SHIPPENSBURG - Mount Carmel's girls 4 x 800 relay team of Ali Varano, Jen Bolick, Lauren Hause and Marissa Kleman broke their school record for the second time this season with their seventh-place finish Saturday in the Class AA final at the PIAA State Track and Field Championships at Shippensburg University. The foursome ran the race in 9 minutes, 39.81 seconds. They ran 9:42.28 two weeks ago at the Heartland Athletic Conference Invitational.
Trinity (District 3) won the race in a smoking 9:11.66, followed by Villa Maria Academy and District 4 champion Lewisburg, which ran 9:27.22.
Varano got the Red Tornadoes off to a good start with a 2:23 split for fifth place. Bolick followed with a 2:27 and Hause with a 2:26 as they jockeyed between sixth place and ninth. Finally, freshman Marissa Kleman finished with a 2:23 to bring the team in seventh.
"We were seeded ninth and knew we could be a team that went home without a medal," said Varano. "We just wanted to run a fast time. Our splits didn't matter."
"We have faith in each other and in the Lord," said Hause, the other senior on the unit along with Varano.
"We didn't want to go home without a medal," said Bolick.
Kleman said she had a case of butterflies as Hause gave her the baton for the anchor leg.
"I felt a little nervous because I didn't know what place we were in," Kleman said. "So I just
gave all I had. We all did. I couldn't ask for a better group of girls to run with."
The only other area girls competitor Saturday was their freshman teammate, Maura Fiamoncini, who finished just out of the medals with a 10th place finish in the javelin with a throw of 120 feet, 3 inches. Fort Cherry's Jenna Lucas had an 18-foot advantage over second to win the event at 153-5.
"I think she may have been a little overwhelmed at first, but she did well," said Mount Carmel girls coach Ana Ditchey.