwu — Indoor State Champion in the 400 — to come on outside.

“It is exciting. There’s pressure,” North Penn’s standout junior said of coming into this spring as a 400 gold medalist. “You want to go to every meet, you want to win. It’s fun. You go into every race and you have confidence.”
Confidence — and first places — were overflowing for Nwogwugwu and the Lady Knights at the 32nd PA Track Classic, as North Penn swept the relays and earned several individual wins, including Nwogwugwu’s in the 400 (57.33).
“I love them. They’re my family,” the junior said of her team. “We’re all really good together. We’re all putting it together at the same time this year.”
The Lady Knights raced to victory in the 4×100 (50.01), 4×800 (9:35.65) and DMR (12:22.33), as well as holding off a tough team from Penn Wood (3:56.10) to win the 4×4 (3:54.49).
Nwogwugwu should be a valuable point scorer for North Penn in the 400 and mile relay, as well as a key contributor in the field events.
“I wanna work on my triple, get my form down,” she said. “I wanna work on high jump and maybe run some 800’s — change it up.”
North Penn’s day got even better when sophomore Olivia Dyer motored around the track for a win in the 3,200, crossing in 11:24.27. Also, Natalie Kwortnik, just a freshman, had a leap of 16-6.75 to win the long jump for North Penn.
Sophomore Austin Kratz of Christopher Dock, meanwhile, raced to two wins for the Pioneers, crossing first in both the 100 (11.13) and 200 (23.35) dashes.
Pretty remarkable when you consider what Kratz’s journey was like getting to Opening Day.
“It’s nice, considering the first half of the winter season I had a broken leg,” he said, “so coming off of that and being able to do stuff like this, I’m really happy.”
An injury sustained during soccer season kept Kratz off his feet, but that didn’t stop his training.
“It was pretty hard because I couldn’t run for three months,” he said. “But luckily, I was able to do upper body.”
The sophomore battled back by the end of the winter season, even competing at Indoor Nationals. He’s now a key piece of a growing boys squad for Dock.
“Last year, we had no seniors and now we have six,” the sprinter said. “We have a lot of freshmen, and for once — in many years — we have more guys out than we do on the girls team, so that’s really nice to have.”
Dock’s performance was highlighted by Haley Anderson’s win in the triple jump (35-0.5) on the girls side, and Cole Rupert cleared 13-6 to win the boys pole vault.
Methacton’s Caroline Duffy took both the 100 and 200 dashes and the Warriors’ strength in the field was emphasized by Fallon Brown’s win in the girls pole vault (10-0).
The season opener at PW can sometimes be a wet, windy nightmare for local competitors, but not the case on Saturday.
“Usually I’m not a big fan because of how cold it is,” Kratz said, “but it’s so nice out that I actually really enjoyed it — it’s a good meet to start out everything.”