Making do with No. 2 finishes
WEST MIFFLIN — Rick Schontz and Bill Dillen seemed to keep Thursday's WPIAL Track and Field Team Championships in perspective.
If you can't win, there's no shame in being second.
Schontz, who coached the Butler boys squad to its fifth consecutive team finals, lost to champion North Allegheny 95-55 in the Class AAA meet but defeated Gateway 79-71 and Hempfield 90-60 at West Mifflin High.
In the class A boys finals, the Yellowjackets lost to champion Riverside 89-61 but downed Mohawk 83-67 and Deer Lakes 94-56.
"The goal is to always win the WPIAL title," said Rick Schontz. "Second place is a nice accomplishment, but it's one step away from where we want to be."
"We're happy," said Freeport coach Dillen, whose team won the title in 2002 and 2003. "We'd like to win the whole thing, but being second best is not too bad."
Butler lost to North Allegheny 91-59 on April 21 with the section title on the line. Butler finished the season at 10-2, both losses to the Tigers.
"We knew what we'd have to do to win it," said Schontz. "We started off well (a 3,200 relay win) and picked up an extra place in the javelin and an extra place in the shot put.
"Things looked good but turned out the same way as the dual meet. Their depth was too much," Schontz added.
The 3,200 relay squad of Nathan Neff, Ben Porter, Lance Dugger and Matt Pribis had a time of 8 minutes, 25.70 seconds.
Logan Renwick broke his school record by winning the 300 hurdles with a time of 39.17, bettering the mark of 39.52 he set at Tuesday's WPIAL Northern Qualifier.
Renwick won the triple jump (43 feet, 10Z\v inches) and was second in the 110 hurdles (15.48) and the long jump (21-8Z\x). Eli Christy was the overall winner in the 400 (51.27) and Adam Marzullo took the pole vault (13-0).
"Logan's run faster with every meet recently," said Schontz. "He could possibly get to 48.5, 48.6 (seconds). It's amazing. When you think he's maxed out, he does better."
"We knew Butler would give us a run for our money and Gateway, too," said Tigers coach John Neff. "I thought it would be a three-way battle.
"Butler was awesome. It's pretty cool that the top two teams (in the WPIAL) came out of our section," Neff added.
Neff thought his team's win in the 400 relay (43.58) over Gateway helped send the Tigers to their first WPIAL title since 2005.
"Not a lot of people thought we could win the 4x1, but I thought we could and we did," said Neff.
For Freeport, Riverside was the stronger team this year, led by eight out of 18 first-place finishes, including the 3,200 and 1,600 relays and in the 3,200 and 1,600 runs.
"I felt it would be a good meet, but (Riverside is) a good team," said Dillen. "I'm proud of our kids."
The team was without top sprinter Marcel Ittner, who's nursing a knee injury.
"We want to get him ready for next week (at the WPIAL finals)," Dillen said.
Leading the way for the Yellowjackets with victories were Darius Frantz in the high jump with a personal best 6-2, Tyler Collins in the triple jump (40-9Z\x) and Nick Gentile in the 800 (2:04.49).
