North Penn races past Souderton Area
TOWAMENCIN >> It served as a victory lap — make that eight victory laps — for the North Penn girls on Tuesday afternoon.
The Lady Knights’ pack ran all alone in the 3,200-meter run, helping to cap off a 126-24 victory over rival Souderton Area. For senior Phoebe Clowser, it was a long-distance run around Memory Lane.
“Kind of ran that two mile with some teammates, knowing it would be my last race here,” Clowser said of her final event at Crawford Stadium. “It’s always nice to win on your Senior Night and to be with your teammates.
“Our next meet is against Central Bucks South, at South, so that’ll be good practice for our conference meet (on May 13 and 14). So I’m excited — this’ll be our second year in a row undefeated if we’re able to beat South.”
North Penn improved to a perfect 6-0 in the Suburban One League Continental Conference, moving to within one victory over a perfect season.
Clowser won the 800 and anchored the Lady Knight 4×8 relay to victory, and an overall balanced effort by North Penn on this soggy day at Crawford also included a pair of hurdles victories by Lauren Follis, a win in the 400 dash and triple jump by Uche Nwogwugwu, and two first places in the discus and javelin by Dela Matthew.
“We’re starting to come around,” North Penn coach Richard Swanker said. “We had problems with injuries here and there but we got a couple people back — hopefully we’ll be healthy again.”
The meet wrapped up with a back-and-forth dual, as Souderton Area’s Emma Krause launched the javelin 107 feet, with Matthew topping that with a 109-4.
Big Red’s Abby Way threw for a winning mark of 34-3 and a quarter in the shot put and Cara Jackson sprinted her way to a victory in the 200 dash. Souderton has already qualified more competitors for districts than it did a year ago.
“Last year, I think we were a little bit more technical but I feel like we cover more events this year,” Big Red coach Mike Feliciani said. “Moira (O’Malley) is healthy (in the high jump), Cara is coming on, and Sue (Frustino) is doing well (in the sprints), so I think things are working for us.”
Souderton Area heads to the West Chestern Henderson Invite on Friday and North Penn is in action again Thursday night, at the Trojan Classic at Wissahickon.
