North Penn wraps up regular season with win over Souderton

TOWAMENCIN >> Striding powerfully to the finish, North Penn wrapped up dual-meet competition with an impressive 101-49 victory over rival Souderton Area Tuesday at sunny Crawford Stadium.

“We’re really excited because we had a lot of girls qualify for the district meet,” Knights sophomore Jaime Diedel said of the upcoming postseason. “And we know that we can do really well at states.”

The Knights won 10 of the 11 events on the track, including Diedel’s victory in the 3,200, to finish 5-1 in the Suburban One League Continental Conference. The defending conference champs’ only defeat this spring came to Central Bucks West — the two will meet at the SOL Continental Championships Friday and Saturday.

Diedel ran with Souderton Area’s Lael Flores for the majority of the race until pulling away in the final lap.

“I knew I just had to stay with her and trust that I would be able to make it to the finish a little bit faster,” said Diedel, who crossed in 11 minutes, 51 seconds. “I had a lot more left than I thought I was going to because I felt really tired about halfway through. But I knew I just had to get the points for our team.”

Diedel also ran on the Knights’ first-place 4×800, which put together a winning time of 10:05.8.

Sierra Gee won the 300 hurdles (48.8) and long jump (16-0.5) for North Penn and Anais Williams was also a double winner, taking the 110 hurdles (14.7) and triple jump (36-5).

“I think we put some things together and definitely finished a lot stronger than we started,” Knights coach Brandon Turner said. “If we can stay healthy and get better in a few spots, I think we should have a pretty successful next few weeks.”

Maria Deaviz notched three victories for Souderton Area, throwing furthest in the shot put (42-1.5), discus (142-3) and javelin (113-8). Deaviz will be another one to watch at the conference meet, Friday at CB West and Saturday at CB South.

“I like the way the training is building for the girls,” Big Red coach Mike Feliciani said. “They’re all working very hard. They’ve got goals and I feel like there’s a core of them that is really focused on improving each meet.”