Tiger Cubs, Clovers wrap up indoor track season

Greencastle's Caitlin Gannaway stands proudly after winning third place in the shot put Saturday.

WEST LAFAYETTE -- One part of the spring track season is over -- the indoor part.

The Greencastle and Cloverdale track teams took part in the 2009 Hoosier State Relay State Championships on Saturday at Purdue.

The teams saw some of their best performances on Saturday, filling them with optimism for the upcoming outdoor season.

"Today went well," GHS Girls Coach Garry Anderson said. "We had some real good performances and some that weren't. Caitlin Gannaway threw her best throw of the year so far.

"Our 3,200-meter relay had a good time, but not good enough to get a medal."

Gannaway's throw of 37-feet-2.75-inches was more than her best of the throw of the season. It was good enough to land her a third place medal.

There was one other girl on the Lady Tiger Cubs team that made some noise -- Hannah Serlin.

Serlin finished the 3,200-meter run in 11:41.75, earning a fourth place medal.

"Hannah Serlin had her best time ever in the 3,200 and with Caitlin's finish in mind, I think we did OK," Anderson said.

The boys' team for Greencastle didn't have anyone medal, but head coach Mike Schimpf was still pleased with his team's effort.

"We had a few people that qualified for the meet, but couldn't make it because of Spring break," Schimpf said. "But the ones that did compete maintained their times from DePauw a couple of weeks ago. So they didn't do any worse.

"We're just excited that this was the last indoor meet of the season and now we can go and get at it during the outdoor season," Schimpf said.

Cloverdale had some success, but Kristen Crabtree was just pleased with her team making it as far as it did, since they have never competed on the indoor circuit before.

"I thought it went really well for us," Crabtree said. "This was our first year since I have been coaching to do any indoor meets and we had nine qualify, so that was exciting for us."

Crabtree had two of her track stars medal, James Hinton and Elizabeth Cheatham.

Hinton finished eighth in the high jump competition, clearing a height of 6-feet-1-inch, an inch higher than his seed height.

Cheatham finished fifth in the Shot Put with a throw of 37-feet matching her seed distance.

Cloverale's James Hinton clears the opening height of 5-feet-9-inches on Saturday at the Hoosier State Relay State Finals at Purdue University.

"Some of my freshmen were disappointed in themselves, but I told that they were only freshmen," Crabtree said. "We have some potential this year and it was nice with the indoor meets to see what we can do with the outdoor season just around the corner."