SHIPPENSBURG – The emotions came flooding in on Liz Simms like a tsunami at the end of her final race in a Butler uniform.

The senior on the Butler girls track and field team was unable to contain her tears. Her eyes welled and her lips quivered as the realization that her career in a Golden Tornado uniform was over.

“It's all hitting me now,” Simms said, swiping away the wetness from her cheeks with a brush of her fingers. “You don't really think it's going to be over until it is.”

Simms, though, went out in style.

After four years competing at the highest level and enjoying good times – and enduring a few bad ones – Simms capped her career with a school record in the Class AAA 800-meter run, finishing in 2 minutes, 14.44 seconds to claim sixth place at the PIAA Track and Field Championships Saturday afternoon at Shippensburg University.

It was Simms' first individual medal at the state meet. She had won the others as a member of Butler relay teams.

In all, Simms won nine state medals in her career – five indoor and four outdoor.

“I've been so blessed,” Simms said. “I couldn't have asked for a better six years of running at Butler and topping it off with a (personal record) and shaving down my school record.

“I've worked really hard to get a medal for myself at the state meet – it's never happened, just in the relays – so it's nice finishing it off by earning an individual medal in my own race and knowing that I am among the best in the state in the (800). It's reassuring. I couldn't have asked for it to end better.”

This is an excerpt — read the full article in the next issue of the Butler Eagle.