Apr 3, 2002 By Jim Downey 2 min read

CONNELLSVILLE – Things didn’t look like they were going well from Connellsville head coach Jeff Galand’s view from the jump pits so he was pleasantly surprised to hear his Lady Falcons had defeated visiting Mount Pleasant, 84-65, Tuesday in Connellsville’s opening meet of the season. “I’m very pleased,” Galand said of the girls’ effort after hearing the good news. “The girls put forth a lot of effort. Mount Pleasant is a very good team with a lot of good athletes.”

Perhaps what Galand saw was the Lady Vikings (1-1, 1-0) racking up seven first place finishes, including a stellar individual performance by Lindsey Biller. Biller won the 100, 200 and triple jump, and ran the anchor on the victorious 400 relay team.

What Galand didn’t see was the Lady Falcons dominating the throws, scoring nearly one-third of the teams finishing total. Christina Roadman won the discus (112-7) and javelin (103-3) with young thrower Amanda Sines winning the shot put (32-11).

Connellsville also had a pretty good day in the distances with Shannon Kovach winning the 1,600 (5:58) and 800 (2:40) and running mate Molly Mullaney taking the 3,200 (13:41).

Kovach, like so many others, was just happy to be running in decent weather against someone other than fellow Lady Falcons.

“I know the other Connellsville girls so it’s good I don’t know what’s coming,” said Kovach, a junior running in her first track season. “This is so different from cross country. I was nervous in cross country, but it’s different in track. I get nervous all of the sudden. It’s a good thing. It makes me set goals.”

The Mullaney-Kovach combo joined to run opposite legs in the Connellsville’s 3,200 relay win. Robin Mongelluzzo and Bree Williams ran the middle legs.

Janiece Stafford helped the Lady Falcons avert a first-place sweep in the jumps by winning the high jump (4-10).

A veteran and a novice went 1-2 in the hurdles for Connellsville. Junior Christine Salandra won the 100 high hurdles in 17.8 seconds with freshman Lauren McCormick a close second. The two finished in reverse order in the 300 intermediate hurdles with McCormick winning in 50.8 seconds.

Connellsville travels to Peters Township – weather permitting – Thursday for another non-section meet.