Higginbotham, Patton, Poorbaugh heading east
HOOKSTOWN – It didn’t take Waynesburg Central’s Keith Higginbotham long to punch his ticket for a trip east next week. Raiders’ teammate Nick Patton had a much longer wait for his fate to be decided.
But Higginbotham and Patton both earned spots in the PIAA finals, as did Southmoreland’s Ben Poorbaugh, at Tuesday’s WPIAL Class AA Individual Track & Field Championships at South Side Beaver High School.
Higginbotham grabbed a fourth-place finish in what turned out to be a tightly contested 100-meter dash, finishing with a time of 11.20.
Brentwood’s Davon Moore won the race in 10.89, with Aliquippa’s Jonathan Baldwin second (11.14) and the Quips’ Rashad Kenney third (11.20).
A year ago as a sophomore, Higginbotham also finished fourth, but in much worse conditions. Rain and wind hampered athletes, where as there was plenty of sunshine Tuesday with temperatures climbing into the mid-80s.
“It was actually so hot out there today, I could feel my feet sliding out of my shoes,” Higginbotham said. “I was hoping my time would be a little faster, but I was just trying to qualify for states. And that’s just as good.”
In Class AA, the top five places automatically qualify for the PIAA championships, held next weekend at Shippensburg University.
Patton spent a large portion of his day in the pole vault pit, and the time put in was definitely worth it. The Waynesburg sophomore’s best vault of 12-foot, three-inches placed him in a tie for fifth place with Riverview’s David Gallaher.
“I haven’t been jumping as well as I think I should be jumping, but I’m really happy just to qualify for the state meet,” Patton said. “I’m really going to get up for states and do my best for Jocelyn (Lindsay) and Coach (Butch) Brunell.”
Lindsay won the first of her four WPIAL gold medals in the pole vault as a freshman in 1999, the first year the WPIAL offered the sport to females. Lindsay went on to grab four more medals at the state level, two gold and two silver, before continuing her career at Purdue University.
Recently, Lindsay has helped vaulters at both Waynesburg High School and Waynesburg College.
South Park’s Denny Kang won the marathon event, which lasted nearly three and a half hours, with a vault of 13-9. Union’s Kevin Zurrica also topped out at 13-9, but Kang won a tiebreaker.
Freeport’s Zane Bowser was third with a mark of 13-3, while New Brighton’s Chad Lemon placed fourth at 12-9.
Poorbaugh will also make the trip to Shippensburg after winding up third in the discus. The Southmoreland senior came into the finals with the second-best toss this season in the WPIAL, and felt he could have done better Tuesday.
Riverside’s Denes Veres easily won the event, with a throw of 160-1. Shenango’s Jake Bayuk was second at 144-1, followed by Poorbaugh, whose best heave came in at 137-3.
“I’m happy I qualified for states, but I’m very disappointed with my distance,” Poorbaugh said. “I qualified for this meet with a throw of 153 feet last week at Mars, so I thought I would be able to come up with a better mark.
“But I’m definitely excited that I made it to the state meet. I’m looking forward to coming back strong and hopefully doing better. I guess everybody has a bad day, and maybe today was my turn.”
Poorbaugh faulted on his first of three attempts in the preliminary heat, then hit his best mark with his second prelim throw. After three throws in the preliminary round, 14 throwers were cut down to a final group of eight.
The eight finalists then got three more attempts, with the best mark of the six total throws standing as their recorded distance.
Beth-Center junior Jeff Paletta finished eighth in the discus, with a top mark of 122 feet.
Paletta was also less than thrilled about his performance.
“I’m really disappointed with my throws,” Paletta said. “I was throwing in the 130s coming in, but I was really worried about scratching for some reason. I didn’t think I would be that nervous. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t worried about scratching, and at practice the past couple of days, it really didn’t bother me either.
“Today was just one of those days I guess.”
It was a good day for several other local athletes, as Southmoreland’s Kevin Hagerman and Jimmy King also medalled, as did Jefferson-Morgan’s J.R. DePhillips and Waynesburg’s Dominic Denicola.
Hagerman wound up sixth in the javelin with a toss of 154-4. The Scotties’ senior was seeded fourth coming into Tuesday.
“I thought I could do better, but it didn’t happen,” Hagerman said. “It’s still nice to medal and to make it to this meet.”
DePhillips, a junior, knocked nine seconds off his seed time and wound up sixth in the 1,600-meter run with a mark of 4:39.71.
DePhillips was one of the few local runners who was fairly satisfied with his performance.
“My time was a lot lower than I thought it would be,” said DePhillips, who was still trying to catch his breath shortly after finishing the mile. “I had a good start, and that’s pretty typical.”
Denicola advanced through a preliminary heat to place seventh overall in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.81. Jeannette’s Nick Spino won the event with a time of 15.04.
King, a senior, came in eighth overall in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 42.06. He is a veteran of the WPIAL championships, having competed here the past four years.
As a sophomore, King finished eighth as well.
“Today was one of my worst times of the season,” King said. “I’ve been wanting to run around a 40.0 since my freshman year, but I haven’t been able to do it. Waiting around today for about six hours didn’t help, but I guess I could come up with a lot of reasons why I didn’t do as well I would have liked to.”