Record Breakers

BY CHAD DARE

CATLIN May 07, 2008 04:03 am

— Not a single record fell in the girls Vermilion County track meet on Friday night.
They must have been saving it up for Tuesday’s Vermilion Valley Conference girls track meet.
Salt Fork junior Hannah Wilkins set a pair of records, while Oakwood/Armstrong-Potomac senior Stephanie Denius tied one and set another.
In the team competition, Bismarck-Henning followed up its victory in the Vermilion County Meet with a 24-point triumph in the Vermilion Valley Conference Meet.
In all five records were set, one was tied and that one was very rewarding for Denius.
Right before she took her first attempt at tying the league’s high jump record at 5 feet, 3 inches, Renee Denius, Stephanie’s mother, made her daughter a proposal.
“I’ll give you $100 if you make it,’’ Renee yelled from the fence line.
Denius missed on her first two attempts, but she easily cleared the bar on her third attempt, tying the mark set last year by Salt Fork’s Mallory Meade.
“I think it would have been close, but that helps a lot,’’ Denius said of her mom’s offer. “Normally, she will kind of joke around but she never really bets money.
“She started with 50, I was like alright, and then she jumped to 100. I was like sweet.’’
Denius secured the conference title when she cleared 4-11 and she went straight up to 5-3.
“They had to re-measure since that was for the meet record. They had it lower. The standards were set at 5-3, but when they measure it, it was short,” she said. “I saw them move it up, I was like, great… that was a big difference.’’
Renee Denius offered her daughter another $100 if she could clear 5-4 to have the outright record.
Stephanie Denius just barely clipped the bar on her first attempt and that was as close as she would get.
“I still wish I could have gotten that 5-4,’’ she said. “I jumped 5-4 last year. I still working for it and I think I’ll get it.
“I didn’t arch as good as I should have. I had it, but I didn’t tuck back soon enough, I waited too long.’’
Denius proceeded to win the triple jump, the 100 hurdles and the 300 hurdles, giving her four first-place finishes just like she had in Friday’s County Meet.
“I didn’t want to do anything worst, because I knew it would be about the same teams,’’ she said. “I was hoping to do better. My time in the 300 hurdles was better, but my 100 time was slower. I definitely jumped better.’’
Not only was her time in the 300 hurdles better than Friday’s (50.02), her time of 48.51 was a VVC record.
The only question left was what would she do with her $100?
“I don’t know yet,’’ she answered. “I thought about saving it, because I will be moving into my apartment soon.’’
Denius will be attending Parkland College this fall to play basketball for the Lady Cobras.
While Denius was collecting some extra cash for her record, Wilkins was setting a new mark in an event that she wanted to quit earlier this year.
The Salt Fork junior was having problems with her form in the shot put and she thought about quitting that event.
“I was doing the spin in shut put and about a week ago, I said, ‘dad (Salt Fork assistant coach Herb Wilkins), this spin is not working out for me,’’’ Wilkins said. “I’ve done glide since the sixth grade, but he wanted me to change to the spin because he thinks I can improve my throws with that.’’
Wilkins went back to the glide and she was still having problems getting beyond the 32-foot mark.
“I was contemplating quitting, then all the sudden I hit one in practice,’’ she said. “Maybe, I can take this. I’ve been throwing consistently over the 35 mark, easily. So I’m sticking with the glide.
“I was very angry. But you can never give up something when you can improve greatly.’’
Wilkins acknowledged that her father had some words of wisdom to keep her going.
Her best throw on Tuesday 39-3½ was almost a foot better than her 38-4½ on Friday.
She followed that up with toss of 112-4 in the discus.
The other two records set on Tuesday were done so by Hoopeston Area’s Erika Ramos in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 12 minutes, 28.08 seconds and Bismarck-Henning’s Jessica Brito in the 400 with a time of 1:01.91.
Brito added titles in the long jump (16-6), the 200 (27.03) and she anchored the Blue Devils’ winning 1,600 relay (4:49.07).
Bismarck-Henning also won the 3,200 relay en route to the conference title. A year ago, the Blue Devils won the County title, but failed to follow it up in the VVC meet.
“We knew that this year, we had the depth to take both County and conference,’’ Bismarck-Henning coach Susan Kentner said. “Jessica wins four events tonight, but the kids that came up to take fourth and fifth with the others are so important.
“We didn’t have that last year and this year that made the difference.’’
Oakwood/Armstrong-Potomac was second with 111 points, while Georgetown-Ridge Farm/Chrisman was third with 91 points.
The Buffaloes won both the 400 and 800 relays with the team of Lindsey Swick, Shelby Porter, Jade Beals and Kaci Lierman.
Rounding out the team standings were Salt Fork in fourth, Hoopeston Area was fifth, Westville finished sixth and Schlarman was seventh.

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