BUTLER TWP — For Carol Cress and Erin Lopresti, it was all about the big stage.

Both Butler County girls set meet records and Cress walked away with the Outstanding Field Award at the seventh annual Butler Girls Track and Field Invitational held Saturday at Art Bernardi Stadium.

Cress, a Knoch senior, finished first in the shot put with a toss of 41 feet, 11Z\x inches. She also finished third in the discus and fourth in the javelin while scoring 20 points for the Knights.

She is good friends with Jade Hambrick, a North Allegheny competitor who set the previous meet record of 41-5 last year.

"I've practiced with her quite a bit,"Cress said. "I really wanted to break that record."

The record she's really eyeing up is 43-7, the Knoch mark sey by Jen Crouch 19 years ago.

"That's stood for a long time and I feel like I can get there,"Cress said. "My goal is to at least hit 44 this year."

There were 23 teams at Saturday's meet, but sophomore Lopresti was the lone representative for Seneca Valley.

She made her presence felt, winning the 800 meters with a meet record time of two minutes, 16 seconds. She broke the previous mark — which stood for five years — by more than three seconds.

"Our team wasn't coming here, but I told my coach I wanted to compete because I knew the caliber of athletes who would be out here," Lopresti said. "So he signed me up and here I am.

"I wanted to get my best time of the year here, but I didn't even know what the meet record was."

Lopresti's personal record is 2:14, which she set at the state meet last season.

"I'm seeded fifth in the state right now, so I at least want to do that well," she said of her goal for the season. "I want to get to 2:12. The competition here is like a WPIALmeet. That's why I wanted to come."

Ditto for Cress.

"I love the bigger competitions," Cress said. "There are better girls and there are higher standards. You have to work harder."

The only other Butler County girl to win an event was Karns City's Amber Saunders, who claimed the high jump with a leap of five feet, three inches.

Knoch's Regina Robb was nipped by Upper St. Clair standout Elizabeth Kline in the 100-meter hurdles, but ran her personal-best time of 14.87 seconds.

"I'm happy with that because I pulled a quad muscle in practice and this is the first time I've run since,"Robb said. "The competition means a lot."

"This is the first time anyone's been right with Carol or Regina all season. That's why we wanted to come here,"Knoch coach Tom Hoffmann said. "It's good to get pushed."

Erie McDowell won the meet with 106 points — 33 better than Norwin — and there were five meet records set under ideal weather conditions.

"At this point in the season, with the perfect weather and high caliber of competition, this was the day to find out where your kids are at,"Butler coach and meet director Rod Harris said. "That's why so many of the top programs enter this meet.

"Norwin was here, Penn Hills, Erie McDowell, Erin Lopresti came up to run the 800 ... This was a great day to judge your athletes."

Penn Hills sprinter Taelor Fowler won the Outstanding Track Award, scoring 22 points for the Indians while winning the 200 meters, finishing second in the 100 and running a leg of the 400-meter relay that set a meet record.

Butler's Erica Miller placed in both hurdle events, setting personal records in both, along wiith running her personal best in a relay event. Katheryn Sylvia placed in the shot put and discus.

"Our 4x4 ran a 4:13 and got fourth ... I saw a lot of good things in this meet,"Harris said. "The key is to peak when postseason comes and we're getting there."