Greensburg Salem athletes to use familiarity to their advantage at WCCA championships

By: William Whalen
Wednesday, April 24, 2019 | 3:26 PM

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When the Greensburg Salem track and field team steps off the bus Saturday morning at Latrobe’s Memorial Stadium to compete in the Westmoreland County Coaches’ Association track and field championships, the Golden Lions will be entering familiar territory.

The 97th edition of the meet will mark Greensburg Salem’s third trip to the venue this spring. With only two home meets, the Golden Lions will have competed more often in Latrobe than at home. The previous two trips delivered mixed reviews team-wise but also included outstanding individual performances.

“We love jumping at Latrobe,” boys coach Robert Lehman said. “It’s always been that way. We’re comfortable there. Psychologically, that helps, and we tend to jump pretty well. I play it up as a coach.”

Lehman doesn’t have to “play it up.” All he needs to do is remind his Golden Lions that Memorial Stadium is his team’s home away from home. In mid-April, the Greensburg Salem boys team stood toe-to-toe with some of the WPIAL’s larger schools with a solid third-place finish at the Lady Spartan/Wildcat Invitational, and the girls team finished sixth out of 12 schools in the same meet. Greensburg Salem also fell short against Latrobe in a Section 1-AAA dual meet in early April.

“(The boys finished) third overall at the Wildcat invitational, and I was pretty pleased with that,” Lehman said. “I thought we did, overall, pretty well.”

With identical ninth-place finishes at last weekend’s Butler Invitational, the boys and girls teams are brimming with confidence heading into Saturday’s competition. And for some, the meet marks the beginning of the end for great high school careers.

“It’s just going so fast,” distance runner Malia Anderson said. “I didn’t realize how fast it was going to go, and now that dual meets are over, it’s going to fly by.”

Anderson, a Georgetown track commit, is tops in the state in the 800-meter run and is coming off a first-place finish (2 minutes, 13.36 seconds) at Butler. Saturday will mark the third time Anderson will run the 800 this season. Her personal-best time is 2:11.27.

“This is where I start to focus and try and get my times down for states and WPIALs,” Anderson said.

Anderson, along with teammates Sydney Gatone, Keara Lint and Maddy Murtland, will try to add another first-place finish in the 3,200 relay. The quartet of seniors finished first (9:36.88) in the 3,200 and fifth (4:08.03) in the 1,600 relay at Butler.

Senior Erica Steele is a contender in the pole vault. Steel finished sixth at Butler, clearing 9 feet, 7 inches, which was also tops among participating Westmoreland County schools.

The Golden Lions are the cream of the crop when it comes to distance running on both sides. The boys team is led by twin brothers Cameron and Dylan Binda. The seniors, who were born seven minutes apart, finished second (4:18.81) and third (4:24.03), respectively, in the 1,600 at Butler. Cameron has lofty goals in his final county meet.

“Personally, I’m gonna try and go for the MVP of the meet,” said Binda, a Youngstown State track commit. “It will be kind of hard because a couple of the schools have really good sprinters that will be in a lot of events.”

Cameron, Dylan — an Edinboro track commit — Mark Brown and Zac Galdo will form one of the teams to beat in the 1,600 relay. They finished fourth (3:30.19) at Butler and will battle Latrobe, which finished second (3:26.37) last week.

Junior Jalen Page and senior Tyler Willians are expected to push for points in the long and triple jumps. Penn-Trafford’s Evan Painter and Latrobe’s Kameron Stevens finished third and fourth, respectively, in the long jump at Butler. After a strong performance last week, Greensburg Salem junior hurdler Brenden Lewis is expected to push for a top finish in the 110 and 300 hurdles.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Binda said. “I like running against everyone in the county. You always want to be one the best in the county, and it’s one of those meets that you kind of prove yourself at.”

Field events begin at 9:30 a.m., with track preliminaries starting at 10:15.

William Whalen is a freelance writer.

Tags: Greensburg Salem